The practice of journaling is immensely helpful for engaging with the Bible. Many of us struggle with memory, attention, and concentration when it comes to reading Scripture. Writing down thoughts in a journal helps maintain attention, fosters concentration and aids memory.

Journaling especially helps you to sort through your thoughts and clarify how God might be teaching or speaking to you. It is also exciting to be able to look back over the years and remember what was impacting your heart and mind at different stages of life.

There are a number of practical ways you can journal. A simple notepad would suffice for writing down your thoughts – one without lines means you can draw all sorts of mind-maps and connected thoughts.

Another helpful tool for journaling is a wide margin Bible. You can only make small notes with small print but it is a good way to engage with Scripture. There are plenty of nifty wide-margin to choose from in the Christian bookstores.

Personally, I make frequent use of Evernote. It is a cross-platform note taking program. I have a digital notebook for my devotional thoughts. I copy in the verse, write out some thoughts, and add some tags for when I want to go looking back on those themes. I also highlight those passages in YouVersion so I can look back on those notes when I come to that passage in the future. [YouVersion also has note-taking capabilities.]

I’ve heard of others writing out the entire passages of Scripture that they are reading through, which helps them to meditate and think through the words.

So there are a few different ideas for complementing your Bible reading with the practice of journaling.