Dust Off the Journals
The encouragement you need for 2026 was probably spoken years ago
I found an old journal last week.
It was wedged between a cycling magazine and some letters from HMRC I should have filed away ages ago. The cover was soft from years of handling, and when I opened it, I recognized my own handwriting from 2008. Messier than I remembered. More hopeful, too.
There it was. A promise I had written down after praying. Something God had spoken over my life that I had completely forgotten. And reading it again, in a different season, in a harder year, it hit me like cold water.
I had been asking God for a fresh word. A new direction. Something for the road ahead.
Turns out, He had already given it to me.
Here’s what I think happens to most of us.
God speaks. We write it down. We feel the weight of it, the electricity of a moment where heaven touched earth. We underline it. Maybe we tell a friend.
And then life happens. The job changes. The baby comes. The loss hits. The years stack up like dishes in the sink, and somewhere along the way, we forget. Not because we stopped believing, but because surviving took all our attention.
The journal goes on a shelf. The prophetic word gets buried under grocery lists and quarterly reports. The scripture that once set your heart on fire becomes a half-remembered verse you can’t quite place.
And then January rolls around, and we find ourselves hungry again. Desperate for direction. Asking God to speak when He’s been waiting for us to remember what He already said.
This isn’t an accusation. It’s an invitation.
The encouragement you need for 2026 might not come from a new podcast or a conference or a word from a stranger. It might be sitting in a notebook in your closet. It might be in a text thread from three years ago when your friend sent you a verse and you said you’d hold onto it. It might be in the story you stopped telling because the miracle felt too small to mention.
God’s promises don’t expire. They don’t get stale. They’re not less true because time has passed.
If anything, they become more potent with age.
I’ve been thinking about the Israelites lately. The ones who crossed the Jordan into the promised land. God told them to stack stones from the riverbed as a memorial. Why? So that when their children asked, “What do these stones mean?” they would have something concrete to point to.
Not a feeling. Not a vague sense that God was probably good. Actual evidence. A pile of rocks that said: He did this. He was here. He made a way when there wasn’t one.
We need our own piles of stones.
The answered prayer from 2017. The healing that defied the doctor’s report. The provision that showed up at the exact right moment. The word someone spoke over you that you’ve never been able to shake.
These aren’t just memories. They’re ammunition. They’re fuel for the road ahead.
So here’s what I’m asking you to do.
Before you chase a new word, go find the old ones.
Dust off the journals. Scroll back through the notes app. Dig out the prayer requests you wrote on napkins and shoved in your Bible. Find the scriptures God highlighted for you in seasons past and read them again with fresh eyes.
Ask yourself: Did I actually believe this? Did I act on it? Or did I just underline it and move on?
Because here’s what I’ve learned about God’s promises: they don’t do their work while they sit on a shelf. They do their work when we carry them with us. When we pull them out in the hard moments. When we speak them back to ourselves on days when God feels silent.
Remembering isn’t passive. It’s an act of war against the forgetfulness that wants to steal your hope.
There’s a reason I’m building an app called Doxa.
It’s because I know how easy it is to forget. I know how quickly the fire dims when life gets loud. I know what it’s like to feel like you’re starting from scratch in January when God has actually been speaking to you for decades.
Doxa exists to help you hold onto the words that hold you up. To build a library of God’s faithfulness that you can carry into every valley, every mountaintop, every ordinary Tuesday.
But you don’t need an app to start.
You just need to remember.
2026 is going to ask something of you. There will be days when the path disappears and the climb feels impossible. Days when you’re tempted to sit down and wonder if any of it was real.
On those days, you’re going to need more than motivation. You’re going to need evidence.
So start collecting it now. Write down what God has done. Record the promises He’s made. Build your pile of stones.
Because the encouragement you need for the road ahead might have been spoken years ago.
It’s time to dust off the journals.
We are building the Doxa app to equip Christians to better record and remember God’s encouragement, both what He has already done, and what He has promised.