Journaling Bible

 

I was so intrigued by this idea when I first read about it on this post on Shanna Noel’s blog several months ago. I thought the idea of a journaling Bible was so fantastic that I promptly ordered my own Bible on Amazon. And then I stored it away in my craft space and forgot about it.

Then, just a few days ago, I read this post (again on Shanna Noel’s blog) and was again so inspired to make my own journaling Bible. I also discovered there’s a Journaling Bible Facebook group (which I promptly joined), Pinterest board, and Instagram hashtag. This week I was determined to get out my Bible and try my hand at it.

My goals in making a journaling Bible are:

#1. To connect with God in a deeper way. I love art, I love God and His Word. Combining the two speaks to my heart in a wonderful way

#2. I’m a visual person, and I feel that by journaling my thoughts and highlighting meaningful verses would be a great way to help me to remember them.

#3. Having a place to express my love for God, my questions, my prayers, my times of trial and my times of growth, especially in such a visual way, makes me happy.

#4. Hopefully one day this Bible might be a connection to future generations. I hope my children and grandchildren might be able to catch a glimpse of who I was, and more importantly, who God was to me. I hope this can serve as an encouragement and an inspiration to them too.

I read Psalm 21:6 as part of my morning devotions and it really spoke to me. I would like to point out, in case you noticed it and wondered, that I did write the wrong reference at the top of my journaling page. Ignore that. I plan to correct that later.

The verses I read speak about the joy of being in the presence of the Lord. My devotional book spoke about “enjoying” the Lord. I can’t say that I really thought about enjoying the Lord before. Loving him, yes. Wanting to know Him, yes. Being awed and amazed by Him, yes. But do I really enjoy him?

When I thought about it, an image came to my mind of a small child being so excited about his daddy coming home at the end of the day so they can play together. The child looks forward to that time with an anticipation he can barely contain. When daddy comes home, they experience joy at being in one another’s presence. I want to enjoy my heavenly Father like that. To look forward to our times together with sweet anticipation. To laugh and giggle in His presence because He is just so much fun!

I don’t often think of the “fun” aspect of God. But he’s the author of joy, right? In His presence is fullness of joy. He’s come to give us the abundant life. Life is pretty serious a lot of the time. It’s full of all kinds of sadness, sorrow, hurt and disappointments. But I wonder if God doesn’t want me to have more fun with Him. Spending time with our awesome daddy God should be the most fun thing a human being can possibly experience. Other things can bring us temporal joy or happiness. But can anything else really compare to the joy we receive from spending time in the presence of almighty God?

I had a great time pulling out various things to use for my page. It was a lot of fun to combine this and that. I was able to use a lot of alphabet stickers. Those often get neglected, for some reason.

In case you’d like to check these out:

Here’s a link to the Journaling Bible Pinterest page. Some of those girls are making such beautiful work! I am SO inspired every time I go there.

This is the Bible I’m using, but there are many Bibles you can purchase. Just be sure to get one with wide margins.

I think my first page was pretty simple. I’d like to branch out more and use a wider range of textures and mediums. I love what people are doing with mists and masks and drops of paint. There are also many printables on Shanna’s blog. I haven’t used any of them, but they are awesome. I hope to try some of them as well.

What do you think? Does keeping a journaling Bible sound like something you’d like to try? I’d love to hear your thoughts.