How To Journal

Your journal should include two things:  what you have done, and what God has done.

Keep a record of what you have done in your soaking and of who you minister encouragement to.  Keep it brief; don’t make your journal so elaborate that you have little time left for your art.

Include testimonies of what God has done:  how He has met you when you soaked and when you encouraged people, things He teaches you, and  things He directs you to do.  Here is the kind of thing you should write down:

1. He will lead you to explore new techniques. For example, He is teaching me to use three keyboards at once so I can blend sounds in live performances.  As insights come to me about how to do this, I jot them down.

2. He will show you how to market your work. Often it takes only a moment to hear what to do, and then it takes hours or days to follow through with action.  Jot down the assignments He gives you.

3. He will fill in the blanks in your work. Sometimes a project starts well, but then I hit a blockage.  Often I can take the need to God in a soaking time.  As I rest in His presence, I see what to do next.  This recently happened with my current book project; I didn’t see how to connect the diverse actions in a chapter until I waited on God.  Suddenly I saw how.  This is the kind of testimony I try to jot down.

4. As you encourage others, you will receive inspiration. It may be more than you want to write down in your journal – write just enough to jog your memory later.

I’ve experimented with a variety of formats. I’ve used tables in a Word document and kept my journal there, but am finding it easier to use a steno book.  I keep soaking records in the front, writing my journal only in the left column; I use the left column of the pages beginning at the back for the 5 people I encourage each week.

I leave the right column blank so I can come back later and fill it in with testimonies, follow-through, or lessons I learn later.

Use whatever method works for you, but keep it as brief and as simple as you can.  Write just enough to jog your memory if you look back over your journal a few months from now.  More about this in the Why Journal? article.

Stan Smith  ::  © 2009, GospelSmith  ::  www.GospelSmith.com

Why Journal?

The Online School Of The Spirit calls for you to journal your experiences as you soak 2-3 times each week and as you encourage 5 people a week. Here’s why.

Make sure you’re doing the assignment. If you write your journal every 3-4 days, you’ll be able to remember what happened when you soaked and who you have encouraged.

Leave room in your journal to come back later and add testimonies, things you learn later, or the actions you took to follow through on things God directs you to do.

Record your testimony. As God works in your life, it’s easy to forget how much He’s done for you.  Jot down just enough that you’ll be able to recall the incident a few months later when you read your journal entry.

This will encourage you in your down times.  You’ll be able to go back through your notes and realize, “God really is working in my life!”

It will also help you find direction.  You’ll be able to connect the dots and see what God has begun building in your life over a period of time.

Use your journal when you soak. Look back over what you have done and what God has done, and let the Holy Spirit teach you.

He’ll show you opportunities you missed, ways you could have been more sensitive, things you could have done differently.  This doesn’t mean He is displeased with what you’ve been doing; it means He loves you enough to start teaching you how to become more fruitful.  You’ll find that Jesus did the same with the twelve.

He’ll talk to you about new techniques, new styles, and new themes to explore.  You’ll be amazed at how persistent He is.  Often He doles out one nugget at a time over a period of weeks, giving you time to absorb one before He gives the next.

Stay accountable. Usually you should sense God telling you things that fulfill the general commands of scripture:  to love people, serve people, walk in humility, and so on.  And it won’t always be a matter of hearing a voice; sometimes when you soak you will get artistic inspiration.

Your journal will help you see how it pans out over time.  The voice of God will produce good fruit; other voices won’t.  You should become more Christ-like, your art should get better, and there should be a heavenly sense of order that begins to show in your choices.

If you start hearing things that will disrupt your life or the lives of your family, submit what you’re hearing to your pastor and seek counsel before you act.  In the multitude of counselors there is safety.

God’s guidance will make you more fruitful within the responsibilities He has already given you.  If He is preparing you for a greater venue later, the best way to grow into it is by being faithful, balanced, and Spirit-led in the sphere He has given you now.

Stan Smith  ::  © 2009, GospelSmith  ::  www.GospelSmith.com

Keep A Journal

Keep a record of what God has done through your art. Include your own stories, as well as those of people your work has touched.  Your journal will help maintain your vision as a Christian artist.

To maintain a sense of vision as a Christian artist, it’s helpful to maintain a journal of how God has used your art.

This serves several purposes:  to encourage you when you feel like quitting, to keep you aware of what touches people and what doesn’t, and to help you maintain a vision of who your work is touching and what it accomplishes in them.  Let’s look at each of these issues more closely.

Your journal will encourage you. The principle goes back to Old Testament days, when God often led the Israelites to build a memorial to commemorate something He had done for them.   These memorials would build their faith as they recalled the great things He had done in their lives.

Perhaps you’re thinking, My journal won’t encourage me – there’s nothing to put in it!

Beginning artists won’t have any stories from others, but you need to include your own stories.  Within a few months, you should be able to report times when God gave you unusual inspiration while you were soaking.  Maybe you’ll be led to use imagery that later turns out to have a secondary and more spiritual meaning, and it will testify that God is working with you.  Perhaps God will guide you to get your work out into the marketplace, and you’ll have a testimony of how He opened doors for you.

As you get your work out to the public, you’ll begin to hear how it has touched people.  Again, keep a record.  Mine is a computer file – I can always add to my own notes in a Word document, but I can also store emails I have received.  It is encouraging to look back at the times when God has assured me that He is with me, and when others have mentioned that my work has made an impact.

Your journal will help shape your direction. Pay attention to what is touching people and what isn’t.  The comments you receive will help you understand what makes the strongest impact on people.

As a steward of a God-given gift, you can’t just do the work that makes you feel the most fulfilled.  If you notice that a certain aspect of your work is bearing fruit, focus on it, even if it isn’t your favorite part of your work.  This doesn’t mean you should stop doing the work you find more gratifying, but it does mean you should strike a balance between what feeds you and what feeds the people your work touches.

Your journal will help you keep your audience in mind. It’s not just a matter of how your work touches people – it’s also who your work touches.  If you have an inner vision of those who will draw from your work, you’ll have a different kind of artistic vision.

The two main commandments in scripture are to love God and to love people.  How would your work change if you had a mental image of the people you were producing it for?

I’m not suggesting that you become like an egocentric stage-performer who learns to play to the audience.  I’m suggesting that you become like a servant who brings a life-changing dollop of the grace of God to needy people.  This mental image – that you can bring something of eternal value to people through your art – will transform your work.  It may be something as simple as peace or joy, but when you have a vision of the grace you want to pass on through your work, it will become a labor of love.

So jot down what God gives you as you work, and keep a file of comments you receive from others.  Your journal will help you stay focused as a Christian artist.

Stan Smith  ::  © 2008, GospelSmith  ::  www.GospelSmith.com