Journaling
Journaling is a stream of thought–informal, unedited feelings, musings, understandings, and more that come to you and you want to save. Just pour them onto your pages as you think of them and don’t hold back.
I suggest always dating your notes and entries, and if you are commenting on how a Bible verse speaks to you, make a note of the Bible edition. Years later when you refer to these entries, you probably won’t remember which version
you were using. It saves time not to have to research it when you are in the midst creating a devotional for The Upper Room, for example.
Keep a small notebook and pen at your bedside to captures those elusive thoughts that the Lord drops into your mind in the middle of the night. If you are traveling, use your phone as a voice recorder to help you remember people, places, or things of interest. Or use it to record your thoughts when you see those things or use it to grab the poetic line that comes to you as you gaze at a glorious view God places in your way.
Periodically organize your entries, but never interrupt a creative moment to do it. That moment may never come again. Title them if you’d like to, and get creative with doing that too. I have a dozen plus Folders with names like: Encounters, Sensing Angels, Seasons of Sundays, Dream Weaving, Family Things, and more. In the Folders, I eventually place the Files I make of my journaling notes.
Happy Journaling!
“A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged, it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in color and content according to the circumstances and the time in which it is used.” Oliver Wendell Holmes
