Have you ever left your house for the store and forgotten if you have milk in your refrigerator or how much there might be? Our minds get so consumed and cluttered with the going ons of life we tend to forget things that we had every intention of remembering. One Sunday morning I encouraged our Grace Church family to write down the things that Jesus speaks to them. Jeremiah 30:2 says “Thus speaks the Lord God of Israel, saying: ‘Write in a book for yourself all the words that I have spoken to you.” We were in the middle of the 'Hearing God’s Voice' series and the week prior Steve communicated this statement…
”When you read the Bible, ask Jesus to make it’s words come alive to you so that they become a conduit for His thoughts, His faith and His love to enter your soul. Then focus on what He shows you and order your life around it so it transforms you.”
On that morning I began to share a practical way that I have used to remember the things He has spoken to me in the Bible. I date my journal entry as I write what Jesus is telling me and then I also put that date next to the scripture. As time goes on when I am reading in my Bible and I come across a date next to a scripture I ask, “What were You saying, Lord? What do you want to reveal to me now?”. I then go to the journal entry and read what He has said to me and I might repeat this same process with a new journal entry and the new date. Several scriptures have multiple dates by them. I use this to focus on what He said to me rather than relying solely on my memory. Several weeks later an elderly woman, of the age of 91, came to me and asked to visit with me. She began to tell me I had shared something from the stage about how to study the Bible in a new way. She told me how she has read the Bible numerous times from front to back, but she was intrigued with what I do with my journal and scriptures. We set up a time and I had the privilege to show her how Holy Spirit has taught me to listen to Him in the partnership of journaling and scriptures. About a month later her daughter came to me and said, “Mom can’t wait to show you what she’s been doing.” That day she sat with me and began to show me page after page in her new journal, her first journal...all the scriptures and revelations Holy Spirit has been giving her. She was beaming from ear to ear. We were sitting there celebrating His life that is springing forth in her and through her. Each page she has dated and titled. She is embarrassed of her shaky handwriting, but so very proud to show me how she is growing in Jesus! She began to tell me how she had never known anything like this. Her daughter says, “Momma has wondered in the wilderness for 40 years and now she is not any longer.” She is so grateful for how the Lord is changing her, growing her and equipping her. I am so grateful for a woman like her at the age of 91 (and to be a Christian longer than I have been alive) that is not ashamed to admit she does not know it all - have it all together, but rather she hungers after what Jesus wants in her life. She hungers for Holy Spirit to speak to her. She is walking out Jeremiah 30:2. She is discovering the mysteries of God as she goes deeper with Him!
Written by Gretchen Cannon