Keeping a Spiritual Journal

Journaling has an innately spiritual connotation to it.  I think introspection is considered a spiritual exercise.  If you do a search for spiritual journaling you will get responses covering all faiths and philosophies, so because I am Christian I will refer to my practice of journaling for spiritual benefit as “Bible Journaling” because that is my sacred text and what I base my spirituality on.

From my own experience Christians do not read their Bible like they should (and even admit this) due to the exercise being dull and seemingly a chore.  I have to admit that growing up I felt I had a good grasp of the Bible and the idea of just sitting down and reading it for “pleasure” actually seemed like torture.  I already knew all the “good parts” (the Bible stories) so I felt I knew the Bible.  When I took the Bible Knowledge entrance exam at Bible college, I realized I didn’t know nearly as much as I thought I did, and was very embarrassed about that.  However, Bible college was not the place to learn the joy of reading the Bible, because very quickly it became a textbook.  I was so busy gathering head knowledge to pass exams and write papers, I didn’t learn or have the time to let it become heart knowledge.

In college they stressed personal devotions, probably because they knew that the Bible often becomes little more than a textbook while pursuing these theological studies.  It wasn’t until I received a Woman’s Devotional Bible and started applying five simple questions a mentor gave me to my daily readings that I began to actually glean things and enjoy the daily exercise.  When I started interacting with what I was reading, it became meaningful and memorable to me.

Most of us do not have the knowledge within ourselves to discover joy in Bible reading.  I guess this was why Christ emphasized discipleship — those who have been taught need to turn around and teach those coming after them.  Face it, the spiritual things of God do not come naturally to us.  That is why He gave us the Bible.  Sadly, in the churches I’m familiar with the basics such as Bible reading, study and prayer are not being taught.  Sure, there are Sunday School classes, Bible studies and sermons each week that tell people what they should believe about the Bible, but very little teaching is being done to help people learn what the Bible says for themselves.  The honest truth is that it is EASIER to simply present a lesson that teaches people what to believe.  It takes dedication of time, and investment of yourself, to sit down and help a person learn to study the Bible for themselves and get something out of it — kind of like raising a child.  Hmmm….

Another huge obstacle for people is time constraints.  Many people feel they don’t have the time to devote to Bible reading or study.  One of the main reasons for that is everyone pushing at them the “read thru the Bible in a year” plans.  Those are fine for people who have the time and inclination to pursue them.  However, most people are intimidated by the fact of reading through four chapters every day.  When a child begins to crawl, we don’t immediately pick them up an insist they start training for a marathon, do we?  NO!  You have to start out simply and slowly and work up to something like that.  The child must crawl, then walk with faultering steps two or three at a time, then they work on running, etc.  But we take inexperienced Christians and expect them to jump into a marathon with two feet, then look down on them when they fall by the wayside around February.

Let’s start out simply.  Take an index card and write out the three questions I will list below.  Use that card as a bookmark in the Bible you will do your daily reading in.  Get a notebook and a good pen to keep with your Bible.  Each day, at a time that works best for you, find a quiet place to sit and read through the daily readings I provide below.  Record in your notebook the answers to the questions given.  They are the same questions for everyday.  Different passages will reveal different answers.  If you can’t find an answer to a question from a passage, don’t despair.  You won’t always.  There is no way to come up with three questions that will always apply.  But most times they will.  Be sure to stop by and let me know how it is going for you!

Journaling Questions:

1)  What facts do you find about God?

This question applies to Jesus and the Holy Spirit as well.  They are all God, just different aspects of God.  This question applies to any names of God, characteristics, behavior, attributes, relational, etc.

2)  What facts do you find about man?

What does the Bible teach about man?  How is he portrayed?  Do you have examples and evidences of this from your own life?

3)  What verse stands out to you and why?

Write out this verse on an index card and carry it with you to meditate on through the day.  Come back at the end of the day and write any experiences/insights you gain from thinking and praying about this verse.

The questions should serve to trigger your memory about the explanations I give beneath them.  You might have to include the explanations as you start this practice, but later can have just a card with the questions as you establish the habit.

