20 Journal Prompts for Spiritual Growth This Month

Growth is difficult to see from the inside. You are the same person every morning, so the changes only show up when you look back at something you wrote.

1 Thessalonians 5:17 is three words long. Pray without ceasing. It sounds impossible until you stop picturing a posture and start picturing a conversation resumed twenty times a day without a greeting. A month of writing is one way to learn that, because a page teaches you to say the next honest thing rather than the next correct one. That is what these twenty prompts are for. Work through them over a month, five a week, and you will have a record of where you actually were when you started.

Week One: Where You Are

1. If someone asked how my faith is right now, what would I say out loud, and what would I leave out?

2. When did I last feel genuinely close to God?

3. What spiritual practice do I keep meaning to start?

4. What am I doing out of habit that no longer means much?

5. What is the truest thing I believe about God today?

Week Two: What Is In The Way

6. What takes up the time I say I do not have?

7. What am I avoiding talking to God about?

8. Where am I performing rather than praying?

9. What resentment am I still carrying, and who is it toward?

10. What am I afraid would change if I took my faith more seriously?

Week Three: What Is Growing

11. What is easier for me now than it was a year ago?

12. Where have I been more patient than I used to be?

13. What has God given me lately that I did not ask for?

14. Who has He put in my life on purpose?

15. What has He carried for me that I did not have to carry?

Week Four: What Comes Next

16. What one practice would make the biggest difference if I actually kept it?

17. What would I need to stop doing to make room for it?

18. Who could hold me to it without making it heavy?

19. What does faithfulness look like in the next thirty days specifically?

20. What do I want to be able to write here next month?

A Word About Doing It Badly

You will miss days. Skip the catch-up and go to today's prompt. A month with fourteen honest entries is worth more than a month with thirty dutiful ones.

And write badly on purpose if it helps. Nobody is reading this but you and God, and He already knows how the sentence ends.