Preface and Introduction

Preface

“Habits soon become a second nature; to form new ones is hard work; but those formed in youth remain in old age." Charles H. Spurgeon, “Come, Ye Children”

“What is customary becomes pleasant, in so far as it becomes natural; for custom is like a second nature.” Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica

“Custom is a second nature which destroys the former. But what is nature? For is custom not natural? I am much afraid that nature is itself only a first custom, as custom is a second nature.” Blaise Pascal, Pensées

The stewardship of your life is one of your highest callings. First and foremost, God is calling you to himself: to enjoy a reconciled relationship with your Creator. Amazingly, he is inviting you into a meaningful community: to relish in deep fellowship with other believers. Further, God is commissioning you into worldwide mission: to live out your vocation in the world as an ambassador of Christ for global impact. Without paying meaningful attention to your life—your identity, vocation, mission, community, values, and habits—it is possible for you to squander God’s best for you. The meaningful stewardship of our lives is a mark of spiritual maturity.

To guard us from living unpremeditated lives—the tragedy of an unstewarded life—God has gifted us with the capacity for self-reflection. Regardless of your stage of life, you have a divine duty to steward your life with prudence and foresight. Personal reflection itself, however, does not guarantee a meaningful or a wise life. We enjoy a substantive life as we allow God’s Word to serve as a mirror for our lives. Imprinted in the very constitution of the Scriptures is a vision of life after God’s intended design. Wisdom is gained as we allow the anatomy of the biblical text to expose the disjointedness of our lives and realign us into God’s order.

Many obstacles threaten meaningful personal reflection: cluttered schedules leaving no margin for contemplation, apathetic spirits having lost the gravity of eternity, painful trauma we have internally suppressed, self-reliance crusted with inflated self-confidence, fiery zeal absent of accountability, or good intentions without a clear vision or any plans to realize them. We must buffet against these attacks, seeing personal self-examination along with life stewardship in community as one of our most significant investments.

As a contribution to help in this process, Sacred Markings offers guided templates blended with open processing space to assist you as you grapple with eternally weighty ideas that relate to your own personal story. The following pages are offered as a pathway toward spiritual maturity. The moment is now to bring the “time of your life” under the scrutiny of God’s Word.

Matthew R. Lynskey Noble City Church May 2019

Introduction: Surveying the Landscape of Sacred Markings

Sacred Markings is a journal designed to chronicle your journey in the Christian faith. Simply put, it is meant to help you be a thoughtful and faithful steward of your life. Exploring the following “Introduction,” take a moment to orient yourself to the purpose, layout, and use of this journal. Allow the following pages to sketch a spiritual formation process that seeks to cultivate various dimensions of your life in an integrated and holistic process of personal reflection.

Introduction

Following Christ should be second nature! In Ephesians 4:22-24, Paul gives the summons “to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” Walking as a Christ follower involves “putting off” our old selves and putting on our “new selves” in Christ. In the gospel, our first nature born in the corruption of sin is remade after the likeness of Christ. In Christ our first nature is being restored and we are “becoming second nature” in the image of Christ. This work of “becoming second nature” in Christ is a divine work of God’s sacred marking in our lives.

But “sacred marking” in what sense? First, our lives are marked by God. Being fashioned in the image of God, God has “custom made” each of us to be his noble image bearers in his world. Through sustained reflection and dialogue, this journal helps disciples of Christ discern their nobility and uniqueness as God’s image bearers. Second, we should “mark” out our spiritual journey to trace God’s work in our lives. One of the ways we can learn this sacred marking of our lives is by recording our insights—written reflections, scriptural musings, thoughtful notations—of our spiritual journey. Like field notes to the Christian life, this journal provides space to make “markings” of what we are learning about ourselves, God, and our role in God’s plan. Lastly, we are to embrace God’s call on our lives to leave a mark in his world. As this journal is drafted to help us realize God’s work in us, it is also made to help us make intentional steps to live out our unique mission to leave a mark in God’s world. What, then, are sacred markings? God’s mark on us! God’s mark in us! God’s mark through us! In short, God intends to work through you as he works in you.

