So I was wondering if anyone else on here Journaled or anything in that respect? I received a beautiful leather bond journal for Christmas and will be more diligently journaling but my question for those that do the occasional journal entry What do you generally write about? Do you use any kind of format or just let it all flow? Why exactly did you start journally? And How has journally helped your walk with the Lord?

Thanks and God Bless, I hope you all had a Merry Christmas!

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Matthew Guldner

I have journaled in the past but not on a very consistent basis. What I greatly enjoy about it is having the ability to look and read past entries and see the progress you have made on top of the fact that your family can actually read it when you are gone and have alittle more insight on who you were and cherish those memories.

I definitely encourage journaling for those that have thought about it. I have a journal I started when I was in Junior High and it just blows my mind reading some of the entries to my writing today and how much I have grown.

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Matthew Guldner

When I think of George Whitefield, and David Brainard, John Wesley, and John Bunyan, and Richard Wurmbrand to name a few; I'm very grateful that some endeavored to journal for the glory of God. These journals are a treasure trove of deep riches and are filled with faith.

I have not been able to keep it afloat, [over about 40 years of sporadic failure...] either out of laziness, or just a general lack of discipline. To be fair, to myself, though, I have never felt lead to enumerate in such a way.

I have saved letters though; correspondence with spiritual men, and I have "journaled" what I consider to be landmark revelation in my life...visions, dreams, and Spiritual experiences that the Lord Jesus was directly involved in. I also have journaled revelation as I have studied and prayed the WORD [Bible], into my Bible, in the columns. [ quite a bit..].

This has been a blessing to me. When I see them , no matter how many years, I get the same reaction as when it was first revealed to me, and yes, I do forget. [What will happen to me if I ever lose my old Bible?]

I have also seen it corrupted though, leading to a narcissistic and historical account of how great and deep "I" actually am!....written somehow apart from an attitude of continued repentance toward God, and desire to continually become transformed unto Jesus's spirit.

Some thoughts I thought I'd journal right here into the recorded logs of ole' SI!...BT

I've journaled and found it truly helpful, but what I journaled was my honest feelings at that moment and wrote it to and before GOD - 'sort of' like a prayer journal but much more candid. I wanted my 'every' thought in it - any and all - regardless of how ugly at the time - such as angry or depressed. I wanted/want to see the Real-me, in all it's "hidden-to-most" states. I realized how much we forget & how Fast we forget or don't acknowledge what goes through our minds and what we convienently sweep under the rug by forgetting. (as a man thinks - so is he)
To go back even a week after to read it and realize - "I thought THAT about them?" is a real eye-opener of what goes through our minds - though our thoughts speed by so fast - they only take less than a blink of an eye and yet they make up who/what we are.
It would have been very easy to journal some lofty commentary or just some spiritual revelations to puff myself up with, but I knew that is what most of our writings are to begin with (only letting most see us at our best) and I wanted to 'remember' what has gone through my mind at it's worst, lest I 'forget'.
I felt that to not recognise those thoughts - not bringing them to the light and so easily forgeting them, makes all the lofty writing just a bunch of white-wash, before an all-seeing/knowing GOD.
It helps to mirror what's truly inside more than anything else I've tried. It hurts to see that you thought to yourself "What a _____ that guy is" or "I'm so mad at them right now, I wish they'd leave the country" or "if You don't take me Home soon LORD, I'll lose it."
Writing those things before GOD --- laying them bare - to He who hears those thoughts anyway, makes one realize that we only hide those thoughts from other humans to appear to be what we're truly not inside. I'd feel so "justified" in my grumblings, until a week or more later and then read just how far off or wrong I had been in such or such situation but sanctification is an ongoing process. We can follow the outward law to a tee but our split second thoughts are the real us.
The heart is deceitfully wicked, who can know it and in my flesh dwelleth no good thing.

I keep a prayer journal, a record of how the Lord has been dealing with me and the burdens He has placed on my heart for others as well. I write down the date and the prayers and then record the date when the answer comes.

I cannot say that I have been entirely faithful to keep the journal consistently updated but I do have a record going back many years and I am often tremendously encouraged at the faithfulness of God when I read it. Sometimes as I read it I see how easily I forget what things the Lord has shown me. It is helpful to me to remember what great things He has done, it stirs faith and hope when I am tempted to doubt and despair.

In Christ,

Ron

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Ron Halverson

Thank you all for your responses they have definitely helped. I think one of the other reasons I like to journal is I don't really "share my feelings" well and so journaling helps me get those out through writing.

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Matthew Guldner