An Overview of Written Dalogue with God

A Word from Jaque

Like you who are about to embark deeper into the heart of God, I too began my journey when I could no longer ignore the gnawing ache to know if God was, in fact, real. Perhaps you can relate.

My childhood introduced me to lots of questions about God but offered very few answers. Although my mother and father sent me and my sister to Sunday school, they never attended church. However, my mother, having been raised by a strong Baptist mother, was determined to keep her children out of hell, just in case it really existed.

From the first time I set foot in a church until later in life, I visited one denomination and non-denomination after another, and I’m glad I did, because the experience was the perfect catalyst to increase my ache for God. Though I found untold division among church-going people, it turned out to be a set–up that would drive me to find my own personal relationship with God. As I continued to explore denominations where the real Jesus might be, I appealed to God, “Please tell me where Jesus goes to church, because that’s the church I want to attend!” That was my big quest, and one day, years later, His answer was clear. “Jaque, you are the church I attend; will you come?”

I wanted to attend, but how? “How” joined my ache until I was desperate enough to find the answer.

One day (I was thirty years old) I went to my bedroom depressed from being desperate and started talking to God as though He was in the room. I threatened that if He didn’t exist or didn’t want to prove that He was real, He could take His book (you know, the Bible) and ______ (fill in the blank). I said, “to hell with this book” then I threw my Bible across the room, watched it smack the wall and slam to the floor. A few minutes later I heard the Book’s Writer (the Holy Spirit) calling my name. “Jaque, look in Matthew”, He said, and I did. I read through the long genealogy and didn’t stop reading until I reached Matthew 6:33, which stopped me dead in my tracks. The verse was suddenly speaking personally to me; “Jaque,” it said, “seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these other things will be added to you as well.” I heard the word “other” first, probably because I was bothered and concerned about so many other things beside the kingdom of God. So many questions, doubts, misgivings—so many other things. But today something or someone was addressing my ache; perhaps it was God. I realized that a promise was being made, which I could now either ignore or decide to believe. Where else would I go? I was at the end of myself. Attending church didn’t hold the answer, and neither did all the other cults I had looked into over the years. Right then and there I chose to believe. I decided to seek His kingdom first; what did I have to lose?

From the moment we first believe, something new must be done, for not believing gives us permission to keep acting as if God isn’t real, or that, if He is, it doesn’t matter anyway, because He just doesn’t care. That day I understood that unbelief was the ache of a silent God.

The very next question I needed addressed was how? “How do you want me to seek your kingdom first?” Then another word came: “Jaque, I want you to journalize, that is, write the vision from Me on paper. I will speak personally with you. Come to Me; meet with Me every day. Use and read the Bible; from now on it’s your textbook. After you read, write whatever you believe you hear Me saying to you.”

I’d never before heard the word journalize before; people were journaling, not journalizing. And they were journaling their thoughts, not a personal dialogue.

“Well, now I’m really crazy” I thought. Maybe God isn’t real after all, because if He was, He’d surely know how to spell.” I looked up journalize in the dictionary. There is was; journaling wasn’t there.

I was more convinced…but what next? Where should I begin? The Bible was a huge subject. He said, “Start with the subject of identity, because you don’t know who you are. Right now you are like a woman with a broom in her hand who has nothing better to do than to keep sweeping cobwebs out of the corners. I want to show you where the spider is so you can deal with the source of the problem and not just the symptoms.”

So I began to journalize as instructed, and the rest is history. I started by gathering Scriptures of the assigned topics and arranging them in courses that I could journalize, then I did each course. The first one was called Miracle in the Mirror, and of course, it’s on the subject of identity. There are several other courses as well.

What is written in my journals has directed the living of my life. It has proven true from journal to journal and year to year. Even now, almost thirty years later, I continue to journalize and receive fresh visions and instructions from God. As the Holy Spirit keeps sharing the unfathomable love of God, I keep going from death to death and life to life, for the glory of God as revealed in Christ Jesus.

I love the church—the bride of Christ; she is the catalyst for Christian growth. I equally love those outside the formal Christian church—those who have, perhaps, never set foot inside a church of any kind.

I find people everywhere—in the church, out of the church—in the way, and out of the way—and I know God seeks whosoever will believe Him.

