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. 

My Search for the Promises of God

I have recently began asking God what promises He has for me. I ask this because I don't want to just search the Bible and pick a few promises that sound cool and then just say, "Hey this is for me too." Yes I know that all of God's promises are yes and amen. I'm just not sure that means that every promise that God made in the Bible is for me. I have nothing wrong with someone taking a promise and believing that it is true for them. If that works for you, go for it. It just doesn't work for me. So before I start a big theological discourse, back to my point. I just started searching the Bible for promises that I know without a doubt are promises that are for me. Well here is what i've found so far:

Jeremiah 29:13 - "You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart"

John 3:16 - "For God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life."

John 17:3 - Now this is eternal life: that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent."

Luke 11: 13 - If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!

So Here it is in a nutshell. God has promised me eternal life. He has promised me that if I place my faith in Jesus, (this is talking about genuine faith not just mental assent; probably needs to be another post) I can have an intimate relationship with Him that will last throughout eternity. When you look at this all by itself it is a pretty cool thing. The one and only living God, creator of all things and sustainer of life is going to have a personal relationship with me! The only thing I can think to say to that is wow! As if this not awesome enough, this amazing all powerful God who transcends His creation has promised to come and dwell with me and in me. I can't even begin to comprehend all of that and what it all means. Let's set aside whether  you believe these promises are true or not and just look at them from the view point of a promise made to you. You have to admit that these are some pretty amazing promises.

Here's the question that I was faced with as I finished this list: (and I don't think it is a complete list but just a start for me) Can I be satisfied with that? I mean honestly, can I be satisfied with getting a relationship with God if none of the things I have dreamt about all my life come with it? If I am intellectually honest here, this is a difficult question. I have a lot of dreams and plans for my life. I have some dreams that I have held onto for a long time and now I am asking myself if I can be content with letting those dreams go if God so wills.

I remember the first time I read The Pursuit of God by A.W Tozer. This book rocked my world. In it Tozer challenges us to pursue God; not God AND... In other words, God has called us to pursue Him not Him AND His blessing, not God AND the answer to my prayers, not God AND anything; just God. I always thought that was so cool and now I find myself wrestling with the idea that all this time I might have been pursuing God AND... and not God alone.

So now this question sits out there and I'm forced to look into myself and answer it. And so I ask you, Can YOU be content with receiving God and God alone as your inheritance?