Training Yourself (To Be A Godly Man)

I was asked to do a short talk sharing with some men in our church on a scripture pertaining to training yourself to be godly.  In 1^st Timothy 4:7-8 the bible states, “For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.”

I had to ponder for several minutes about what to say to them. Obviously going to church, listening carefully to the message, taking notes and reading the bible are all training but I wanted to share what really helped to train me. To prepare for sharing, I started off with reading the scripture quoted above then I started to read other scriptures that mention the word godliness. As I was reading I began to feel stuck so I did something I should have done in the first place which was to pray. After looking up from my prayer my eyes fell upon my journals sitting on my bookshelf.   I picked one up to see if I had previously written anything down about training myself to be godly when suddenly it hit me.  For me the very act of writing in my journals was how I trained myself to be godly.  I have filed up three journals and I am currently working on my fourth. In my journals I write down my personal thoughts about things that are troubling me or inspiring me and I write down inspiring scriptures.   In my journals, I also admit to myself and to God what my part was in starting a conflict, and then I go ahead and forgive the other person’s role in the conflict. I also write down what emotions I am feeling and then write down some conclusions about why I feel those emotions.  It gets better; next I will write down exactly what I need to do to repent and how I’m going to make amends for my own wrong behavior. In conclusion when I speak to the men tonight; I plan to share with them that journaling was how I trained myself to be a godly man and that I still write in my journal today.