Why You Should Write
Down What God Tells You
I’m sure most of you have heard of the concept of ‘journaling your time with the Lord’. It really is a great and very productive thing to do. I go about doing it a little differently than most people, I think. I would like to go over that process that I have established over the past few years, but in another blog post.
In THIS post I want to discuss with you why you SHOULD write down what God tells you.
I’m not sure where you are in your life, or what your relationship with God is like. To some of you the thought of journaling your time with the Lord might be almost cliché or over-used. To others, you may have never considered it before.
But, I have found that just in my own connections and circles of people…. very few people actually do it.
I’m hoping that maybe after you hear my perspective on WHY I do it, it could help give you that extra push of discipline you need to actually incorporate it in your life.
SO…. Here are a few reasons why I write down what I feel God is telling me.
#1 – It’s Polite
Let me paint a scenario for you….
Let’s say you have your husband, significant other, or maybe even you best friend with you. You guys are sitting on the couch having this really sweet moment. They’re telling you a secret about themselves, or whispering sweet nothings in your ear, or maybe even just telling you how much they love and appreciate your relationship.
Then another person comes in the room and immediately starts talking to you. By demanding your attention, they have just completely interrupted this sweet and intimate moment that you were having, (intentionally or unintentionally).
You then just get up, start talking to the intruder instead, start doing something else, and eventually leave the room…. just leaving the first person sitting on the couch.
How rude!
Unfortunately, this is what we often do to God without realizing it.
I know for myself, I can be doing the dishes and just be thinking about the Lord, or something I’m grateful for, or something I had recently read in the bible…. And God will just show up and visit me there. I’ll feel His presence and His love. He may give me a bit of knowledge or revelation. And then my husband will come stomping into the room and talking about some business matter. (I say this lovingly, because he is a stomper). I will stop communing with the Lord cold turkey to pay attention to my husband, and then often will get so distracted that I don’t ever even go back to the conversation I was having with God! And often I will even forget about it.
We think it’s rude when we apply it to another person, but shouldn’t God deserve even more respect and appreciation that anyone else in our lives?
I DO NOT say this to shame or judge you in ANY way. It happens to all of us, a lot of it is out of our control even, and I believe that God understands our hearts in the matter.
But my main point is, if God… the creator of the universe…. is going to show up to tell you anything, or put an impression on your heart about something, take the time to write it down. That way you can go back to it later…. And it’s just polite. *wink*
#2 – It helps you to have a personal relationship with Him
Now, let’s look at another scenario….
Let’s say you have a friend… Earl. Earl likes to follow you around all day talking to you, but you don’t show any signs of listening to him, or acknowledge anything he says. You vent to Earl about a lot of the struggles in your life, but when he tries to respond you ignore him, and don’t take any of his advice. Instead you go to a different friend for advice. Earl invites you to go to lunch often, somewhere quiet and secluded so you guys can get to know each other better, but you always have a reason you can’t go……
My question is…. Do you think that you are going to have a very good relationship with Earl? Are you going to know him very well?
Eventually you will have tuned Earl out so often that it becomes natural and you won’t even realize when he’s trying to talk to you anymore.
When you take the time to write down what Earl… I mean God…. is saying to you, you are going to start knowing Him, and building a relationship with Him.
You can’t have a healthy or deep relationship when all the talking is one-sided, and all the listening is one-sided.
#3 – It teaches you to recognize His voice & hear Him more often
I started the practice of writing down what I felt the Lord was trying to tell me in 2017. There were times when I just knew it had been God, and other times when I wasn’t sure. But I would write it down anyways, (sometimes putting a question mark beside things I wasn’t sure about).
As I would do this more and more, I realized…… that I was doing it more and more!
Slowly, I became more confident that I COULD and WOULD hear Gods voice. And…. I tend to put less question marks next to things than when I first started.
#4 – You are way more likely to remember what He tells you
There are many studies that have been done and shown that you are way more likely to remember something when you write it down. And, the more times you write it down, the more that likeliness goes up! (That’s why I actually write down what I feel God tells me twice. But like I said, more on that in another blog post).
There is a lot of science behind why this is, but I’m no scientist. I’ll leave that explanation to them.
But, I would feel pretty safe to assume that if you are reading this blog post it is because you love the Lord. You not only WANT to hear Him, but you also want to remember what He says!
After all, how can we let what He says affect our lives if we don’t remember it?
#5 – You will start to recognize patterns and confirmations
There are many ways that the Lord can choose to speak or communicate with us. He can use all of them with everyone. But I have noticed that he often chooses one or two that he uses consistently with me, or that come easily and more natural for me.
One of them is confirmations. This means that He will bring up a certain thing or topic multiple different times close together from multiple sources. Basically like saying, “HINT HINT!” (God is so patient with us).
This is one of the things that happens when you write down what God is telling you consistenly over time. You can start to notice that there are reoccurring trends, patterns, or ideas that you have written down.
Likely, if you weren’t writing these things down, you would have forgotten the first and/or second time, and therefore you would not even realize that God had been trying to get a point across to you!
For example, I noticed that over the course of about two years, I often wrote things down about starting this blog. Total, I wrote a lot of things about starting a blog. And that is exactly why I am doing it.
At first I wondered, “Is this just me?” You see, this is one of those things that probably had a question mark beside it at first. But as I kept seeing it over and over, I started to become more confident that it was God.
Plus, normally if it had been my random idea or interest…. It would have faded or gone away after time and I would have forgotten about it.
By writing it down all that time, and constantly being reminded of it, I was able to stick with it because I felt confidence that it was from God and not me.
I hope you have a better understanding now about why you should write down what God tells you. It has been a big game changer for me. I’m so glad I started doing it, and I think that you would be too if you give it a good try.
Thanks for stopping by. Let me know your thoughts or questions in the comments below.
Until next time… Take life one day at a time.
Her Life In Season