God’s dynamic work in us and through us takes place in various spheres of life. Like concentric circles that reverberate outward, God works to bring individual growth, family order, church maturity, and world engagement (see Figure 1). We must train our spiritual sensitivities to discern how God is extending his sovereign hand in each of these arenas of our lives.

Throughout history, many notable historical figures from various walks of life kept notebooks, sketch pads, diaries, or journals to mark their lives: artist and inventor Leonardo da Vinci, Puritan preacher and theologian Isaac Ambrose, colonel and president George Washington, explorers Lewis and Clark, renowned author Lewis Carroll, well-known composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, ground-breaking scientist Marie Curie, slave and (then) free man Michael Shiner, young girl-in-hiding Anne Frank, diplomat and economist Dag Hammarskjold, and many more. Throughout the history of the church, many Christians have practiced journaling as a means to chronicle, or mark, their own spiritual journeys. Figures such as theologian Jonathan Edwards, missionary Jim Elliot, hymnist Charles Wesley, puritan Isaac Ambrose, preacher George Whitefield, Bible translator William Carey, and activist and martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Such journal writing enabled Christians to explore theological reflection, record mission endeavors, trace progress in life and ministry, and cultivate personal piety. In the vein of such a great historical precedent, Sacred Markings is a journal that seeks to aid Christians in the progress of their spiritual life.

As a believer you are an extension of an intergenerational Christian faith. The Christian faith was always meant to be experienced in community. Your growth is connected to the investment previous generations will make in your own development as you envision your life an important link in the passing down of the faith to the next generation. This journal seeks to bring intentional conversation between these generations of disciples in settings such as mentoring relationships, community gatherings, family conversation, and/or leadership assessment/training. Sacred Markings is a community tool to enable disciples of Jesus to journal their journey of “becoming second nature” in Christ together.

How to Use This Journal

This journal offers a blend of biblical reflection, guided exercises, templated practices, and creative space that serves your spiritual formation in the context of meaningful Christian relationships. In short, it is a tool for life stewardship in community. Attempting to curate a journal that would represent a unique mixture of directed activities for personal development and flexible open space for personal reflection, we aspired to facilitate an experience that would help you recognize God’s mark on you, discern God’s mark in you, and envision the mark God wants to make through you.

Sacred Markings is both designed for you to record some of your most important insights about your life after sustained, concentrated reflection as well as to mark some of your more incidental thoughts about life along the way. (Importantly, sometimes our mere incidental thoughts prove to be more important than we at first realize.) The vision for this journal was a means to chronicle your spiritual journey, each journal covering one year, aiding you to document your own personal faith pilgrimage.

With that in mind, we sought to give opportunities for you to record your own thoughts as well as for trusted mentors and members of your community to record their assessment of your journey. Like field notes sketched by an on-site researcher, this journal represents space to gain clarity on your past, make meaningful observations about your present, and take courageous, faith-filled steps toward the future. By completing the journal on an annual cycle, it not only seeks to provide a periodic means to chronicle your journey, but also a means to build a framework for

how to think about life according to sacred rhythms (see Figure 2). In sum, we have sought to budget the space in this journal in purposeful ways to round out a process of personal formation. In what follows, we offer a brief overview of the structure of the journal and some suggested practices for its use.

The Grand Examen: Taking an Annual View of Our Lives

In the first portion of this journal, we invite disciples to a Grand Examen of their lives. By investigating six major facets to human nature—Identity, Vocation, Mission, Community, Priorities, and Habits—each person undergoes an annual, personal “life appraisal.” Allowing the book of Ephesians to help us take inventory of our lives, disciples explore (together with other disciples) some major questions of life: Who am I? (Ephesians 1), What am I called to do? (Ephesians 2), Why am I here? (Ephesians 3), Where do I belong? (Ephesians 4), Which things are of greatest importance? (Ephesians 5), and How will I move forward? (Ephesians 6).

