On the R.O.A.D

What do you write in your journal?

1. Use the R.O.A.D. format (below) to Read, Observe, Apply and Do what God is saying to you through the Scriptures.
2. Read the Bible for formation, and not purely for information. In formational reading, you will be reading the Scriptures to discern and respond to what God is saying to you.
3. Ask yourself what God is calling you to do or to be. How may you grow in Christ? What lessons of Christlikeness are there to be learnt? What examples of Christ are there to follow? What promises of God are there to claim? And what commands are there to obey?
4. Write your feelings, thoughts and reflections down in your journal and then commit to put them into practice in your life. Allow God’s Word to transform what you do and how you live.

Using the R.O.A.D. Format
As you do the readings, use the R.O.A.D. (Read, Observe, Apply, Do) format to help you hear and respond to what God is saying to you through the Scriptures. Write your entries in your journal.

READ… or listen to the scripture readings for the day, inviting the Holy Spirit to give you understanding. Read it slowly. It is best to read through all the prescribed Bible passages. Then go back and read the passage/verse that you feel God wants you to focus on and which resonates with your spirit. Read that passage/verse a third time, slowly. Be willing to stay with portions of the text that seem to be speaking to you, and allow for times of silence and re-reading.

OBSERVE… what the passage/verse is about. When and where did the event happen? What was the context? Who were the people involved? What was the main message the writer had for the people of that time? As you re-read that particular section, take note of what you observe in that passage. In this segment, we want to also hear and explore more deeply the specific words, images or phrases through which God may be speaking to you. Allow these words to sink into our consciousness and to examine our relationship with God. Record your observations.

APPLY… the passage/verse to your life. What relevance has this passage/verse to your life? What are the lessons to be learned? What promises are there to claim? What examples are there to follow? What commands are there to obey? Look for all the possible applications for your life arising from what you understand the passage is saying. Here is when you move from information to revelation.

DO… what God has revealed to you. Choose one of the applications and commit yourself, with full dependence on God, to work out the application that very day. It may be to respond in worship, to act in faith on something, to trust in God’s promise, to correct a behaviour, to restore a relationship, to share the revelation with someone else, to serve someone in need, etc. When you do what is revealed to you, you move from revelation to transformation. Once you have carried out what God has purposed you to do, record your experience in obeying God’s revelation to you.

Be sure to develop a healthy habit of spending time daily with God.