Journaling was something I loved to do. Living alone in a
strange land, I wrote happily of my journey to the uttermost parts of the earth
and my many strange experiences among the recently stone age people of the
Highlands of New Guinea. My journal, sent home in weekly instalments, became my
companion.
Now living a more mundane life, though there are always
adventures as we walk with God, I still like to keep a diary, but now only a
five year one in which I can jot down some reminders of my busy, or not so busy
days.
But now I have been persuaded to purchase a proper journal,
beautifully hard bound, with two pages to fill for each day. What joy it would
be to fill it. So I thought.
But I had a problem. With arthritis in my neck, it was much
easier for me to write on the computer. And another problem too: after a poor
night’s sleep I often struggle to keep awake in the day.
I tried to persevere with the long readings, one from the
OT and one from the NT but, ignoring the little squares to be filled in on one
page, I sometimes managed to write a few lines on the other. But do not fear,
Pauline. Help is at hand.
God had previously sent help when ‘Grace’ community church
was first planted through ‘Search the Scriptures.’
So why did we now need this new method? Well, this is
the Community Bible Reading Journal. The
idea is that we do it together. Getting into groups, each day, hopefully, we
record the nuggets we have discovered from God’s word and share them by texting
to each in our groups by means of some special app. No, not all we have written
but just one concise sentence encapsulating the lesson God has been speaking to
us through our New Testament passage. I think we all felt this was plenty for
starters anyway.
But there was yet another difficulty for me. Pauline does
not sport an i-phone and, nearer ninety than eighty, isn’t willing to cope with
any more technology in her life. Any chance of her joining a group willing to use the old fashioned means of
email? Watch this space.
I was not the only one who had been struggling with our new
journal when Tedrick and his wife Tricia from USA came to our rescue.
We had already agreed that we should concentrate on the New
Testament reading for starters. Now, we were shown the worth of the little
boxes on the first of the two pages. Working in twos or threes, we were shown
the purpose of each little box. Taking Psalm 23 as our example, first, we
realised the need to surrender through prayer, then, based on the words of this
wonderful psalm, we wrote a few thoughts under the headings of a)Adoration, b)
Confession, c)Thanksgiving and d) Supplication.
Now for the community part. The idea is that we each fill
in where it says ‘How has God impacted you the most through today’s passage?’ No, we do not have to write an essay, but
just a few concise words to share with our special group, by means of i-phone
or whatever. It may here this same passage referred to throughout the day,
maybe in our prayer meeting or perhaps our Re-Vive group in the evening. As we seek to dwell in the word we will find,
as David did, that God does indeed ‘prepare a table before us in the presence
of our enemies’ and that he is
anointing our heads with oil and that our cups are running over. So – don’t let’s give up on journaling.