When people who are as frustrated as I once was find me, I help them take their relationship with God to the next level.
Jesus is Lord. That fact will never change, no matter how history chooses to record it, or whether or not it is always believed, but His Lordship is in hearts, not buildings.

The day I allowed myself to believe that God was real and that I could hear Him speak was the day my real life began. Little had I known that the reality I was searching for was my own. God can’t be real until we are real with Him, and we can’t be real with Him until we let ourselves believe He exists for us personally.

One way or the other, we need to do something about God. I often ask people, “God is, what are you going to do about it?” Without exception, that’s everybody's life question. Now what about you? What are you going to do about God? Do you want Him as a reality in your life or as a mere acquaintance? Have you outgrown the initial thrill of your salvation enough to take your life to the next level with Him? If your answer is yes, then I invite you to get involved in Visionwriters and learn how to eliminate from your world the ache of a silent God.

Really,
Jaque Banas

  Journalizing Point # 1 - Journalize to Hear God’s Voice

Journalizing is a writing tool that accelerates our transformation into the life, mind and heart of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:12-16). The idea of writing down conversations with the Holy Spirit is a new idea to some. Many can’t fathom the power of their own written word until they obey God and do it.

Divine frustration is often that which readies us to try something new. Often we have read much, attended church, and looked to man for answers, and still come up empty. Perhaps Visionwriters is a last ditch effort to find answers. If so, God will meet our determination with the challenge to journalize His Word. Over time our life will become the proof that He is giving us the details of His plan for us in writing. The outcome is a people who are filled with confidence and joy.

At Visionwriters, journalizing is the action behind our vision and the feet beneath our mission. We have a passion to link others to God until they realize a personal and direct connection with Him.

I will stand my watch and set myself on the rampart, and watch to see what He will say to me, and what I will answer when I am corrected. Then the LORD answered me and said: “Write the vision and make it plain on tablets, that he may run who reads it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time; but at the end it will speak, and it will not lie. Though it tarries, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry. Behold the proud, His soul is not upright in him; But the just shall live by his faith.”

Journalizing is not our goal—God is. Surrendered to His Spirit we are scribes of His anointed word. “And the just shall live by faith,” means we believe we are on the path to knowing Him. We believe that He is, and that He will repeatedly reward us with personal revelations of Himself. (Hebrews 11:6) We know Him as the God who ever delights in giving Himself away.

“Heart work” is our highest work. Since the Holy Spirit came to convict the world of sin, righteousness, and of judgment (John 16:8), we come to our daily journal with surrendered hearts to learn, obey, and be cleansed from the false self, the world, and man pleasing. With this cleansing we become people who are pure enough to be for others.

Doing our journals by faith, God gets our heartfelt attention and thus, more easily convicts us. We journalize to internalize His word and to realize He is writing Christ, His will, on our hearts.

If no one had recorded anything God did or said, Scripture would not exist. But now we have a firm record (2 Peter 1:19) and without adding to or taking away from it, God’s Spirit continues, in our own penmanship, to expound and use it to transform our lives. (Revelation 22:18-21).

“All this,” David said, “I have in writing from the hand of the LORD upon me, and he gave me understanding in all the details of the plan.”

1 CHRONICLES 28:19 (NIV)

  Journalizing Point # 2- Journalize With All Your Heart

Our hearts are soil for God’s word; this is where His Kingdom grows. Before anything can take root in this ground God first prepares it by tilling, mixing, and cultivating it. God, the Master Farmer, sows seed by speaking His word into our heart. Eventually a seed becomes a tree and produces more and more fruit for God. This process continues throughout our lives; God weeds, prunes, waters and feeds us so we can keep producing His Kingdom on the earth. Jesus chose the gardening illustration to help us understand how God and His word works. 

But if you can't understand this simple illustration, what will you do about all the others I am going to tell? The farmer I talked about is anyone who brings God's message to others, trying to plant good seed within their lives. The hard pathway, where some of the seed fell, represents the hard hearts of some of those who hear God's message; Satan comes at once to try to make them forget it. The rocky soil represents the hearts of those who hear the message with joy, but, like young plants in such soil, their roots don't go very deep, and though at first they get along fine, as soon as persecution begins, they wilt. The thorny ground represents the hearts of people who listen to the Good News and receive it, but all too quickly the attractions of this world and the delights of wealth, and the search for success and lure of nice things come in and crowd out God's message from their hearts, so that no crop is produced. But the good soil represents the hearts of those who truly accept God's message and produce a plentiful harvest for God--thirty, sixty, or even a hundred times as much as was planted in their hearts.

