I don’t know if you have ever had a week, a month, or even a year where you literally began and finished feeling like you didn’t grow, change, or get better in any way, shape, or form. I can say that I have. And unfortunately, I had a whole year of that once. I entered that year one person and I left...even worse than I started. That’s the devil in a nutshell for yah. Keeping you stuck, hooked on lies, and unmotivated to move forward.
Well, it was near the end of that stagnant year that I met a friend who felt the-exact-same-way, and so we finally decided to do something about it. I’ll spare you the lengthy explanation I am bound to turn this into and in short we came up with what we coined as “Growth Book”.
The journal we created to hold our goals and notes on EVERY-SINGLE-THING we were learning about, reading, hearing, and doing that year. The journal we used to take notes on sermons, books we read, podcasts we listened to, prayers we made, and the spot we went back to daily to reflect on God's goodness and blessings. And, because we did it together, it was the best way we held each other accountable.
So, after thinking long and hard, we thought the best way to describe it was the roadmap and footprint of your spiritual journey.
The definition of a roadmap according to good old Merriam Webster is:
A detailed plan to guide progress toward a goal
A detailed explanation
Growth Book is both those things. It is an action plan you make with God, yourself, and your accountability partner on how you are hoping to grow this year. And your notes, or detailed explanation on how God took you there.
A footprint takes it one step further (no pun intended) It’s:
An impression of the foot on a surface
The area on a surface covered by something
These perfectly describe what writing down this journey is. Your impression of ink to paper that documents the area you covered that year with God. The road you traveled with Him. The footsteps you took, the tears you cried, prayers you made, verses you memorized. The things you learned and penned down in the pages of your notes.
The document of this entire journey -your year with God-is left in your Growth Book to look back on for generations to come and is such an awesome way to see your growth and progress each year.
And in the end, what we call...your Growth Book.