(upbeat music) - Well, John Piper is a prolific journaler in private, and many of you know that already, but why does he do it? Today we find out thanks to this question from a podcast listener. Pastor John, hello, my name is Danny. As a 19-year-old, I'm interested in starting a journal to track the outworking of God's providence in my life.

I know that you have journaled for a long time. When did you start, why did you start, and how much time do you spend journaling each day? And why do you continue to do it today, assuming you still do? - Right, well, I do still journal, but it might not be what people think.

Let me begin by saying behind my practice of writing in my journal are some huge assumptions that I should probably make explicit. One is that an infinitely holy, wise, powerful, good, loving, just God exists. That he created the world and everything in it and has absolute authority and rights over everything in the world, including me, and that I, by nature, am selfish to the core and in rebellion against him and constantly prone in my self, my old self, constantly prone to exalt myself above him and above others, and that he owes me nothing, but that I deserve his just anger.

And yet, these are all assumptions that I bring to journaling, and yet he sent his divine, eternal son, Jesus Christ, into the world to deliver me from the guilt and the power of this selfishness by dying in my place, bearing my guilt, providing my righteousness, rising again, pouring out his Holy Spirit of repentance and faith on me so that I was brought out of darkness into light with the divine purpose over my life that I would prefer him over every earthly good and be holy as he is holy and shine in what I write and in what I think and in what I feel and in what I do, shine with the light of his glory in this world, which means all of that is a massive set of glorious realities, assumptions that I bring to whether or not I journal, which means that my whole life is devoted to seeking out ways with God's guidance in his word, ways of pursuing this holiness, this likeness to Christ, this shining, this reflection of what he is, ways of pursuing seeing him and clarifying what he's like and keeping him before me as my daily satisfaction and peace and confidence so that I am conformed increasingly to his character and his ways.

Over my life, I just see flying these, not only glorious promises and works of God, but commands, "God has not called us to impurity, "but to holiness," 1 Thessalonians 4. "As he who called you is holy, "be holy in all your conduct. "Strive for holiness without which no one will see the Lord.

"You must be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect." So journaling for me is part of a constant quest to see Christ and know Christ and enjoy Christ and be like Christ so I live to the glory of Christ. Now, I'm pretty sure, Tony, that I would not have articulated my motives in journaling that way at every point in my life.

That's the way I think about it today. And it's interesting that Danny would say he's 19 because I think I'm accurate in saying I began journaling when I was 19 as a sophomore at Wheaton College, and I've been doing it on and off ever since. There may have been seasons, I think there were seasons in the last 53 years of journaling when I felt a commitment to write something every day or every week, but by and large, I've never approached it that way.

I'm not keeping a diary. So let's make that distinction clear. My journaling is what I would call an occasional thought notebook, not a diary. You wouldn't find there an account of my daily activities. I may have done that once or twice in 50 years, but by and large, I'm not doing what John Wesley did of morning till night, here's what happened.

I think I began because I needed to sort out my thoughts. In other words, I found so much confusion and uncertainty in my mind about so many things that it was very hard to know what to think or feel or do. That's a great impediment to obedience. It's a great impediment to glorifying Christ if you're constantly confused about what the Bible means and how to apply it.

So I needed clarity about Bible passages. I needed clarity about the will of God and the pros and cons of various paths for my life. I needed clarity about relationships, that what they should look like. Friends, in the early days, a girlfriend or not a girlfriend and friends, and now wife and children and grandchildren.

Clarity about social issues and ethical issues. And I was discovering at age 19 what today I know to be a fact, namely, I cannot get clarity in my mind about biblical texts or the will of God or relationships or ethical or social issues. I can't get clarity in my mind without writing.

I read somewhere that Albert Einstein could hold an idea in his head for hours and days and weeks at a time and come at it from a dozen different angles, probing and pondering and relating all these various perspectives to each other until he got clarity about some massive insight.