MARK 4:13-20 (TLB)

Journalizing with all our heart is an accelerated and guaranteed way to receive God’s message so it can grow and produce fruit. We take God seriously, knowing His message must go deep and be tended daily. This means we choose this work so we may acquire a profound understanding and belief. We journalize deliberately and on purpose, understanding that if we don’t, it’s because we’ve allowed other things to choke God’s word out of our lives. Hearing Him consistently, reality sinks in and helps us to surrender with all our heart. In time we understand that abiding will lead to abandonment.

If there is a rock of stubborn resistance inside causing us to fear or rebel we can still bring our hearts to God in the journal. He can change the condition of this ground. He wants to and He will. We’ve all known hardness of heart, but as we surrender it to God He will locate, expose and expel the hardness; journalizing aids our surrender to the process.

Is not my word like fire [that consumes all that cannot endure the test]? says the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks in pieces the rock [of most stubborn resistance]?

Journalizing speeds up the process. As one student beautifully put it, “Journalizing is like using a chainsaw instead of a pocket knife to cut down a tree.”

“If you want to go deeper sooner—put your heart into journalizing God’s word.”

Jaque Banas

  Journalizing Point # 3 - Journalize to Renew Your Mind

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will.

ROMANS 12:2 (NIV)

In the Bible the word “heart” is more a matter of understanding than of feeling. In this verse the renewing of the mind is the renewing of our understanding, for this is where head and heart meet and work together. Our heart work is to bring our body as a living sacrifice to God’s word and to allow the Holy Spirit to write His thoughts in us until our lives are transformed by them.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith Jehovah. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

In the journal the Holy Spirit takes what is God’s and uses it to reinterpret the meaning of our lives. He weaves God’s word, the outcome of God’s thoughts, into our past, present and future and changes the significance of things until we see them differently. This new outlook means new actions, and new actions change lives.

Journalizing God’s word into our hearts may seem a laborious road when most of us would prefer to find a shortcut. But God doesn’t offer quick fixes; He offers deep healing from an unfathomable fall. We have no idea of the kind of inner healing we need, nor of the healing Jesus Christ has provided for every wound known to man.

Don't look for shortcuts to God. The market is flooded with surefire, easygoing formulas for a successful life that can be practiced in your spare time. Don't fall for that stuff, even though crowds of people do. The way to life—to God!—is vigorous and requires total attention.

MATTHEW 7:13-14 (TMB)

God tells us to work out our own salvation. This means that no one else can do that for us. Each one has to pursue his or her own personal relationship with God to receive meaning and instruction for their lives. Those who are remiss to do so are missing much of their true lives.

When we were in school we were given homework that was required to be handed in on paper, written in ink. Think of those days as groundwork for what we are doing here. The school we attended never healed our heart or taught us how to live. Now we have the opportunity of a lifetime to benefit from having learned how to read and write. Let go of your ideas of what journalizing does or doesn’t mean and give God the time to teach you what you wish you’d learned in school.

Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed--not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence--continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.

PHILIPPIANS 2:12-13 (NIV)

“Journalize your heart work and end up, not with degrees and diplomas, but with deep rejoicing over your true life.”

  Journalizing Point # 4- Journalize to Receive Father’s Love

My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and punishes everyone he accepts as a son. Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. We have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live! Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. "Make level paths for your feet," so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.

HEBREWS 12:5-13 (NIV)

There are two kinds of people; those who hate correction and those who love it. Those who have the true fear of the Lord love it, for they know “the Lord corrects those He loves.” Does loving correction mean it won’t hurt? No. But it hurts so good that it heals and changes our hearts. God speaks tenderly in our journals, bringing encouragement and comfort that is firm and secure. If we will let the real God speak to the real us, we will open every room in our heart to His inspection, holding nothing back from His love. As we do, there will be times His voice all but thunders, leaving no doubt He means business with us.

