Notes from this week's podcast: My Personal Way to Remember God

Thirty-five years ago, I began a discipline that took my intimate relationship with God to a much deeper level -- journaling -- to remember my intimate moments, my encounters with God. 

God wants us to remember Him. 

Writing down notations is such a profound way to trace the hand of God in your life and trace your spiritual maturity, trace your sanctification process and clearly see how God wants to and is involved in your life. 

It became an overflow, not a task. I wanted to remember what God was doing in my life; how God was speaking to me through His Word; to know how God was weaving His hand working in and out of my life; to bring me into His desired purpose for my life, walking me through life, so that my life would bring Him glory. 

What is journaling? It is a written notation of something that's important to you -- my personal encounters with God. Sometimes it could be my prayer point. Sometimes it could be from reading Scripture/learning from Scripture.

It's all working together to build a deeper relationship with God. It's working to sanctify us. 

Many times I record themas -- specific words/scriptures that God speaks to you at a particular point in time about a specific matter directed toward you or a situation. It is a very specific word that is spoken. 

There's no right or wrong to journaling. It's what works for you. The key is that you remember. We are called to remember the things that God has done. We can reach back and praise Him -- many times to be lifted up, to give us hope. 

1) Keep it you - not a presentation (especially if this inhibits you).

2) Keep it simple because it is not a draining task.

3) It is an encounter with God.

4) Keep it focused on the Master, not on a method.

Take God and the Word in my life and I make notations how God and the Word have been involved in my life at the moment. It's about the things that mean something to me.

What format? - There are beautiful bound books. (But these don't work for me.) - For me, it had to be a way that when God's Word spoke to me, I had to write it down right then. And I had to write it the way I heard God speak it to my heart, the way the Holy Spirit delivered it to me. - Generally, I just grab a piece of paper and jot it down. My method: To take loose (5x7) sheets of paper and a binder. I put the loose sheets of paper in the back of my Bible. I will hole punch that scrap paper, date it and put it in my journal/binder. I bind one year at a time and then store it away in a fireproof box.

What do I write?   Simple things that God speaks to me -- how I encounter God that means something to me

Remember: If you have nothing to write down, then ask God to direct you what He wants you to remember, because there is something in your life as a disciple of Jesus Christ that God wants you to be remembering. 

Sometimes, it's just simple words or phrases or complete sentences. Sometimes, it's where God found me and what I was dealing with or what I asked of God and, in response, how God spoke to me through His Word, through the Holy Spirit leading me

Example: Reading Psalm 106:1 > The word "good" leapt off the page > The meaning of "good" spoke to me

Write down an answer to your prayer. Reflect on who God is to you, how God is involved in a circumstance, how I sought after God -- quick notations, but enough to remember

Many times I go back to see the hand of God. (Example: Celebrating 20 years of Watchmen) God got the glory. 

• Are you jotting down on paper your spiritual encounters with God to grow your faith? 
• Are you jotting them down to grow deeper in your intimate relationship with God?
• Are you jotting them down so that you can take every situation back to your personal relationship with God and use it as an opportunity to know God deeper?
• Are you using it to be sanctified, to be set apart for the Master?

My journaling is not about me, but it's about my Master. Remember God, by making notations on paper. It's your encounters with God. It's about working through the situations in life that everything is to bring glory to God. 

Scriptures for meditation: Psalm 143:5, Psalm 105:5