THE DIFFERENCE A JOURNAL CAN MAKE
Timothy K. Jones
January 1, 1989
His nerves unraveled from overwork, a pastor approached a therapist for help. The doctor gave a simple prescription: "For the next week, cut your fourteen-hour workday to eight hours, sleep eight hours, and spend the remaining eight hours every day in the study, quiet and alone."
The pastor complied. After a shortened workday, he retired to his study for several hours, playing Mozart at the piano and reading Hermann Hesse. He followed the routine the next day. The following day, he returned to his counselor, complaining that the remedy had not helped. He felt as frayed as ever.
"But you don't understand!" the doctor said. "I didn't want you with Hermann Hesse or Mozart; I wanted you to be all alone with yourself."
"But I can't think of any worse company!" complained the pastor.
"Ah," came the reply, "and yet this is the self you would inflict on people fourteen hours a day."
Okay, it's just a story. But most of us know how our time for reflection and quiet shrinks amid committee meetings and sermon outlines. The hurried and harried self we share with others may not be one we care to know.
As a pastor, I have wondered how I might avoid that trap. In recent years, I've grown into a discipline that has made a difference: every few days, log life's struggles and discoveries in a journal. It has sharpened my pastoral focus.
Learning from the past
One of the journal's simplest benefits: remembering and learning from the past.
"To remember" in the Bible is not to dwell dreamily on "the good old days" but to recall the presence of God in our pasts. That is particularly vital when the God of Monday morning seems momentarily distant or his activity hard to fathom. Writing (and later reading) a journal is a disciplined form of remembering ...
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