Blessed is the man whom God corrects; so do not despise the discipline of the Almighty. For he wounds, but he also binds up; he injures, but his hands also heal.

JOB 5:17-18 (NIV)

God loves us too much to let us remain in sin, so He exposes hidden rebellion and alleviates confusion and anxiety by bringing us to repentance. Where lines are crooked, He makes them straight. If a shade is too gray, He makes a distinction between black and white. We make level paths for our feet by running to the Father’s love in our journal to receive correction. Nothing is hidden from God’s sight. He knows it all, loves us in spite of all He knows, and uses all of it to heal us.

The word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

HEBREWS 4:12-13 (NIV) 

Conviction is the precursor to repentance. God’s word is like a flashlight that finds dark, hidden caves. What He shows us grieves us, but He uses our pain to convict us of ignorance or denial. Each conviction leads to renewed repentance where we again turn back to God to love Him with all our heart. Although truth sometimes has a heavy hand, it relentlessly loves us and is determined to set us free.

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.

1 JOHN 1:6-10 (NIV)

“Repentance is not just returning to God’s light, it is submitting our madness to the Father’s love for cleansing.”

  Journalizing Point # 5 - Journalize From an Obedient Heart

I don’t want your sacrifices—I want your love; I don’t want your offerings—I want you to know me.

HOSEA 6:6 (TLB)

Understanding is a process; it takes time. Understanding can wait, obedience can’t. Obedience will prove God’s reality to us quicker than a lifetime of theological discussions. We will not understand much about God until we obey Him. Holding to our favorite doctrines doesn’t require obedience, but every true revelation of God will always follow obedience.

What do we want? A revelation of the real God, or a false understanding that allows us to keep God in our mental cubicle? Unfortunately many Christians invent God the way they want Him to be. They talk a good talk but their walk is defective. They obey the commands they like but ignore the ones that seem too expensive. They allow time for God’s word when it’s convenient, or read the Bible but withhold forgiveness, or perhaps they attend church but won’t tithe. Partial obedience is not obedience. Saul tried to give God partial obedience and God tore the kingdom from his hands.

Samuel said, "Although you were once small in your own eyes, did you not become the head of the tribes of Israel? The Lord anointed you king over Israel. And he sent you on a mission, saying, 'Go and completely destroy those wicked people, the Amalekites; make war on them until you have wiped them out.' Why did you not obey the Lord? Why did you pounce on the plunder and do evil in the eyes of the Lord?" "But I did obey the Lord," Saul said. "I went on the mission the Lord assigned me. I completely destroyed the Amalekites and brought back Agag their king. The soldiers took sheep and cattle from the plunder, the best of what was devoted to God, in order to sacrifice them to the LORD your God at Gilgal." But Samuel replied: "Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the LORD? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams. For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, he has rejected you as king."

1 SAMUEL 15:17-23 (NIV)

True believers journalize from the bottom of their hearts to hear everything God has to say and to obey Him. We write to understand exactly what God intends for us to do. We will not deny His meaning, for here it is, recorded in our own hand-writing! However, if we don’t want to obey we can journalize and still look good to our classmates; we can fool everyone but Him.

But the Lord said to Samuel, "Do not consider his [Saul’s] appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart."

1 SAMUEL 16:7 (NIV)

The Lord says: "These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men.

ISAIAH 29:13 (NIV)

Why would we come this close to God and still withhold our heart? We are here to remind each other of what journalizing means to God. It is worship for the heart...not the hand.

Just tell me what to do and I will do it, Lord. As long as I live I'll wholeheartedly obey. Make me walk along the right paths, for I know how delightful they really are.

PSALMS 119:33-35 (TLB)

“We please God by what we do and not by what we say we believe.”

  Journalizing Point # 6- Journalize to Write Christ on Your Heart

For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.

HEBREWS 8:10 (NKJV)

Our faith accepts Christ who is the Law fulfilled and written on our hearts. Our hands are holding the pen but the Holy Spirit is inspiring the writing. The Scripture is His; He is the one interpreting it and etching it on our hearts so that we will no longer sin against God. In the journal God preserves us through commands for repentance and obedience which are the fundamental pillars of the New Testament. What God wills is engraved into our own willing.

