Recording the Journey 

By Solomon White

This is part seven of a nine-part series on spiritual disciplines meant to edify the church on disciplining ourselves to fulfill Jesus’ commandment to love one another. Now more than ever, we need to be reminded, challenged, exhorted, and conscious of what we’re doing with our time and how we’re disciplining ourselves according to God and his word. 

Journaling

Journaling, along with letter-writing, seems to be another casualty of the digitally changing times. It’s largely become a relic of a bygone era, left in the past for Civil War soldiers to record their war years, or explorers to log new terrain and species, or a young girl to diary another red-letter day. But the truth is, the lost art of journaling isn’t as far away from us as we might think. Like most things in our modern era, journaling has changed forms in the mind of the culture. 

Posting on social media has become a new substitute for journaling. But instead of introspectively reflecting on our daily thoughts and activities, we publish them for the entire world to see. The content we produce on social media sites like Facebook and Instagram is largely the same as what people might have written down in a daily journal. Facebook even asks “What’s on your mind?” The big difference is the audience. Where the audience for a journal may be your future self, or your children or grandchildren, the audience for social media is the entire watching world (depending on our privacy settings). 

What if instead of recording our every thought and action on social media to show the world how interesting we think we are, we kept a personal journal instead for the purpose of godliness? The spiritual discipline of journaling can help us recalibrate our social media-molded minds to not seek little hearts and thumbs up on the internet, but to express our thoughts and feelings to an audience of One. There is a level of honesty that we can communicate with God that cannot (or should not) happen online.

Honest Expression

When we consider the audience of our public social media posts versus our personal journal entries, we’re forced to consider the motivation behind making an entry in either of these outlets of self-expression. Whether we are conscious of it or not, we filter a lot of our feelings when we know others are hearing or reading them. Are we posting this interesting quote, or prayer, or inspirational sunset photo for our own edification, for the inspiration and edification of others, or are we posting because we want other people to think we’re interesting and thoughtful? We may not like the answer to this question but we have to be honest with ourselves. 

None of this is to say that all aspects of social media are negative or bad. You may have ironically found this blog via social media. We can share scripture and sermons. We can quickly check in on ALL of our friends and loved ones in one place. There are plenty of positive outreach and connection features to social media. It’s human nature to share things we enjoy but we should share it because we’ve found genuine value in it and we want others to experience it as well. This is how we ought to share the gospel. Not to show people that we are good, holier-than-thou Christians, but because we love them and are desperate for them to experience the same life-giving grace and hope we’ve found in Christ. 

How-To Journal

There’s no “right way” to keep a journal. Whether it’s in a notebook, or computer, or on your phone (or all three!), the point is to document your thoughts, feelings, activities, and prayers. If there is one rule I’d say it ought to be mostly private, between you and God. Again, this is the big difference between a journal and social media. The good news is that if you are already posting on social media regularly then you’re already taking the time and somewhat practicing the discipline of writing in a journal. Simply direct those posts towards a personal journal instead of the internet. Consider how your writing might change if you’re aren’t concerned about others reading it. 

The spiritual discipline of journaling can be a wonderful resource in a Christian’s walk. It can be a consistent way to document the works and ways of God in our life. It can be a thoughtful and reflective form of prayer. When King David wrote in Psalm 86:1 “Incline Your ear, O Lord, and answer me; For I am afflicted and needy.” This is not unlike a heartfelt plea any Christian might prayerfully jot down in their journal. 

In this way, journaling becomes a supplementary discipline that supports our prayer and scripture reading. Unlike those disciplines, journaling is not a hard-fast biblically mandated spiritual discipline. There is no “Thou Shalt Journal” in the bible. But the Bible does often command God’s people to remember. And in journaling, we see that the dullest pencil has a better memory than the sharpest mind. Journaling has proven to be an incredibly beneficial practice in any Christian walk. 

Journaling is a way to take a disciplined look at ourselves, how we react to situations, and what we truly think about things. It’s an honest look because no one else is watching. There’s no one to impress, no likes or shares or retweets to count. Journaling is where we find out who we truly are, and more importantly a chance for us to examine ourselves in light of Scripture. A journal is where we can assess how we’re treating others, or even if we’re considering others. If we included journaling as part of our morning devotion time maybe we’d remember more of it and not just for that day. 

A common theme in Scripture is the people of God forgetting God’s faithfulness. We are no different. Even when God reveals his faithfulness to us, we are far too quick to move on to our next set of worries. When we journal our prayer requests to God it is a blessing to be able to see a record of God’s faithfulness to us. Even if we are complaining to God we may look back and see his hand at work. We can recall the times in which God helped us pay the bills we thought would never happen. We can laugh at our worries of being single forever. 

Even though we write our prayers in private, we are able to share our stories of God’s faithfulness as an encouragement for others. When we forget our answered prayers we rob one another of the joy of hearing God faithfully moving in our lives. If you have never once tried to write out your feelings to God, even if you are stressing currently over these things, write them down. Just see what God will do over time. 

Practical Journaling Resources:

Flourish in Journaling: https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/five-ways-to-flourish-in-journaling 

Free TGC Journaling Course: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/course/journaling/#course-introduction

Organizing a Prayer Journal: https://www.navigators.org/resource/organizing-a-prayer-journal/