2015 Devos in Review

For many years I've used a simple journaling format with my daily devotions: writing down a passage or verse of Scripture; noting what it is in that reading that catches my attention; writing down how it applies to me that day, and writing a short prayer. The whole thing is usually about half a page long. It goes by the acronym SOAP for Scripture, Observation, Application and Prayer. (If you'd like to learn more about it, check out this post.)

I also make an index as I go of the scripture passages I've written about with several keywords that point to the theme of the reflection. One fun side-benefit is that at the end of the year I can collect all of the keywords and display them in a Wordle  where the most commonly used words show us in larger font size. The three images attached show what my devotional keywords were in 2015. The first one below uses all the words, the second just the 20 most common words, and the one above has the top 5 words by frequency.

(You'll notice that my most common keyword this year was "pipe." No, I've not been moonlighting as a plumber, "pipe" is just my personal shorthand for a core metaphor for faith and life. Briefly: to be human is to be like an L-shaped pipe, connected to God at the top, with love, joy, peace, forgiveness and all good things flowing *down* into us from God and *out* from us to bless our neighbors.)

I wanted to share this with you to encourage you in your own devotional life. (New Years... fresh starts... resolutions and all that.) First of all, of course, just to spend some intentional time each day with the Lord. And in addition, I highly recommend some kind of writing practice that lets you see your faith life over time and find good words again at a later date - for yourself or for others!

And while you're at it... and annual spiritual "year in review" is a pretty good practice too.

Blessings!

All keywords:

Top 20:

Christians are not called to be "good people."

For my daily devos this morning I wrote a longer reflection than usual. It's based on this verse from Romans 12:2

"Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect."

In a nutshell, what I came around to is simply this: Jesus does not call Christians to just "be good people" and "live good lives." He calls us to give up our lives.  That's counter-cultural, not only for a corrupt culture, but even for a culture that's basically "good."

Here's the "long version" from my devotional journal.

You Shall... Good News?

Here's a little something we Lutherans like to call "Law and Gospel" from my daily SOAP devos this morning:

2014 in Devotions

Here's a visual summary of the themes in my personal devotions over the last 12 months:

If you prune that down to the top 20 words, it looks like this:













And if you go all the way down to the top 5 words, you see this:

Not that you really need to know that much about what's been on my heart for the last twelve months as I read and reflect on Scripture of course, but I wanted to share with you the tools I've found that have made this little look-back reflection possible.

First, I've been using a simple journaling format that I learned from Wayne Cordeiro at New Hope in Hawaii.  It uses a SOAP acronym to provide structure (Scripture, Observation, Application, Prayer) and help keep things simple.  I've written more about that before.  What I may not have mentioned is that the journal invites you to create a Table of Contents as you go, and for each entry to record a title and some keywords that identify the themes in what you've written.  Here's what mine looks like:

I've been using this journaling tool for several years now and have begun using the keywords as a window into the past.  (The Table of Contents is also a HUGE asset when you need to find a verse on a topic for yourself or someone else.)

With that list of words as raw material, you can visualize it as above using the website Wordle. Paste your text into the box and BOOM!  A word cloud where the words that appear most frequently are shown in larger font.  Wordle gives you a lot of flexibility on how the visual is created... fonts, colors and alignment etc.  But you can also limit the number of words that will be shown from your content, which is how I made the three versions above.  (You can also make a Wordle from a document, or even from a website.  Try pasting in a whole book of the Bible sometime to see some interesting things about the topics that book is engaging.)

If you're not doing daily devos, I encourage you to start and I recommend the Life Journal as a great tool.  It's been a huge blessing to me!

The GO Space

From my daily devotions, drawing from the Moravian Daily Texts.

Resonating with Brokenness?

I pursue a practice of daily devotions (note: pursuing is not the same as achieving) and when my devos are suitable for public view I often post them on my Feral Pastor Facebook page.  A recent post there that touched on the experience of brokenness, and how "cheering people up" is often not the best approach, seemed to get more attention that most.  Maybe that's just because simply naming the reality of brokenness has a powerful resonance with a lot of people.  Whatever the reason, I thought I'd also post that reflection here in case it was a blessing to others.

Forgiveness and Confession... in that order.

We typically speak of "confession and forgiveness" and do them in that order. My devotions this morning touch on the opportunity to reverse the order, and enter into confession in the confidence that comes from knowing you are forgiven.

Helpful Lenses for Devotions and Discipleship

In my work with 3dm as a discipling tool I've picked up some valuable "lenses" that can be put on like
glasses to help me interpret and even see things.  For example, one 3dm lens is the Triangle, which invites us to consider our relationships with God (Up), other believers (In) and everyone else (Out).  In my devotions this morning, that lens gave me a second and third look at a verse I might have otherwise skipped over because it "didn't connect with me."

(Note - here's an introduction to the SOAP format for devotional journaling I'm using.)

Contradictory Theologies as a Guard Against Intellectual Idolatry.

I pursue a practice of daily devotions and journaling using the SOAP format, which I highly recommend.  Of late, I've begun posting photos of my journal entries as an easy way of sharing my life with others that are my travelling partners in the faith.  (Much easier than re-typing everything!)  So below is a photo of my entry for today.  It's a reminder that faith is about trusting a person, not confidence in a particular way of thinking about Him.

SOAP Journaling: A Resource for Biblical Reflection

Early in 2003 I encountered a simple devotional resource that I've been using ever since. Created by Wane Cordeiro of New Hope Christian Fellowship, it's called the Life Journal, but I always think of it as my SOAP journal because of the acronym it works with:

S - Scripture
O - Observation
A - Application
P - Prayer

Simple enough. On the blank pages of the journal, you write down a verse or passage of scripture that hits you in some way. Make a few observations about it - maybe the context of the verse, or questions it raises - whatever you'll need later to recall what was going on and why it caught your attention. Then you write about how this applies to your life. That's the kicker... it keeps you mindful that you're not just reading to read, but to be changed. This is underscored (literally) by the phrase printed lightly at the bottom of each page of the journal;

"How will I be different today because of what I have just read?"

You finish up with the P for prayer, writing a prayer that relates to your entry.

Then comes my favorite part. There are pages at the front for you to create a Table of Contents of your journal, recording date, text, title of your entry and keywords. Over time, you generate your own library of biblical reflections that you can return to and rediscover through the index you generate.

One other thing I love to mention about the Life Journal is the daily reading plan it includes. There's certainly no shortage of reading plans out there, but Cordeiro has structured this one to present the Old Testament narrative chronologically. For example, you read the sections of Kings and Chronicles that deal with the same incidents on the same day, rather than reading all the way through Kings and then some weeks later going back over those events in the Chronicles version.

This has several benefits. It makes the sense of following a story much clearer. It also lets you see how the different authors sometimes bring strikingly different perspectives to things. (For the most glaring example I know of, compare 1 Samuel 24:1 to 1 Chronicles 21:1.) The narrativizing of the readings also allows Cordeiro to sprinkle the Psalms throughout and this often makes them easier to understand as well. Similarly, he's placed the prophetic books in their narrative context vis-a-vis the historical books. The New Testament readings are also re-sequenced somewhat, though I confess I haven't caught all the logic at work behind his arrangement there. Reading about four chapters a day, the plan takes you through the OT once and NT twice in a year.

Plus they're cheap - $6.50 each, less in bulk.

It's a good tool. I highly recommend it.