...continue to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purposes.

PHILIPPIANS 2:12 (NIV)

God is serious about writing Christ, His Word, on our hearts. He would have us never forget His commands, so much so that He says He will carve their meaning into our hearts that we should hope them, think them, talk them, write them and obey them. We will love His words so much we would even hang signs and pictures about them on our walls.

Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one! And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart; and you shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. And you shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

DEUTERONOMY 6:4-9 (NASB77)

God’s word immerses our hearts in His love. This is how we connect with His Spirit as it bears witness with our spirits. Our spirit and God’s Spirit are profoundly joined as one. Although we are not God we live in continual self-surrender to Him. We give up the illusion of a separate self, the one thing we can choose to keep or give up. When we surrender the self to God, He gives it back to us in a way that it is no longer a problem to us. Made in the image of God the problem of what to do with ourselves is finally solved by self-surrender. We no longer know our lives as we once did because now Christ lives in us as us. We have emptied the room of all lesser loves so He can take residence. God writes Christ into His new home and we enjoy His life right here...right now.

God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

COLOSSIANS 1:27 (NIV)

Outside of Christ the concept of self is nothing but death, but the moment it is placed in Christ it becomes Life, spelled with a capital “L,” for it is total. This is Eternal Life, to know Him and be eternally connected to Life.

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

GALATIANS 2:20 (NIV)

“Journalizing with all your heart is a continual surrendering to Life.”

Jaque Banas

    Journalizing Point # 7- Journalize to Inherit the Promise

Jesus said, "You're not listening. Let me say it again. Unless a person submits to this original creation—the 'wind hovering over the water' creation, the invisible moving the visible, a baptism into a new life—it's not possible to enter God's kingdom.

JOHN 3:5 (TMB)

One last mention; at Visionwriters we journalize to submit our hearts to God. Once submitted we inherit all that He promises. A promise is a “legally binding declaration that gives the person to whom it is made a right to expect or to claim the performance or forbearance of a specified act.” God promises to make us completely new inside by writing His will (Christ) on our hearts, that there we may know Him and so enter into the joy of His kingdom.

Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.

ISAIAH 43:18-19 (NIV)

Jesus Christ is the way God made in the desert; He is the stream of life in the midst of the wasteland all around us. Christ in us is God’s new thing! The new creation is the Promised Land offered to those who enter His rest. What is God’s rest? It is pure, childlike trust realized through surrender. Surrender is intense warfare against the egocentric false self and it is hard work. Nevertheless, when we yield to God He binds the strongman (self) so we can favor Jesus more than it. He increases, we decrease. This is freedom. In union with Christ we escape the chains of selfishness.

There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God's rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his. Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience.

HEBREWS 4:9-11 (NIV)

In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it.

ISAIAH 30:15 (NIV)

It helps to understand how much the strongman hates words like submit and surrender. His proud ego understands these words to mean he will “lose something.” (True, he will lose his pretended life). He prefers words like “overcome, conquer, win and succeed.” However, a new creation has no problem with words like “yield, submit, obey, embrace and let go” because the true self has no problem identifying with Christ. It knows this is the key to inheriting God’s promises.

Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it. For we also have had the gospel preached to us, just as they did; but the message they heard was of no value to them, because those who heard did not combine it with faith.

HEBREWS 4:1-2 (NIV)

It takes faith to surrender. Faith is rest, rest is obedience, obedience is trust, trust is confidence, confidence is peace, and peace is true joy. We journalize to put the words of our surrender onto ink stained pages to show that our hearts will consistently keep covenant with God.

For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

2 CORINTHIANS 4:17-18 (NIV)

He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new!" Then he said, "Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true."

REVELATION 21:5 (NIV)

“To write God’s will, to feel God’s will, to understand God’s will, to surrender to God’s will is to inherit His Kingdom.“

  Journalizing Point # 8 - Journalize the Visionwriter’s Way

What began as a vision to listen to God and write down what we hear is actually God’s plan for revealing Christ in us. The real us is meeting the real God and we are discovering Him as He is, not necessarily as we perceived Him to be. The Bible is full of references for writing down God’s will for our life. In a concordance find the word “write” and see how many times throughout history God instructed His people to write down what He was saying. Here’s an overview of journalizing the Visionwriter’s way:

Journalizing...

