O.k., let's get the obvious out of the way....
I love journaling.
In fact, I have written about it over the years here on the blockchain at length. When I was heavy into my online business and the personal development niche, it helped me in more ways than I could ever describe.
And we're not talking digital journaling either....
Good ol' pen and paper was my passion. And if you ever get a chance, check out Jim Rohn's classic on 'How to start a journal'. It's some of the best advice you will find anywhere on the topic...You can find loads of his content on YouTube.
Anyways, like I said...I'm big on journaling. However when it came to journaling for my faith, I was kind of all over the place...
I mean, take a look at one of my journals here...
I was so all over the place, that I literally wrote Psalms 77:13 on one page, and turned around and wrote it again on the next page. This is kind of how I journaled my journey through Scripture, I just found a verse that I liked and wrote it down.
Hey even in different colors too!!!!
Now this isn't 'wrong' by any stretch of the imagination. Journaling is very personal, and there is no right or wrong way to get your thoughts on paper. But for me, I wanted to organize it better and get some structure to how I walked through Scripture by journaling.
So over the past few weeks, while on the road I've been really looking into structured bible journaling. And there are so many options out there...Let's go over some popular ones:
The Journaling Bible
The first is probably the option that most people go for. There are bibles specifically designed for writing in. Some are called journaling bibles, others are wide margins. I bought this 'Journal The Word' bible years ago and gave it a shot...
I just looked, and the last time I wrote in this was 2018.
So maybe I didn't give it a fair shot, just because I never caught onto it. I like the idea, but the bulk of my notes and highlights are found in my wide margin, and not my journaling bible.
But till, this is a great option for those it works for.
The Bullet Journal Method
And this is the method I'm going to fire up tonight....
Bullet journaling is all the rage in the journaling world. This is suuuuuuper structured journaling and at first, it can seem daunting. But the concept is pretty straight forward. Plan and execute. But this 'method' is much more tailor made for personal development and productivity....
I'm just trying to structure my bible readings....
Which is where I found a really cool way of doing it using this method!
The bullet journal is laid out with...Bullets lol I know, shocking right?
But if you take those bullets it can be used for basically 36 rows. Each row.....Can be a chapter in a book of the bible.
It would work like this....
Let's say I'm reading through the book of Acts. It has 28 chapters, and we can easily get through the entire book in less than a month. Each day, we'd read one chapter.
So 36 rows (but we'd only need 28)....And then 2 simple columns.
First row.....Chapter 1 (in first column). And then you'd add a one sentence take away from that chapter in the second column.
Repeat this for the next 27 rows and you have read through the book of Acts while journaling your thoughts on each chapter.
Now obviously, I'm going to get started on this, and while I progress through it I will share my thoughts on each entry that I input into the journal. I'll give this a test for a month and see how it goes. Apparently, this is fantastic way to journal through the bible and I'm all for being a guinea pig and testing things out so...
I hope you enjoy the next adventures in Scripture with yours truly.
I'll be sure to let you guys know exactly what book I'm going to study and journal through....And follow along too, it could be a huge blessing :)