For today's Thankful Thursday post, I wanted to creatively journal my faith. I chose a book I have been using from PrintPressions. I grabbed my Bible, a sticker sheet I recently received from a friend in some happy mail (thank you Ta'Kesha), and a Happy Planner sticker book I have had for a long time. My goal was to use what I have and make a pretty page while studying God's Word.
I used the bottom rectangle labels to fill in each section of the page.
I am using the S.O.A.P. Bible study method, so I wrote Scripture, Observation, Application, Prayer on each label.
The next thing I did was choose a scripture. This can be done any number of ways and it really is not that important how you find your verse or passage. I went to Instagram and decided the first scripture verse I found in the stories I would use for my S.O.A.P. Bible study. I found Psalm 141:3 from Wilma Hollis. This is a great verse and she is doing a wonderful study on IG, you should check it out. So I went to my Bible, underlined the verse and wrote it out.
I used lip stickers that I had found in the Happy Planner sticker book. These are a great visual representation of what this verse is talking about: the mouth and the lips. The next section is Observation. What am I seeing in this verse? What is the theme or main points?
I used more lip stickers as bullet points to touch on the three things I gleaned from this particular verse. Words are powerful. We know that what we say can have a big impact on others, either good or bad.
God is the only One who can truly guard our mouths. We need His help and His conviction to help us know what to say and how to say it.
We must be careful to speak truth and life.
The Bible tells us in Proverbs 18:21 Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.
The Application section is where we apply what we observed in the scripture to our life. Some practical tips for how to do what the verse says is to pray and ask God to help me not speak anything that is cruel or untrue. I must choose my words carefully because we know how powerful words are.
The last part of S.O.A.P. studying is prayer. This is a critical piece of the study. We cannot really complete this type of studying without it. I prayed a prayer from my heart asking God to help me live out what I just learned. It is not enough to know what the Bible says. We must live out what we know is true. We cannot obey God's Word apart from the help of Holy Spirit so it is imperative to pray and ask for the help we need.
This is the completed page. It only took a few minutes out of my entire day and that includes decorating. You can use any notebook you want to do a S.O.A.P. Bible study. My husband and son did a S.O.A.P. Bible study together from a passage in the book of Acts the other day while my daughter and I had a Bible study where we were just reading in Job and talking about what we were reading.
I did not come up with the S.O.A.P. Bible study method. I have used it for many, many years. My son started doing Bible studies using this method around 5-6 years old. He is 14, going on 15 and he continues to do these types of Bible studies. He has even taught others how to do it.
One friend of mine told me she tried it and was amazed at how much she learned from just focusing on one verse or passage of scripture. Just choose any verse you want. Pray and ask Holy Spirit to teach you what the verse is saying. Write down the things you observe. Then come up with some practical ways you can live this verse out in your life. Write that down under Application. Recognize you cannot do any of this without God and write out a heartfelt prayer under the Prayer section and you have just completed a S.O.A.P. Bible study.
Decorations, stickers, washi, colored ink pens, stamping, etc. are all extras. It helps my brain engage with the message. I remember it more when I have added some decorations to the page. If you do not want to do that, or do not have the things to make colorful pages, then do not worry about it. It is not necessary. The most important part is getting alone in God's Word and allowing Holy Spirit to teach you and then pray to Jesus and ask for help. He will never tell you no if you are asking to live for Him!
I hope this was a fun change for you all who like to creatively journal your faith. I hope that something I shared has encouraged you and helped you. God bless you!
Oh, and if you do a S.O.A.P. Bible study page, let me know. You can send me a picture in an email at bridgettowens78@gmail.com or tag me on Instagram. I am @bridgettowens78 and I would love to see what you are doing for your Bible studies, Bible journaling, and creatively being thankful for the blessings in your life. I am thankful for these studies and for God keeping the guard over my mouth and teaching me to watch what I say.
Proverbs 15:4 A wholesome tongue is a tree of life: but perverseness therein is a breach in the spirit.
1 Timothy 6:3-5 If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness; He is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strife of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself.
God bless you!
~Bridgett Owens
