SOAP A Journaling Method to Assist Your quiet Time

Blog entry for Week three of my part in the Lose It campaign. Weighed in today and went backwards on the whole weight thing 1.8 lbs  but lost another .4% body fat. I don't know what I expected so I don't even know if I should be happy or not. I guess I will adjust and keep moving forward. As I review my other Lose It goals I am doing well on most of them. I missed my date with Chelsea this week. We plan to make it up on Monday. I have kept my other commitments and I'm seeing the beginnings of the Lord's movement and I like it.

Last week I talked about the second part of the My Daily Plate that we are using at our church. 

As you will remember, there are four sections to the plate. (spirit, mind, body, and soul). I talked about the body and what I am doing to help me reach my goals for Lose It for two weeks. last week I changed the topic of discussion and talked about the mind and over-coming setbacks. So today I would like to continue the subject of the mind and share with you a Method of Journaling that I have used for a while now. It really assists me in my quiet times by providing a method to record what God is saying to me. Personally I feel that if you expect God to speak to you (and why do a quiet time if you don't) then you should at least be prepared to right it down when He speaks. in other words journaling is a discipline that we all should develop. And this method makes it a whole lot easier.

It's called the SOAP method. No I don't mean the soap you wash with. It's an acronym. It stands for Scripture, Observation, Application, Prayer. The basic concept is this: As you are reading your Bible Prayerfully look for a scripture that stands out to you. With practice you will begin to hear The Holy Spirit whisper to you about certain scriptures or passages. This is the scripture that you write down in your journal. Don't just write the reference down either. Write the whole scripture or passage down. Next, write what you observe about this scripture or what you feel God is saying to you about it. As you write this down spend some time trying to clearly communicate what it is that makes this scripture jump off the page. This will help you gain clarity about what God is saying. Third, write down how you are going to apply it to your life. And don't make those ambiguous generalities either, make it have some meat. i.e. Instead of saying, "I'm going to pray more." say something like, "I am committing to pray 15 minutes a day 5 days a week for the next 5 weeks". The more specific you are the more you are setting yourself up to actually do what God is asking you to do. (You know, "Be doers of the Word and not just hearers) Lastly, Write a short prayer that expresses what you are thinking and more importantly feeling in response to what God is saying.

There you have it. It's that simple. I planned on showing you one of my entries but this blog is getting too long, so I will add another blog early next week and show you one of my journal entries. I hope this helps. Remember to evaluate your Lose It goals this week and evaluate how you are doing. Now is the time to make the appropriate adjustments to help you accomplish your goals. You can do it! I know I believe in you and Jesus believes in you.