Like tributaries that careen into a cross-continental riverbed, these six dimensions of human experience form a mainstay of how we experience life. In this annual self-examination, each of the six sessions has a consistent fivefold structure: Hearing the Word (ponder what God says in Ephesians), Seeking for Wisdom (consider wisdom from the wider Christian community), Grasping the Idea (interact with the idea at a concept level), Discovering Your Design (record your approach to life), and Chronicling the Journey (narrate your personal progress). Representing the first movement of the journal, these six (6) sessions as a whole could be worked through personally, as a weekly series (in a church, class, or community forum), a concentrated blitz on a retreat, or within the regular rhythm of a mentoring relationship. On the main, these sessions work best, done once a year, when there is sufficient time for honest and sustained reflection, combined with community input and dialogue, as disciples consider how God wants to recalibrate their lives individually and as a whole community.

Seasonal Review: Returning to Life’s Big Questions on a Quarterly Basis

After taking a “deep dive” into the big questions of life, disciples are ready to begin thinking about quarterly rhythms to their upcoming year. In the second movement of this journal, we offer life assessments, planning templates, and open space where mentors and community members can record your progress month to month. These quarterly reflections are meant to be done as a sequel to your grand annual examen. Moreover, they are meant to be done in the context of community and mentoring relationships. Having a log of your own markings will prove to be valuable as you grow in your faith. However, being able to capture the comments, insights, exhortations, encouragements, and advice from key mentors in your life in the same place will prove to be priceless. One of the best ways to process your year on a regular basis is to try to connect (over a meal!) with a mentoring couple. These conversations could culminate in an honest dialogue over your quarterly assessment, reflecting on your progress in the previous months.

Personal Memoirs: Tracking Our Lives within Weekly and Daily Movements

The spiritual practice of journaling affords a unique opportunity to chronicle our faith journey. While it is important to consider broad categories that affect the overall trajectory of one’s life, it is also important to detail happenings that occur in life’s smaller moments. Toward this end, Sacred Markings encourages you to journal about your faith development on a weekly and daily basis.

Weekly Summaries. A helpful way to pursue quarterly progress is to cultivate weekly habits. Using the six categories from the annual Grand Examen—Identity, Vocation, Mission, Community, Priorities, and Habits—blank journal space (that is highly customizable) is provided for disciples to briefly reflect on each category in light of the past week. This is not only a helpful milestone toward quarterly “check-ins” but it also helps to build a framework about how to think about life. These weekly ruminations could be a great spiritual exercise for practicing Sabbath, a conversational blueprint for family worship, a community guide for your church’s weekly gatherings, or a shepherding tool for mentoring relationships. The weekly template guide in the resource pages offers a scope of what these specific questions would entail.

Daily Reflections. Daily reflection is facilitated in this journal with the same blank journal space, also allocated for daily spiritual practices (i.e., reading, prayer, journaling, etc.) or other annotations that would be helpful throughout your day. Remember, this is a tool to help chronicle your journey. So, consider using this section of blank pages as open processing space for any variety of questions, reflections, observations, or insights that you discover along the way.

Further Resources: Committing to Lifelong Learning

At the end of this journal are a collection of recommended resources that can aid you in your ongoing spiritual development. We have provided Bible reading plans, templates of spiritual practices, and selected bibliographies to furnish/outfit you with resources for a lifelong process of growth and development. While the Sacred Markings journal is meant to build a “framework of life” by its year-to-year consistency, the Recommended Resources seek to give you an “essentials library” of key resources that will stimulate your spiritual life with variety and depth.

In the end, this journal is just a tool. As the concept was birthed, we envisioned it as a tool to help disciples reflectively engage the Scriptures, prayerfully seek God’s presence, meaningfully guide mentoring relationships, deeply enjoy community camaraderie, substantively assess leadership training, and proactively make the best use of their time. If any of these aspirations are able to be realized, in part "…/…/…/…/Spiritual Journals/Sacred Markings/sessions"or in full, then may all thanks be to God who has so marked us as to leave “sacred markings” in his world as we carpe diem (seize the day), mindful to do so coram deo (in the presence of God)!