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Bible Journaling in the Margins

Writing in the margins is an open door for God to bless our lives! 

Let’s take a closer look at this process of writing in the margins….

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Writing in a Bible is not a new thing.

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Marginalia (the ancient term) is anything written into the white space between and around the text on a page. It is how we “talk back to books.” It can be as simple as underlining and highlighting, adding notes and prayers, or adding image and color to create a picture memory in our minds.

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How do you allow space in your heart and your calendar

for being available to God?

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By practicing Bible journaling as a spiritual discipline - whether in the margins of your Bible or in the “margin” of a separate journal - God shows up here in the space – of time and in the margin – that we offer Him.

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Margin notes can help with the diagnoses of  

SPIRITUAL ADD and SPIRITUAL AMNESIA

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Do you ever read a great devotion or hear an excellent devotion…and find it impossible to remember how to explain it a short time later? Educational research tells us that we learn better when visual and kinesthetic processes are included. The process of journaling sermon or Bible study notes onto a page often helps us to retain those truths later in the day or longer. Most importantly, if we can remember, we can share God’s truth with others.

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God loves to see the story He is writing in each of our lives …

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… illustrated in the margins and pages as we prayerfully respond in conversation to His Word. Our Heavenly Father rejoices when we see Him in the small details and margins of our lives. Imagine His delight when we take time to slow down enough to reflect, to focus and pay attention long enough for Him to bring majestic things

forward - front and center!

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Visual Faith® Ministry offers a large selection of free bible margins located in our Shoppe for you to download and print. These can be traced into a Bible margin, printed as bookmarks or to add a bit of visual faith to a Bible study group. If your church follows a suggested lectionary, our Visual Church Year resources offer margin art plus a children’s bulletin for many of those references.

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Creativity in Journaling the Word

Creative Bible journaling will look different for everyone. It might be typography – or just words. Images might be used to illustrate a truth to remember. Journaling can be just pen, or colored pencils, or involve other art supplies and collage techniques.

Recommended Reading

To discover the “heart” of Bible journaling, VFM recommends reading Writing in the Margins by Lisa Hickman.

 

There are experiential prompts at the end of each chapter, and the book is suitable for group study. Lisa encourages us to view the blank spaces around the biblical text as: “a life-giving, chaos-breaking, transforming, creative conversation between you and the eternal God.”

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