“Busy” is a worn-out word. It is as tired as I am. But it is my instinctive response to the familiar question, “How are you doing?” It’s like the Wheel of Fortune game show when they bring up a new phrase to solve and then give the contestants the most common consonants: R, S, T, L, N and vowel: E. “Busy” is a meaningless response. Sometimes, I say “busy” because I legit do not know where to start telling them how things are really going.

There’s so much going on at my house: start of a new school year, an out-of-town rehearsal dinner and wedding, an anniversary, a birthday, a major house project, big leadership decisions, and so many activities that Leslee and I look more like a pair of New York Center air traffic controllers on Thanksgiving Eve than we do parents. It is often very hard to sort everything out and restore order in my own heart. But I have found journaling to be a great help with that.

Since the beginning of summer, I have journaled consistently most days of the week. I have journaled very inconsistently for many years. But this summer’s experience has been a huge help to my mental and emotional health. I wanted to share a little about my experience journaling to encourage you to do the same.

Benefits

Journaling helps to clear your mind. Simply writing things down allows you to get them out of your head so that you can focus on one thing. You can more easily assign priority to matters and focus on what is most important. There is also something therapeutic about seeing a visual list.

Journaling helps you to sort out what is going on in life. Sometimes what’s going on in life seems or actually is so confounding, that we can become lost without any sense of where to begin to untangle it all. In this mode it is virtually impossible to manage life well. We drift from the place of clarity and priorities, to fog and tyranny of the urgent. We are like rudderless ships in a category 5 hurricane. Worse, we retreat to victimhood.

The discipline of having to put your fuzzy thoughts into words and then sentences forces clarity. You can only write one thought at a time. This is good. You can separate facts from feelings much more easily.

Journaling provides perspective. When so much is going on in life, it is easy to lose perspective. It is easy to lose sight of direction and purpose. Over time, writing about what is happening in your life helps you begin to see patterns that you would otherwise miss because you are too busy to recognize them. When we see patterns, it provides some helpful perspective about what is really happening below the surface in our hearts. This includes our motives and our responses.

For example, I have begun to see how I tend to focus too much on what is wrong in life rather than what is right. Also, comfort and pleasure can be an idol for me, especially when I am stressed. I’m convicted by how I fail to remember who I am in Christ and focus on those riches when I am struggling most.

Tips

Pick a journal that you will enjoy using. You don’t have to spend a lot of money on a journal but get something you enjoy working with. Barnes and Noble and OfficeMax usually have attractive, affordable options.

Find a time block when you are by yourself and it is quiet. For me, that means early in the morning. I sit out on the porch (in the warm weather months) with a cup of coffee close by. I normally write before I read my Bible because it helps to clear my mind so I can focus.

Don’t force yourself to write a lot if thoughts are not flowing. Sometimes, all I do is write a few sentences, close my journal and move on after only about 30 seconds. Other days, I’ll write pages and pages for the better part of an hour. Just write what comes to your mind.

What to write. I sometimes struggle with what to write. I might just write down what I did the day before or I might write down my plans for that day. I try not to edit my thoughts choosing instead to let them flow naturally.

Sometimes, I write that the weather is cloudy and rainy and then in the next thought I write about something that happened and how I felt about it. Although I try to use good grammar, I don’t let that stop me from just letting my emotions go out through my pen.

Write for yourself. On the surface that sounds woke. What I mean is that the purpose of journaling is not to write a book, or a story about yourself for others to read. This is for you. Its purpose is to help you know yourself better so you can handle life better.

Read your journal. Reading your journal is uniquely revelatory. I find that I have re-read mine about two to three times since June. The benefits are huge and you’ll likely laugh at yourself. “Wow. I was really upset about that!” Or, “I hope no one ever reads that!” It is amazing how much easier it is to discern the patterns in your life when you do this.

It was once said, “Journaling is paying attention to the inside for the purpose of living well from the inside out.” Taking time to journal helps us evaluate what is really going on in our lives. It helps us know ourselves better and discern areas where we need to change. I recommend it.

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Life is chaotic. (I doubt you need to be convinced of that.)

The question is, how do we rise above the chaos? How do we as couples and parents avoid getting pummeled by the torrent of depressing news stories, sin struggles; rushed, incomplete, misunderstood conversations, gaming addictions, and costly car repairs?

1. Accept reality.

One hot, humid morning this week (it felt like 100 degrees at 7:30 am), my wife and I were sitting on our porch, sipping coffee and talking about our marriage. We had just had a truth circle and mentioned things about each other that we did not like. We were not arguing at all. It was a very gracious and productive conversation. Leslee’s response to what I did that upsets her was so encouraging. She said, “Well, if it were not for these things, we would not be the people we are today. As it is, they are God’s prescription for us to become more like him.”

This was a well-placed reminder that all of the crud going on that had me in the fetal position was reality in a sinful, broken world. We don’t like it. We can’t change it. It is what it is. In the face of the crud, I typically want to replay the video tape and see where I messed up or where others messed me up. While some reflection is necessary, staying in that mode is not accepting but rejecting what is. It is a no-win game that keeps us locked in a downward spiral.

2. Remember that God is bigger than our reality.

But there is another, more potent reality at work than the slings and arrows of daily life: God himself. God—the one who spoke the world into existence with nothing but his words—is a far more powerful reality. Colossians reminds us that in Jesus all things are held together. The delicate molecular balance in the air we breathe; gravity, sunrise and sunset are just a few constant reminders that God is in complete control. Every breath we take is a reminder that he lives. He cares about us.

Better, he is sovereignly working through all that we prefer was different as his prescription for getting what we each need: to be made more like Christ. Normally, that is hard to agree with and be joyful about. I think my conversation with Leslee was an outlier. But God meets us there and gives us Someone: the Holy Spirit, and something else to help us.

3. To “see” this invisible reality, God gives us the eyes of faith.

Faith, Hebrews says, is the evidence of things not seen. Hebrews associates eyes with faith. It takes faith to choose to act—especially in the face of difficulty and suffering—that God is bigger than the circumstance and using it all for our good. Faith is a gift from God through which we see and grab hold of him.

The people to whom Hebrews was written were suffering persecution. Some were imprisoned, some were having their property taken away. To these people in this situation, the writer spends a whole chapter on faith (Hebrews 11). He does not spend time dispensing sleek incantations to bolster faith. Instead, we have the accounts of others who faced far greater difficulty than we have, but whose faith anchored them in the reality that God had something much better for them. They all persevered. In some, there was significant failure, but even their failures did not ultimately void their faith or their ultimate possession of its object.

We can be encouraged that nothing we face in this life, even momentary faith failures, is bigger than God’s power and ability to work through. Nothing stops God. This reminds us that what really matters is not the quality of our faith, but the quality of who that faith is in. Paul tells Timothy, “He remains faithful even we are unfaithful.”

4. Choose to believe that God is always up to something good.

This is truly good news. This is the other side of the crud we face every day. We hate it but God is using it. When we know God is loving, gracious and merciful and we really do find our greatest joy in him, we can approach the crud of marriage and family life with a new perspective. Don’t misunderstand me to be saying this makes life unicorns and fairy dust. It doesn’t. When we don’t have something—or someone– solid to anchor into, all we are left with is the empty promises and cynicism of the world’s unicorns and fairy dust.

It is helpful to remind ourselves—and our children—of these things.

Special Presentation

I have developed a special presentation for men’s groups to encourage and equip fathers in having family devotions that are built on this strategy. Please click here to learn more.

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I recently read an encouraging article, Friendships for Fatherhood, check it out!