And well, I cannot do that in my head. I lose the train of thought as soon as the tracks split into two, (laughs) let alone 22 or 42. And those tracks of thought must split because they are various routes of analysis and angles by which you have to ask lots and lots of questions about an issue, whatever the issue is, you have to come at it from so many different ways.

I can't hold all that in my head. I can't hold all that in my head and figure out how all those angles relate to each other and what the stages of the arguments are and what the implications of one insight has to do with another insight. How in the world does anybody except an Einstein hold all that in your head?

Now, of course, you don't have to do this kind of thing in a journal. You can just do it in random notes, sheets of paper, documents. It can be scattered all over your computer, all over your desk and your drawers and your files, which probably isn't helpful. Scattered insights that you can never find again are not helpful, which brings me to another reason why it's good to do journal, namely because you wanna keep everything in some kind of place or sequence or use an index or system or something so that you can cross-reference and file things.

When you look at Jonathan Edwards' notebooks, it's amazing. He didn't have any computer or anything and he'd say, "See number 1,235." So you know where to look for things over the years. So I've tried to keep a little index at the end of each of these journal volumes. This has been very good for my humility and thankfulness.

Frankly, I don't like the John Piper of my early journals. He seems to me to be immature, self-absorbed, excessively critical. And if you're honest, your journal really does bear witness to your sins, even when you are talking about someone else's sins, maybe especially when you're talking about someone else's sins, which is humiliating.

It really is. I mean, I knew at certain points along the way, I knew what I was doing. I knew this is gonna bite. This is gonna come back to bite me someday. And I thought, it's just better to be real. I mean, if Christianity and John Piper have any reality, it's either gonna be there or it's not.

There's no point trying to fake anything. So on the other hand, that very fact of humiliation causes me to be amazed at the mercy and the patience and the grace of God in Jesus Christ. God could have justifiably thrown me away at any time. And my journals, my own journals, I think would have been adequate evidence at the judgment day that he did me no wrong.

And maybe I should make just a little clearer when I talk about sorting through relationships and ethical issues. This really does include my life. I'm not just talking abstract, my life, my family, my children, my wife, my workplace, my colleagues, my struggles in the ministry. Over the years, there have always been crises in my life that have been very painful as well as other experiences that have been exquisitely happy.

And I write about these, I try to sort through what's wrong. Why is the marriage the way it is? Why are my kids the way they are? Why are things at Bethlehem the way they were? How are we doing at DG? Et cetera, et cetera. All kinds of issues that I'm facing, I need to just sort it out.

So when I say that my journal is a thought notebook for trying to get clarity about texts and the will of God and relationships and social and ethical issues, I don't mean that to sound theoretical or abstract. Think very concrete, very personal, and often very painful. It might, just in closing here, it might put a whole different slant on the term occasional thought notebook or on journaling.

If I told you or I told Danny that journaling is for me, often like going to see a personal counselor, where I tell him all my problems and seek his wisdom, and the journal is the counselor's office. And he lets me pour out my confusion, my feelings and ideas about my problems.

And he listens very patiently. He's totally silent. He waits for me in silence to pray, and then he leads me by the Spirit to passages of Scripture where I see Jesus more clearly and find hope and guidance. So a word to Danny, Danny, we're all so different. There's no biblical requirement that anybody keep a journal, let alone any particular kind.

There is a biblical requirement that all of us pursue a clear, transforming knowledge of Jesus and that we walk in holiness. And if journaling helps you get that clarity and walk that walk, do it. - Amen, that's good insight in your own journaling practices. Thank you, Pastor John. And thanks for listening to the podcast over at our online home.

You can explore nearly 1,300 episodes that we've done today. You can scan a list of our most popular ones, read full transcripts, and even send us a question of your own. Go to desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn. Also be sure to subscribe to the Ask Pastor John podcast in your favorite podcast app.

On the other side of the weekend, we return and I'll ask Pastor John, why does he seem to avoid talking politics and what's hot and trending on Twitter? It's a really good question. That's Monday. I'm your host Tony Reinhke. We'll see you then. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)