Journal Your Journey of Transformation

I began journaling upon resigning my first full-time senior pastorate to pursue further graduate studies and a seminary teaching career. My main reason for writing almost every day in a small book filled with lined empty pages was that I didn't want to forget the wonderful persons I had loved, and the wondrous experiences we had shared, during an amazing time of ministry together at the newly founded Beacon Light Baptist Church in New Orleans, Louisiana. I felt compelled to reflect on what I had learned, and draw applications from such reflection to help me better determine where I was heading. Little did I know that I would keep journaling long past this major transition, and that my daily writing practice (which has gone through many different sized books of lined and unlined pages, and is now mainly being done via an iPad application called "Day One") would help me to prayerfully and intentionally navigate many more life adventures, in both my outer and inner worlds.

One of the greatest benefits of journaling for me is it being a consistently efficient and effective tool for genuine growth and transformation. Authentic change is not something to be passively desired, but something to be actively determined.

Enter journaling. Journaling is a way to take responsibility for and practice Deliberate, Creative, and Sustained personal transformation. By deliberate, I mean consciously and purposefully identifying specific areas in our lives where we wish to grow. By creative, I mean imagining and designing inspiring and practical strategies to cultivate our growth. By sustained, I mean mentally reviewing ways we have grown and are growing, and mentally previewing ways we wish to grow.  

Life is a wondrous gift that none of us ever saw coming. Through the prayerful attention and intentional reflection of journaling, God's great gift becomes our great offering.  

P.S. When journaling, note that questions are as important, if not more important, than answers. Here are three questions to get you started or urge you on in your "Journaling the Journey of Transformation Practice":

1.     What specific ways am I seeking to grow as a child of God?

2.     What am I presently curious about?

3.     What rocks am I currently searching under?