JOURNALING YOUR SPIRITUAL JOURNEY 2

Welcome to the second episode of our new series on journaling your spiritual journey. In the first part, we have established the need for journaling. There’s so much more insight God has prepared for you in this new episode. Open your heart to receive it and prayerfully go through the lines, get ready for the fire experience!

Every moment with the Lord is priceless and until you see it that way, becoming a faithful steward of such moment will be far from you.

I will never forget the costly mistakes I have made in times past concerning failing to write down what God said to me at different points in my journey with the Lord. It happened that there was need for me to check back and remember those words from the Lord so as to reassure myself and step out in obedience, but because there was no documentation of those words, there was nothing to check back in my notes! Asking God for mercy and pleading to hear such words again becomes the only solution, but more often than not especially in my own experience, those words are gone forever! As I write this, the pain is still fresh in my heart because I now understand the cost of hearing the voice of God.

Being responsible with the instructions received today is what guarantees that a fresh revelation will come tomorrow!

It is only a matter of time, life will teach you to value those precious moments in His Presence when that still small voice echoes divine utterances to your heart about details of your destiny. I have gotten to a stage in my walk with God where I don’t joke with His voice over the matters of my life. When He speaks, I am intentional about writing it down and even paying attention to details such as the date and time when the words dropped! I challenge you today to be responsible with every moment He spends with you! Every moment with the Lord is priceless and until you see it that way, becoming a faithful steward of such moment will be far from you. So, don’t trust your memory, write it down!

“If God is kind enough to reveal divine truths to me, then I must be wise in writing and keeping those truths!”

Furthermore, there is a mantra that became my understanding and reason for documenting my experience with God over the years. It says: “If God is kind enough to reveal divine truths to me, then I must be wise in writing and keeping those truths!”. This is a heart posture of building the right attitude towards the instructions you are receiving from God either secretly or openly. This is a major difference between those that keep receiving fresh revelations from God and those that only receive it once in a while. God surely rewards the attitude of being responsible with the instructions He keeps giving you. Being responsible with the instructions received today is what guarantees that a fresh revelation will come tomorrow! So, it is not enough to receive an instruction from God, it is not enough that His Voice echoes through the corridors of your room when you pray; what is more important is your preparedness to be responsible with that information, starting with documenting it so it can be referred to, when it is needed. Consistently maintaining this culture of writing it down is what further positions us to always receive fresh words from His throne.

Consistently maintaining this culture of writing it down is what further positions us to always receive fresh words from His throne.

Now that we have established the burden for journaling our journey in God, what are the steps involved in building this culture till it becomes part of what we do without stress? To start with, never appear in His Presence without a means of journaling such as jotter, pen, notepads, etc. I have met young people that truly love the Lord and have expressed this unwavering love through their deliberate actions to ensure they always appear in every gathering of God’s people with a jotter and pen. You will feel it is a normal thing until you recall the last time you took a jotter and pen to a birthday gathering or fellowship hangout. The truth is, rightly positioning yourself to receive words from Him anywhere and anytime is the major determinant to whether He will speak or not speak consistently. Remember, “blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled” Matthew 5:6.

The cycle of journaling our experience starts with documentation and it ends with obedience.

Also, build a culture of turning back to your jottings occasionally to remind yourself of the words God spoke to you in a particular season, so you can ensure compliance and also remind God of His promises when they are not fulfilled yet. I call it “spiritual review”; this is one of the reasons why we cultivate the habit of retreating periodically so that we can have time to pay attention to reading all the jottings we have been writing over a period of time. So, you only need to build a structure around it. Yours can be once in a week if you have the time, it could be on the last day of every month, it could be quarterly during a spiritual retreat. All in all, ensure you do not just document all God tells you in a season and then the words remain trapped in the pages of your journal; that will be a greater evil. Find time to go through those words again and gain strength for the days ahead!

One more culture you should build is obedience to what you have received. Usually, there is always an instruction to obey, a promise to claim, a lesson to learn from or share with others, an information received for someone around you, etc. Obedience is key! The cycle of journaling our experience starts with documentation and it ends with obedience.

If we fail to document our journeys with God and spiritual experiences, then we can be sure the generations to come will be left with a gap in spiritual literature concerning our pilgrimage!

Finally, the secret of abundance is responsibility! It was Bob Sorge that once penned down the following words: “Spiritual abundance of any sort is not a guarantee to all believers, it is assured only to those who are faithful with what they receive.” I admonish you therefore beloved, to pay attention to this clarion call to return to the culture of journaling your spiritual experience. The greatest legacy biblical heroes left for us is their writings. In their writings, we have found faith in God, courage to live a life of righteousness and so many other examples that their stories exemplified.

If we fail to document our journeys with God and spiritual experiences, then we can be sure the generations to come will be left with a gap in spiritual literature concerning our pilgrimage! Imagine the Bible without the story of Phillip in Samaria, Peter in the house of Conelius, the story of Ananias and Saphira, Paul’s missionary journeys and many more memorable stories in the Bible, we wouldn’t have made it this far in our walk with God. Our generation and the next ones will be greatly helped and influenced by your decision to journal your spiritual journey today. Pick up your notepad and build legacy now! Be blessed.