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You may have seen the post I wrote earlier in January about How to Make Journaling a Habit, where I give tips on how to make journaling part of your regular routine. For this short series, I wanted to narrow in specifically on how I use journaling in my spiritual life as I grown in my relationship with God.

Hopefully it will give you some great ideas if you’re in a journaling rut or want to incorporate journaling into your faith journey!

Three reasons I find journaling helpful:

Journaling helps me process my thoughts

There are more days than I can count where I just need to get it out! Like, literally, I just need to get all the jumbled thoughts OUT of my head and put them somewhere else. Sometimes I talk it out loud, but I’ve really found that writing it down is more helpful for me.

My journal is a sacred space where I can get all the good, bad, and the ugly down on paper and sort it out with God. I try not to filter myself when writing and let my mind go where it needs to. And sometimes writing it down, helps me see that my feelings actually don’t align with what I want or with reality even. And sometimes, I realize they they don’t make sense and something about that feels freeing and liberating in the moment. Other times, as I write things down, I’m able to uncover lies I’m believing, which is a starting point for turning things around.

As I’m writing, God often brings scripture to mind that helps me take all the things I feel and think and process them them through the perspective of His truth.

This is important because my feelings can go all over the map, but to process them through truth on paper makes sure I land in a place with less of my human perspective of more of a God perspective.

Journaling helps me have a record of what God is teaching me

I am often so encouraged when I look back in my journal and am reminded of what God was teaching me at particular times. When I’m on the other side of specific prayers and can see his faithfulness, it encourages me to trust Him more. Also, I’m reminded He is working even when I think He’s not.

Through my journals I have a record of his faithfulness to refer back to when the present feels difficult or when I lack hope. I also use it to write down scripture I am reading through or how certain verses are specifically impacting me at that time.

I also love simply writing out scripture – just picking a verse and then writing it down in my journal. I’ve found that when I’m really struggling to focus, it’s helpful for me to write a bit of scripture down. As I slow down enough to write it out, I’m able to focus on it more and really let it sink in.

Related: Praying Scripture

Journaling helps me remember

When you were a kid you probably couldn’t tell if you were getting taller from one day to the next because growing is a slow process, but from one year to the next you could see a big difference. It can be the same in our spiritual life.

I don’t see what God is doing from one day to the next all the time because spiritually maturing can also be a slow process, but when I look back at a journal from a year ago I am blown away. I have a reference point through my journal to see all that God has done and how I have matured in my faith and in my relationship with Him.

It reminds me that He is producing character and good fruit in me when day to day faithfulness feels like I’m trudging through mud. I need that reminder that growing little by little each day will eventually yield noticeable growth in my life and I love having a record of the process in my journal.

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There are probably more benefits to share, but those are the major reasons why I find journaling helpful in my faith.

Do you journal?

If so, how has journaling helped you in your relationship with God?

Stay tuned for my next post in this series that will give you some different ideas on WHAT you can journal when you spend time with God!