• makes God our goal
• internalizes Christ
• increases our awareness of God
• plants God’s seed (word) deep in our hearts
• leads to abiding which leads to abandonment
• speeds up the process of softening our hearts
• reveals and exposes hidden sin
• is worship for the heart, not the hand
• is writing to understand God’s will so we know what to do
• makes God’s thoughts higher than our own
• helps us focus and fine tune our ears to His voice
• writes the vision clearly, thus helping us find Christ as our true selves
• allows the Lord to prioritize our lives
• is the string that holds the pearls of insight together
• is making God first “on purpose”
• is receiving commands so the new creation can emerge through obedience
• teaches us to receive correction as “love”
• is a routine that paves the path for spontaneity
• brings great refreshing through the conviction it engenders
• shows us the boundaries God has set for us
• imposes “maturity” on anyone who continues to listen and obey
• helps us see how free we are to love others
• imparts the discipline that works in spite of our weakness

  How to Journalize the Visionwriter’s Way

The Holy Spirit will use journalizing to change your life. Our reactions to Christ’s Lordship (and life in general) are filled with a wide range of fears, absurdities, and emotional outbursts. God’s presence will stabilize your emotions as you allow His Word to be written as personal dialogue to you. At its core, journalizing will help you to: trust God’s action in you, show you over and over again the nature of His heart, show you your heart and its desire to please God, reveal the grace that causes you to obey, and guide you toward maturity through a daily disciplined plan of action.

When you are ready to start, come with a sense of expectation, trusting that God wants to reveal Himself even more than you want Him to do so. Remember, too, that your “ability” to see God rests with Him. This isn’t about how good you can hear, it’s about His ability to speak and to make Himself known to you. In other words, when you feel as if you just can’t hear, shift your focus off yourself and onto Him by reminding yourself that He is God and your part is simply to surrender and give Him your willingness to hear.

Journalizing is similar to eavesdropping on a conversation already in progress and recording what you hear. As you write, some things may sound strange, but you must write them anyway in the moment you hear them. Keep writing without stopping the flow. Don’t judge what you’re writing; allow yourself to be spontaneous. The Holy Spirit will sift it and will teach you what it means later. Accumulate thoughts, not judgments. Later you will check one verse against another to see if what you are hearing is accurate. For now, get it on the page. If you are willing to keep writing, eventually you will be unblocked from fear and condemnation; you won’t know exactly when or how it happened, but you will know that Jesus is narrating salvation into your heart.

When you begin journalizing, focus and meditate on the Scriptures assigned for the day. After thinking about the verse or verses pick up your pen and write whatever you feel in your heart, and don’t judge as to whether or not you should feel it. Then ask Him to direct your thoughts with His Word, and, in faith, write what you believe He is saying to you. When you are finished with that, write your reply. Keep going back and forth until you are finished.

Remember that God will speak in accordance with what you read in Scripture and that the essence of the Scripture is written on your heart by the Spirit of God. It is Christ in you coming up from your own heart. Be sure to let Him call you by name as another step of faith. If your mind bombards you with doubt or fear, speak out loudly to your tempters. Say something such as, “Get behind me, Satan, I belong to the Lord and have a heart to hear His will alone. I desire to see God and to do His will, and, therefore, I will know it.” (See John 7:17.)

If you are stuck from the beginning, paraphrase the Scripture, as though God were speaking that verse directly to you. For example, John 3:16 might read this way: “(Your Name), I love you so much that I sent My Son for you. If you will believe on Christ and put your trust in Him, you will not die but will know what it means to have eternal life. I love you, (Your Name), and always will. Love, your Father.” Don’t worry about whether or not these words are really from God. Only believe. Just keep writing what comes, and trust God to be big enough to reveal Himself and to prove Himself to you. He will correct any error in your thinking. Remember, He wants to be known by you. He will interpret Scripture into the very fabric of your being, little by little, every day. Don’t let your intimate enemy get away with robbing you of this intimate experience.

Enjoy the journey. Journalize in awe of God. Your goal is to hear His heart; journalizing will help you listen clearly.

As for you, the anointing you received from Him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as His anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit—just as it has taught you, remain in Him.

