Don Whitney, author of several NavPress books, is the John H. Powell Endowed Chair of Pastoral Ministry at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Here are several short, practical posts from his always-timely book, Simplify Your Spiritual Life: Spiritual Disciplines for the Overwhelmed. In these selected excerpts, Whitney will help us consider ways to simplify our journaling, our prayer, our Christian life in general, our priorities, and our time in Scripture. In this post on journaling, Whitney gives us ten questions to reflect on in our daily writings.
Before he retired each night, [eighteenth-century evangelist George Whitefield] opened his journal and probed his soul with questions such as these he’d placed in the flyleaf:
Have I,
1. Been fervent in prayer?
2. After or before every deliberate conversation or action, considered how it might tend to God’s glory?
3. After any pleasure, immediately given thanks?
4. Planned business for the day?
5. Been simple and recollected in everything?
6. Been meek, cheerful, affable in everything I said or did?
7. Been proud, vain, unchaste, or enviable of others?
8. Recollected in eating and drinking? Thankful? Temperate in sleep?
9. Thought or spoken unkindly of anyone?
10. Confessed all sins?
A more famous contemporary of Whitefield’s, Jonathan Edwards, compiled a list of resolutions that is still widely circulated. Posted in his journal for frequent review, they were his lifelong spiritual goals and priorities. What isn’t as well known about these resolutions is that Edwards regularly evaluated himself against them and recorded the results in his journal.
Due in no small part to these continual, soul-searching inquiries, Whitefield and Edwards became increasingly conformed to Christlikeness in life and character.
While I heartily recommend this practice of Whitefield and Edwards (and of countless others throughout church history), there are other ways to use questions like these. For instance, in addition to your individual spirituality you could also ask yourself specifically about your marriage and family life, work, Internet habits, financial stewardship, or any other area of life where frequent reminders to obedience would help. Several years ago, I used a similar method to remind myself not only of previous commitments, but to cultivate some new habits as well. If you develop a long list of questions, you might review a small number daily rather than the entire list.
DONALD W. WHITNEY
Don Whitney holds the John H. Powell Endowed Chair of Pastoral Ministry at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, where he is professor of biblical spirituality and the director of the Centerfor Biblical Spirituality. He is the author of several books.