Twenty-seventh in the series Get close to God
What’s been on your mind lately? What have you been thinking, crying, or laughing about the most?
What do you really want out of life? Do you feel you are doing what you were made to do or is life just routine and boring? Are you longing or yearning for something more? Maybe life is sucking you dry and you’re just trying to cope.
Until things change, what is a person to do with these thoughts and emotions? If you have a friend who is willing to listen, that can help. So can prayer and meditation on the scriptures. But there is something else you can do right now to help free up those questions and feelings that are holding you captive. And it’s as close as your pen and paper.
I’m not just talking about keeping a diary of your daily activities, updating your status on Facebook, or even simply journaling what you’ve learned. You need to go deeper than that and dig down into the core of your soul. Honestly search your heart and record your questions, passions, hurts, and desires. Wrestle with how to describe your feelings, confusion, pain, and joy. Be as descriptive as you can. Don’t just say she broke your heart. Tell me she you ripped out your heart, stomped on it, and threw it over a cliff, and now you can’t find it, much less mend it! That gives me a better picture of how you really feel.
Don’t tell me you can’t write that well. No one has to read it or judge you. The exercise alone will help bring clarity and healing to your heart, soul, and mind. Steve Pavlina explains it this way:
“Journaling is one of the easiest and most powerful ways to accelerate your personal development. By getting your thoughts out of your head and putting them down in writing, you gain insights you’d otherwise never see.
While your brain is technically capable of processing a great deal of input simultaneously, your conscious thoughts play out in a certain sequence. One thought triggers the next, which triggers the next, and so on. Sometimes these sequences have a few branches, but they’re still subject to linear time, and at any given moment, you’re following one of those branches. These thought sequences have a beginning, a middle, and an end, and it’s nearly impossible to see the big picture overhead view of a sequence while you’re stuck in playback mode.
This is where journaling can provide huge advantages. Journaling allows you to break free of sequential thinking and examine your thoughts from a bird’s-eye view. When you record your sequential thoughts in a tangible medium, you can then go back and review those thoughts from a third-person perspective. While you’re recording the thoughts, you’re in first-person mode. But when you’re reading them, you can remain dissociated instead of associated. This dissociative view, when combined with what you’ve already learned from the associative view, will bring you much closer to seeing the truth of your situation.”
The advantage to taking notes during a lecture is not just to have something to refer back to. The very act of writing engages more of your senses and enhances the storing and retrieving of documents tucked away in the filing cabinet of your mind. This is why mathematicians and scientists scribble equations on a blackboard, architects use a draft board, and painters use a canvas. Our thoughts and ideas take fruition and come to life as we transfer them from our minds and onto paper or computer screens.
Here’s how it works for me. I will read a truth from the Bible, then ask God and myself: “What should I do with this, how can I explain or illustrate it?” Or an idea or concept will randomly pop into my mind. Instead of letting it vaguely vanquish away, I try to put it into words that makes sense to me and hopefully to others. What do I get out of the process? A better understanding of an issue, but also relief from creating an escape valve in my mind that finds healing from acknowledging my deepest longings and frustrations, even if I don’t understand the hows or whys. I also feel close to the Lord during the process of crafting my take and understanding of what he’s trying to teach me.
Let’s hear from someone who was a master at shedding light on spiritual principles, Oswald Chambers:
“If you cannot express yourself on any subject, struggle until you can. If you do not, someone will be the poorer all the days of his life. Struggle to re-express some truth of God to yourself, and God will use that expression to someone else…Try to state to yourself what you feel implicitly to be God’s truth, and you give God a chance to pass it on to someone else through you…The author who benefits you most is not the one who tells you something you did not know before, but the one who gives expression to the truth that has been dumbly struggling in you for utterance.”
Start a blog or write some posts for your Notes tab if you’re a Facebooker. Keep it short, though. Most people will not read more than 1000 words (about two pages.) Give your article a catchy title and include a picture, if possible, to entice your readers. Be prepared to receive some feedback, some positive, some negative. Being vulnerable comes with the territory, but it’s worth the reward when you hear someone tell you how much your words have encouraged them.
Finally, after you have poured out your thoughts and feelings on paper, read it as a letter to the Lord. If you need some guidance, check out the Psalms. David didn’t hold anything back, and neither should you. Respectfully cry out to your Heavenly Father and confess all your fears, hurts, and desires, as well as your love and thanksgiving to him.
So, what are you waiting for? Go grab your notepad or keyboard!
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Rob's Reflections 
Good idea!