Be careful to only list facts and insights that can be directly supported from the passage you are dealing with.  A common practice is to take a fact from the passage and springboard into application, because this is frequently done for us by our pastors on Sunday morning.  However, hours of study and prayer went into the message the pastor is giving you.  It is extremely dangerous to simply read through a passage and formulate an entire sermon around it in five minutes.  Starting out you may need to have someone look over your insights and help you pick out what is fact (or observation) and what is springboarding into application without full counsel of scripture.

I recommend that you only read a few verses each day — like one paragraph.  Most modern translations will break up passages in paragraph form, and old King James Bibles will have a little paragraph symbol by the verse number to indicate the start of a new paragraph.  The symbol looks like a capital “P” with an extra line in it.

Some might think — so few verses?  It is better to read five verses a day and get something out of it than to read four chapters and walk away not remembering what you read.  Far better than not reading anything at all.  Start small.  You can always add more later.

I also recommend that you start out with only five daily readings.  You might ask, shouldn’t I be reading every day? Well, I suggest that you have two days free in case you miss a day or otherwise get behind on your reading through the week. Also, having two days open allows you the time to REVIEW what you read and wrote the week before. Face it, we don’t have total recall. In order to get more out of our Bible reading we need to take time periodically to review what we read and what God revealed to us. Reading it again at the end of the week when things are still fresh is the best time because it helps “seal it away.” Then in a few weeks you should review again. Each time you review it will be reinforced and it will begin to transfer from short-term memory into long-term.

Weekly Review:

Take the time to read over the previous week’s entries and answer these questions –

1) How faithful was I in doing each day’s reading? How can I improve?

2) What particularly stood out to me in my readings and insights this week?

3) How has scripture helped me in my day-to-day living this week?

4) What one thing stands out that I should share with someone else? Who are they and how will I share it?

5) Focus on the one verse that stood out to you each day. Read them together. Do you gain new insights? Does something jump out and grab you? What is it? What do you think God is trying to impress on you?

PRAYER

One major item that is overlooked or undervalued is prayer.  Before you sit down to read your Bible you should pray.  What difference does this make?  It’s the difference between turning on an appliance that is plugged into the electricity and one that isn’t.  Praying helps “plug” you into your power source.  It also helps you get in the right mindset to approach scripture and be open to the leading and instruction of the Spirit.  My personal practice is to do a simple prayer that gets me in the mood, do my reading, and then do my serious praying.  I do this because I have just stocked up on God’s Word and now the Spirit has some ammunition to use in my own mind and heart as I approach God.

Pattern of Prayer

I came across a simple acrostic in college that helped my prayer life.  It was A-C-T-S.  After awhile I added an “L” to it, because that is one of the most neglected aspects of prayer.  I will explain the acrostic:

A = adoration:  praising God for who He is.  Notice I said praising God for who He is, not what He does.  Praising God for what He does is selfish and the focus is on what you get from Him.  It is important for us to focus on who God is, and that helps challenge us to live better lives, because with God as the standard we realizing how far we fall short.  Focus on the names of God, His characteristics.

C= confession:  admitting your shortcomings and putting them behind you.  There is something liberating about confessing your sins and shortcomings.  You allow God to give you that ‘squeaky-clean’ feeling again.  He is ready to forgive if we will simply ask.  But, we have to be sincere.  Repentence means a change of heart.  When we confess our sins we need to completely intend to not do it again, to change what needs to be changed to keep from doing it again.  Sometimes we need to ask others to help us with this.

T= thanksgiving:  thanking God for what He has done and will do.  How often do we thank God for those good things He does for us, for those answers to prayer that we get?  I also recommend picking out five specific things each day, preferably that happened that day, to thank Him for.  They don’t have to be profound.  In fact, start out with the little things you take for granted every day — food, clothing, shelter, etc.

