August and September Focus

Journaling 


At one time or another most of us have had a diary or a journal, where we wrote down the events of our day or the dreams of our future.  Much of the written history we have has come from journals.  From William Bradford’s journal we experience what it was like to make the long voyage to America from England and the struggles with establishing the Plymouth Colony. From the Journal of John Wesley’s we see the joys and struggles of a man desperate to fulfill his calling from God to spread the gospel of Jesus. And from the Diary of Anne Frank we see what it was like for a young Jewish girl and her family to hide from the Nazis during WWII.


Journals help to tell the stories of our past but also they can unlock the door to ourselves and our future.  When we use journaling as a Spiritual Discipline it becomes a tool to reveal who we really are.  Along the way we also discover more fully who God is and build a relationship with Him, which is the true goal for any Spiritual Discipline.


Journaling differs from keeping just a diary.  Diaries usually just record events of the day, though those events may be described in great detail. A journal, however,  goes beyond that to comment on how those events touched our lives and how relationships were affected through those events.  We ask questions like: How do I see God working in that experience ? How did I respond to that person, place, event or reading.  How do I wish I responded.  Who am I? How did I get to where I am?  What is next? What is my purpose in life.  All the big questions of life!


Over the next 2 months we will be given different subjects to journal about.  Some include journaling about your daily events and how you responded to them and where you saw God in those events and experiences.  We will also take Scriptures and journal about our insights and ask questions of God.  We will also journal about the things we read, the movies we watch or the songs we hear.  We may even journal about the dreams we have.