5 Benefits of Bible Journaling

God usually speaks volumes in seasons of suffering. Actually, I don’t think He speaks more than at other times, it’s just that we’re finally in a place to perk up our ears and listen. It’s why I began a Bible journal after Dan died, not realizing then the benefits of Bible journaling.

When life suddenly imploded in loss, I needed a place to capture all God was teaching me. I opened a leather notebook Dan had started writing in, wrote the date at the top of a page and started journaling.

There’s no right or wrong way to Bible journal. Many people use art in their Bible journaling. Some copy scripture to meditate on a verse through the day or re-write a Bible verse in their own words to unpack its meaning. Some free write what God is teaching, their response to the passage, or personal application and some answer specific Bible study questions.

One of the practices I started was using margin symbols in my Bible journaling.

Using Margin Symbols in Bible Journaling

As I filled that first notebook, I started a process I still use today. I didn’t want my important notes and prayer needs to get lost in the pages of the journal. So I began using margin symbols I could quickly go back and find. These are the symbols I use:

Cross: I mark a cross in the margin beside something God is teaching me.  Sometimes He unpacks my morning Bible study so fully that I have to make a list of bullet points to get it all down. Other times, I’ll record an insight God brings to mind as I’m driving or a nugget of understanding He gives as I’m praying. All good stuff that I want highlighted to help me find it quickly.

Heart: A heart shows something very personal God has done for me. It’s like a love note. Do you have a box of corsages and notes your husband gave you while you were dating? God is so personal. Sometimes He does small things that might not even matter to most people, but they matter to me. I know they are from God to me and they reaffirm all over again that His eyes are on me, that He loves me and if He’s doing these small things, He’s going to faithfully take care of bigger things.

Circle: I use a circle in the margin beside my prayer requests. An empty circle represents an unmet need. I love nothing more than going back and putting a check mark through that circle when God answers. I write the date and how He answered. I don’t record all of my concerns and needs because, really? I could fill volumes. I speak most of those prayers and park them in my heart. But there are times and there are needs that overwhelm me and it’s those that I often record.

5 Benefits of Bible Journaling

Keeping a Bible journal has served several purposes for me:

1. Bible journaling helps me remember.

We think we’ll never forget the things God does and teaches. But months and years cloud our thinking and I’m sure without my journals, many of the details would be lost. Some of the little love notes God gives in the mundane of life and the deep lessons he teaches would be forgotten.

Journaling captures them forever.

2. Bible journaling helps me connect the dots.

It’s fascinating to go back through older journals and see my overwhelming need one day and how God perfectly met that need on another.

Just days after Dan died, I asked God whether we’d ever have joy again. I was so broken; I couldn’t imagine a life with joy. Days later, my journal shows how God answered so clearly and I tear up even now remembering how He reassured me that, yes, we would again have joy. What a perspective to see in my hurried handwriting the great despair and only days later to see God’s clear and powerful answer.

3. Bible journaling helps me get emotion out of my system.

When Dan died, life shattered in a thousand ways. The irony is that I lost my best friend, the one I would normally have talked all my concerns and pain out with.

My grief was way too much to dump on my family or friends, as amazing as they were in my loss. But I needed to process the fear, sadness and angst to parent my children. Enter my journal. Every morning as I got away for Bible time, I poured out my emotion on paper. I took my questions and emotions and fear to God. It didn’t keep all emotion from our home, but it provided me an outlet to lay it before God first.

4. Bible journaling helps me remember special verses. 

I’m an underliner. My Bible is full of verses that I’ve underlined and words that I’ve circled, often in a color-coded system.

If I’m claiming the promise in that verse, I’ll mark my name and date next to the verse. But I also like to put the promises God gives me in my journal. I can write the verse and pray the scripture over my circumstances and family and then go back later to see how and when God fulfilled that promise.

5. Bible journaling reminds me of God’s faithfulness.

In a thousand ways, God is faithful. Sadly sometimes, when I’m pressed with a new difficulty, I’m like the Israelites in the desert who forget the last amazing provision God did.

When I’m having a hard day, reading through my Bible journals encourages and reminds me of all God has already done. Sometimdes they’re big things I can’t believe I forgot! Sometimes they’re more personal ways God meets me that wouldn’t mean anything to anyone else, but meet me exactly.

Even looking at the stack of journals I now have on my shelf is a reminder of all that God’s taught and all that he’s done since I became a sudden widow and single mom.

I haven’t always been a journaling girl, but I’m forever convinced. I see the benefits of Bible journaling and I want to capture what God is doing in me and around me. I don’t use special pens or expensive journals. I usually write in a spiral notebook and when one is filled, I note the beginning and ending dates on the cover, shelve it and pull out a new one.

Do you keep a journal? Have you been wanting to start? Like that keepsake box of corsages and letters from your husband, journals are a forever record of God’s faithfulness and love to you.