I love a blank page. The possibilities are endless and there is freedom to hear God anew and respond to that in any way He's leading. It's not jumbled with mind dumps, and ramblings about how you're dryer stopped working (oh thats just me? Shoot). So, with my crispy chicken taco..I mean crisp, new, shiny, blank page, (man I'm hungry), I sometimes tend to circle back to these 6 journaling topics that have helped me tremendously and I pray they do for you too!
1. Lies vs. Truth - Make a list of all the lies you're believing. The negative thoughts you are telling yourself, the ways you see you're not measuring up, not as good as so and so, not worthy, that you're stuck etc. And then, search the scriptures for the truth about those lies and write them next to it. Replacing the lies with truth. This one is something I unintentionally end up doing once a month simply because I constantly find myself needing to renew my mind. The enemy is always trying to sneak into my thought life getting me to question if I'm a good mom, friend, business owner, church go-er. So, this is where I do the battle for my mind. I need to put on the armor of God, and defeat him with the truth in the bible. If the devil can succeed in making you believe a lie about yourself then he can get you to question your worth, and get you to believe you have no authority in Christ. And lemme tell yah, you absolutely DO have authority.
2. Faith or Fear - Write a list of all the things you're fearful of. Every single little thing. Then write a statement of faith against it. And yep you guessed it. Another frequenter of this one as well. It may look like this...
"I am afraid we wont be able to make it financially"
"I have faith in the almighty God who says that even the lions grow weak and hungry but those that seek the Lord lack no good thing. He is my provider and sustainer, my help in times of trouble, and His word says if I have faith as small as a mustard seed I can tell this mountain to move from here to there"
Doing this often helps us put faith back in where fear tried to inch God out. We serve a powerful, mighty God and having faith in Him means NOTHING is impossible.
3. Love like Jesus - Make a list of all the people in your life. The people you are close with, not close with, everyone in-between, but especially the people that feel hard to love. Now next to their name make a list of ONLY good qualities you see in them. Things like what you could learn from them, what they do well, how you admire them, their strengths etc. This is to help us practice seeing people like God sees us. He doesn't just see the good of course, He sees it all. But it helps us learn to love and notice the good in people.
4. Wild faith - Make a list of EVERY SINGLE thing you want to see God do this year. I mean every single tiny, gigantic, silly, ridiculous, off the wall, crazy, unmanageable, "only possible if God does it all" type goals. I have come to find that God loves hearing it all and He will slowly prune away the desires that aren't aligned with His will, and His heart. Before you know it you will have experienced a ton of wild faith building circumstances that bring you closer to believing for the impossible.
5. Areas for Growth - Make a list of every single thing you want to see God grow in you, prune away, heal, or overcome, then pray over them. I really love doing this. To some, at first glance it may look like a list of all the flaws I see in myself, but to me it's fresh soil for growth to spring out of. If we are in denial that we have pride, anger, jealousy or whatever it may be, then how can we ever heal from that? So, the first step is actually recognizing it, and giving it to God. From here I like to sometimes do studies or dive deeper into scripture in the areas I feel are really slowing me down.
6. Think on such things - Write down a list of all the blessings, good, and praiseworthy things in your life. We all have a ton of them, but they can so easily get swept away with the mundane day to day tasks of just surviving. So, take some time to actively see the good in your life. We often overlook what a blessing it is to simply have a place to lay our head, a meal on our table, a jacket, a car, and eyes to see it all. So jot down all of the blessings big and small sprinkled throughout your life. "Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things. Phil 4:8"
So there you have it! A few ideas to get your pen to paper, and on your way to a growth-full year. I pray these impact you as much as they have for me and that there is freedom, healing, life, joy, and growth as you write these on the pages of your Growth Book.