A year or two ago I started carrying around a small notebook where I could list ideas, capture quotes, scribble down things that needed to be done and outline goals that I was focused on. For me at least, if I don’t write things down, I am far less likely to get them accomplished.

Apparently, Thomas Edison was also a scribbler. One writer called him, “an inveterate scribbler with a wide-ranging mind.” It seems that in his lifetime, Edison filled some 3500 “idea books” with a myriad of goals, concepts to be realized and a bunch of drawings.

On page one, dated January 3, 1888, he listed 26 different inventions that needed to be accomplished. They included the phonograph, electric lighting, a cotton picker and even “ink for the blind.” He called these items, “things doing and to be done.”

I deeply admire people who not only make goals but also extend a significant effort to achieve them. Howard Hendricks, the wonderful Christian writer out of Dallas Theological Seminary once wrote about a friend of his. She was a tremendous lay leader that he greatly admired. She was engaged in important spiritual matters her whole life. Howard remarked that just before she died, at 83 years of age, she wrote out her goals for the next ten years!

Her story makes me thing of Caleb in the Old Testament. At 85 years of age, he made a significant request of Joshua. The territory of Canaan was being divided up among the tribes of Israel. They all knew that there were “giants in the land.” And yet, Caleb declared, “I am strong today as I was in the day Moses sent me, as my strength was then, so my strength is now, for war and for going out and coming in. Now then, give me this hill country about which the Lord spoke on that day…the Lord will be with me, and I shall drive them (the giant Anakim people) out as the Lord as spoken” (Joshua 14:11-12).

“Give me this mountain, I will drive out the giants!” Now that is a lofty goal for an 85 year old!

I am not sure what stage of life you may find yourself in today, but we all need to still be filling our notebooks full of ideas, goals, aspirations, prayer requests, and suggestions for improvement.

There are always new mountains to climb.

So maybe this week, if you (or I) find ourselves sitting by a pool or watching the waves crash onto the beach, let’s take some time to jot down some concepts for spiritual progress. What could or should we be doing to move forward in our lives as children of God?

I am convinced that scribbling is a Godly pursuit!