S= supplication:  making requests of God.  If you have properly gone through the first three steps, your perspective should be in line with God’s mind when you come before Him for requests.  I have had many people ask me why they don’t get answers to their prayers, or don’t get the answer they wanted.  Simply, it wasn’t God’s will.  We only have the promise of getting what we ask for when we ask according to God’s will (1 John 5:14,15)  Whatever we ask for, we need to offset with “thy will be done” just like Jesus’ example in the garden (Luke 22:41-43)

L= listening:  being still and letting God speak to you.  We are supposed to have a relationship with God.  Have you ever had a relationship with someone you never took the time to listen to?  We are quick to go to prayer and do all the talking, but how often do we stop, sit quietly, meditate on God and listen for His still, small voice?  Sit quietly, thinking on God — who He is — and the thoughts that come unbidden to your mind, jot those down.  In my experience He has almost always spoke to me in snippets of verses or complete passages of scripture, which is why being in His Word daily is important.  If you don’t have much familiarity with His Word, there won’t be much for the Spirit to draw upon to give you a message for your day.

I do recommend keeping these notations in a journal and also reviewing them on a regular basis.  Leave a few lines so you can go back and jot down the answers to the requests you made.  Go back and see how God’s messages impacted your life over time.  Do the devotional questions in the morning, and try the prayer journaling in the evening — bookending your day with God.

I would love to hear your experiences with these methods!

Why “Girlfriend Theologian”?

girlfriend:  a female with whom you have a frequent or regular relationship of varying familiarity

theologian:  one who studies a religious faith, practice, and experience; especially : the study of God and of God’s relation to the world

Theology and theologian are intimidating sounding words.  What comes to mind is an old man in ornate cap and gown standing at a podium speaking so many $50 words together so as to be mistaken for a foreign language.  That image makes theology unapproachable to the average person.  However, if you call yourself a Christian, you ARE a theologian.  What you believe about God and your faith is your theology.  Another way of saying theology would be to use the terms “personal belief system,” or “life philosophy.”  Every Christian is developing their own theology each and every day.  That theology is announced to the world through your daily life, because what you believe dictates how you think, speak and act.

The problem is, most Christians are not consciously forming their theology.  It is being formed through actions and reactions based on preferences with no influence of scripture.  They are listening to those people who have a message that sounds good, or who tell them what they want to hear, compare it to what society is saying, and formulate their own opinions.  As Christians, though, we are not our own, we are bought with a price. (1 Corinthians 6:20; 7:23)  As such, we have to live by God’s rules now, not make up our own as we go along.  God doesn’t leave us wondering about how He wants us to live, He has given us the Bible which gives us straightforward teaching and the example of Christ. (2 Timothy 3:16-17)

It is a fact that when we are knee-deep — or even up to our eyeballs — in a challenging or traumatic life event, we don’t think clearly.  We are too close to our problems to see them for what they really are.  Have you ever worn glasses?  You can be wearing a pair of glasses or sunglasses, thinking you are seeing clearly, but take them off and look at them and see all kinds of dirt.  You clean them off, put them back on and then realize how much they had been obscuring your vision.  You didn’t see the dirt because it was too close.  You had to remove the glasses and look at them from a distance to see there was a problem.  This same situation happens all the time in our lives; it’s why we need to be regularly in the Word learning God’s precepts and grounded Christian friends who can come alongside and point out what we aren’t seeing because they are on the outside looking in.

The only right answers, though, are the ones God gives us, not the ones we get from pooling our own ignorance. (Proverbs 14:12) This is where the idea of being a “girlfriend theologian” comes in.  When you are in trouble, you look to your girlfriends.  When your girlfriends are in trouble, they look to you.  We all have a responsibility to ourselves and our girlfriends to be shaping our theology according to God’s Word.  Going to a girlfriend theologian is much more comfortable than approaching a professor of theology for the average Christian woman.

So, in this blog I’m going to cover topics we as women are faced with in today’s society and look at them from God’s perspective.  I will also be challenging you to work on developing a biblical theology through regular devotions and study by sharing tips and projects. I welcome questions!  If you have a burning desire to know about a particular topic or seek advice about a situation you are faced with, please email me.  I will address it in the blog, but maintain your privacy.

Join me in discovering that theology can be liberating and companionable instead of burdensome and unapproachable.

