Meditating on God’s Word: Write It

Journaling isn’t for everyone. I’m a writer and I don’t journal very often. At least I don’t often write in a journal that I keep for that purpose. However, I frequently write things out as a way of processing information. Afterwards I throw it away or hit delete.

Sometimes I struggle or grapple with what I’m learning and writing helps me think about it. Sometimes I’m just feeling introspective and use writing as a way to reflect on what I’m learning from the Bible.

Writing is another way of meditating on God’s Word and it can take a variety of forms. So don’t let the idea of journaling keep you away from the benefits of writing about what you learn.

If pages of handwritten text don’t appeal to you, you can keep a journal on your computer. Even blogging can be a form of journaling about what you learn and experience in God’s Word over time.

Maybe you’re more poetic. Writing poetry is a wonderful way to process what you learn from your study of the Bible.

Poetry makes it personal. It attaches significance and emotion to truth. It frames the truth in a beautiful way that allows you to examine it from different angles. Sometimes, poetry will simply punch you in the gut with the impact of the truth when seen in a new way or a new context that really gets inside you.

Haiku is very popular (especially on Twitter) and many people will meditate on a verse of the Bible by thinking about it until they can condense it down to a pithy poem: five syllables on the first line; seven syllables on the second line; and five syllables on the third line.

Haiku is a marvelous example of meditating on God’s Word because it captures the core meaning of a verse and paraphrases it in a concise and memorable way. It engages the mind in a way that makes the truth personal. If you are talented in this way (I’m not), then you are engaging the text beyond mere study and coming closer to experiencing it deeply and personally.