I JOHN 2:27 (NIV)

But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, Whom the Father will send in My name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.”

JOHN 14:26 (NIV)

Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, “Write all the words which I have spoken to you in a book.”

JEREMIAH 30:2 (NAS)

All this the Lord made me understand by the writing by His hand upon me, all the work to be done according to the plan.

1 CHRONICLES 28:19 (AMP)

  Other Vision Writers Speak

“Journalizing is a means for seeing the transformation that is happening in me! The activity I’m accountable for is the pursuit of my identity in Christ! I hear His voice and must follow! Many changes have occurred in my perceptions of life and I’m more comfortable in my role as a “host” for something so grand as our Lord.”

“I see God’s plan through journalizing. God had a plan, and because He is a Planner He did not forget or leave anything out. His strategy for gaining our trust is complete. His plan even included me! More than “me out of bondage” - He wants “bondage out of me.” He has promised me wholeness but there will be no “quick fixes.” He and I will walk it through.”

“As I began to journalize I saw that I had never had a real relationship with my heavenly Father. I attended a Visionwriter’s class to find out more about Him and in finding Him, I also found Doret. I realized I had never known myself at all. I will stay in this process because the truth is sustaining me on a daily basis. I have found my family and my Father here. ”

“More than life-changing, journalizing is life-revealing! I see the truth of who I am and Who the Life in me is! Journalizing dumps the perfect fertilizer and shines the perfect “grow-light” on my seedling of faith. It has been spring in my faith after a very long and cold winter! Journalizing is the difference between receiving a form letter and a personal, hand-written note. The first gets the job done, but the second gets the job done and fills me with the joy of living.”

“I wanted to see the difference as I repeated the courses each year. I wondered if I’d have the same thoughts in my journals. The truths He confronted me with last year have sunk into my belief pool, renewing my mind. This year I can stand on them, so I’m free to learn even more. I’m in a different place spiritually than I was last time, so He can show me new things. This journey won’t end as long as I am in this body!”

“Journalizing is one of the few ways a man has to express his deepest emotions to the only One Who can do something about them. God has become my best friend through this avenue of communication. To hear from God on a daily basis brings new meaning to the word relationship. Journalizing takes me beyond what I think into what God knows. The homework assignments are like a profit and loss statement that gives me an exact accounting of where I am. They call me to the accountability of what these courses are all about.”

“I am seeing the Word in a whole new light. In the past, fear cast a shadow over my ability to hear Him. In the journal He’s shown me that my heart is only able to receive the truth to the degree that I will search for it. His life in me is crying out to be manifested. I have nothing to fear. He’s used all my failures to bring me to this point of surrender. My prayer is that those in Arizona that He will call to Visionwriters will find each other and form community.”

“I would not have the growth I’ve experienced if this work had not been required of me. This program causes a person to really think about what they are learning. Even though I have difficulty expressing myself with written words, journalizing has become a pivotal point for learning. I like sharing what God has revealed to me. I now want to do this, and I know it came as a result of staying faithful to Him in the process.”

“I’m witnessing a remarkable change in my countenance and a quickening in my journals. I see faith increasing, and confidence in my capacity to hear God. Order, consistency, discipline, right relationships, and Godly character are being born. I am daily equipped with a fresh word to assist me and have a strong sense of community, knowing that there are others on this journey with me.”

“Hearing God is the most outrageous, bold, brave thing I’ve ever been taught to do. He’s faithful to show up where He is longed for, desired, and expected. Journalizing is my sanity, an inward journey for overcoming my self in order to become a truer being than the one I know today. Here is where all of my choices, ideals and problems face the One Truth that life is about - seeking and finding Him. Visionwriters affords me a discipline that lives and breathes. I hear instructions that require me to be truthful with my current level of understanding. That I am asked to “write it down” only helps me see where I am, where I’ve been, and where I’m going. If life is a classroom then Visionwriters is my curriculum!”

“I could never grasp the bigness of God before because I was never in proper perspective. I was too big in my own eyes. Journalizing put me into perspective and now I can see Him. I love journalizing, doing the homework, and the fact that my work is coached. Coaches help make better students. If we could all be coached in our outside lives as well as we are in Visionwriters we would live more productive lives.”