Make room for God

Part 8 in the Journaling toward God series

In Part 7, you found that your faith biography includes memorializing God-moments of conversion, renewal, and healing when you felt close to God.

You can place yourself in an environment to experience more God-moments and receive the full blessings and graces God wants for you by determining a consistent time and place to converse with him. To make your journaling effective, establish a daily prayer schedule. Then you will find that keeping a journal flows naturally as the best part of your daily routine.

Mass is ideal

Daily Mass is the best preparation for journaling. When I was in my five-section spiral notebook phase, I would take my journal to church and stay after Mass for a short time to record my thoughts and inspirations.

Even though Mass does not fit into the Morning Pages routine, use is as a second start, adding to the insights from Morning Pages. During an evening Daily Examen, look back on what the Lord inspired you to write in your journal after Mass.

The Adoration Chapel is my favorite place to journal. I write a conversational letter to the Lord without distractions and interruptions. There, safely in his presence, I can interact with God through my prayers, pleadings, rantings, and sporadic songs of praise. When I miss my appointment with God, he wants me there so much that he often nudges me with a reminder. Once he used a praying mantis, to get me back to my prayer and journal time with him.

Be careful

One caution: Fr. Jacques Phillipe, an internationally known writer on prayer, interior freedom, and peace of heart, warns that we risk becoming discouraged if we take on more than we can handle when setting aside time for God. He encourages us to begin with twenty minutes to half an hour each day, which is better than two hours now and then. That means that the half hour each day at home (or elsewhere) yields more spiritual growth than two hours sporadically.

My least favorite place to journal is my computer. But if I have neglected my journal that day, whatever I’m typing begins to sound like a journal entry. My heart needs to express what God is doing and reminds me to journal by overriding what I’m doing instead.

Ask Yourself: Are you ready to begin the rewarding habit of journaling toward God?

Read the series: Journaling toward God