The Circumcision Debate

Last night in our study the infant church was faced with a serious issue — whether or not Gentiles had to be circumcised in order to be saved.  The idea was actually brought up by saved Jews, but not the disciples or apostles.  It first came up in Antioch, where some Jews came in and told the believers there they had to be circumcised.  Paul and Barnabas argued strenuously against it, but the debate was so serious they were sent to Jerusalem to get the “official word” from the apostles.

Even in Jerusalem it caused quite a debate.  The Jewish believers who had been Pharisees argued strongly for it.  However, Peter and Paul both had worked with Gentiles and seen them receive the Holy Spirit without having to be circumcised, so what was the point in having them be circumcised after the fact?

When you get right down to it, circumcision was a sign of the old covenant — the covenant of the Law.  For the Gentiles to have been circumcised it would have in some effect placed them under the Law, which Christ had fulfilled.  In essence, it would have been denying the grace that had brought them to salvation in the first place.

Likewise, we have to be careful not to place burdens on new believers that Christ has set them free from.

The Church in Acts

We are currently doing a Bible study at our local community center on the book of Acts.  It is the second part of a study we are doing on the Biblical History of the Church.  As we look around, we see churches that are nearly empty, very weak, anemic and apathetic.  Our country is drifting farther and farther from God.  Everyone is screaming tolerance, but that message is directed to the Christians whom are not being tolerated.  Each day it seems like we are losing more constitutional rights as far as free speech goes because of “intolerance” while muslims, buddhists and pagans are welcomed with open arms.  All we seem to do, though, is sit back and grumble about the intolerance shown toward us, but we don’t do anything about.  Our apathy got us into this situation — it started decades ago with the challenge on prayer in school.  We let that go through, and we’ve been on a slippery slope ever since.

We asked ourselves, why is the church weak?  Why are we not seeing revival?  We decided that the Bible would have the answer, and acting on some excellent advice (start at the very beginning, a very good place to start) we went to Luke and Acts.  Luke shows us the teaching Christ did to prepare his disciples for what would come before them.  They had to be grounded in order to lead the church.  From there we went to Acts, which Luke also wrote.

The thing that stands out in Acts is that the Christians pulled together and shared everything in common.  No one’s possessions were considered to be their’s exclusively.  When there was a need, someone sold something and gave the money to the church to meet the need, or gave what was needed.  These Christians were meeting DAILY in the temple to worship and then going to someone’s home to celebrate communion and fellowhship with each other.  We do good to show up to church once or twice a week!

The picture of the church we get as we read through Acts is very different from what we have in America today.  One thing the structure is different, the order of worship is very different.  The attitudes are extremely different.  Is this why we are so weak?  Is this where our problem lies?  That we have let tradition dictate our form and function instead of the Word of God?

I challenge you to read through the book of Acts and jot down all you see about how the church looked and worked.

What is a Biblicist?

There are a lot of labels in this world, especially in the Christian community.  Everywhere you go you find various denominations, and “non-denominational” is even becoming a denomination!  In my personal experience the emphasis on denominations only splinters the body of Christ, which is supposed to be unified.

One reason people identify themselves with certain denominations is to let people know what they believe.  Basically they are saying that they hold to that certain denomination’s beliefs.  I haven’t found a denomination yet that I agree with 100%  Even those I can identify with up to 90-95% I take issue with because they promote their denominational creeds.  We should be focusing on what the Bible says, not statements drawn up by man.

But, everyone asks you what you believe, so I have coined the term “Biblicist.”  I believe what the Bible teaches.  I don’t completely understand or know all that the Bible teaches yet, but I am continuing to learn.  When faced with a doctrine being taught by anyone, I go to scripture to see if it can be supported.  What can’t be, I discount.  If I can’t go to scripture and support a doctrine through the teachings of the whole counsel of God, then I won’t buy into it.  If more people held to this standard, there would be more unity in the body of Christ.

With that in mind, I hope to help others learn how to sit down with the Bible and discover God’s truth from His Word alone for themselves.  Then, apply it to their lives for positive change and amazing power.