Moleskine Notebooks

Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place. — Revelation 2:5 NIV

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“Dad! Dad! Look what I made!”

Church had just let out, and I walked toward the children’s ministry room to pick up my daughter. I was not expecting fireworks.

Our girls have had a love-hate relationship with children’s church recently. We have had to negotiate more than once. Earlier that day, my other daughter staged a full protest: “I hate children’s church. I hate children’s church. I hate children’s church.” It sounded like chanting on a picket line. We have practiced gradual releases, sat beside them during activities, and occasionally missed parts of the service just to help them feel secure.

So when I walked in and saw her glowing, I was genuinely surprised.

She was radiant.

“Look!” she said, holding up a small wooden pencil. “It’s made from a real tree branch. And this is my prayer journal. It’s where I write my prayers to Jesus.”

“A prayer journal?” I smiled. “I would love to see what you wrote.”

She opened it proudly and read aloud, “Jesus, bless me and make me blessed.”

My heart melted.

We cycled home together, her perched in the small seat attached to my bicycle. She still fits there, for now. These days feel numbered. She is growing faster than I am ready for, and I treasure every ride.

When we got home, she kept writing page after page in first-grade inventive spelling. She was proud. Alive. Joyful. The rest of the evening she was unusually helpful and cheerful. Something had happened in that classroom. I do not know what the lesson was, but I am convinced she encountered Jesus.

Watching her stirred something in me.

There was a season when I wrote in a prayer journal multiple times a week. I loved those simple black Moleskine notebooks with the elastic band. I still have a cupboard filled with them. Some are slightly musty now, but they chronicle my journey with the Lord. I wrote everything, fears, prayers, dreams, confessions. When I flip through those pages, I can find dates when God met me in specific ways, when a verse leapt off the page, and when direction became clear.

In the Book of Revelation, John writes to the church in Ephesus and gives a sobering exhortation. In Revelation 2:5 he says, “Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first.”

Do the things you did at first.

That line has been echoing in me.

Over the past few years, life has moved quickly. My wife and I welcomed two children. She completed graduate school, and I am in the middle of online ministry school. Seasons change. Rhythms shift. Practices ebb and flow. That is part of life. But that verse stopped me.

What were the things I did at first?

What were the things you did at first, when you were newly in love with Jesus? When time with Him felt natural and unhurried? When writing a prayer was not a discipline but a delight?

Even in the middle of writing this piece, I felt a nudge. I closed my laptop, picked up my phone, and ordered a brand-new Moleskine journal with fresh pens. I do not remember them costing $36.77, but it feels like an investment worth making. I cannot wait for it to arrive. I cannot wait to show it to my daughter.

I believe the Lord wooed me through her joy. Not with pressure. Not with shame. Not with accusation. With invitation. He is so gentle that way.

Perhaps He is inviting you too. Ask Him what He might be calling you back to. Maybe it is time to buy your own notebook. Maybe it is setting aside ten unhurried minutes. Maybe it is simply writing one honest prayer on a scrap of paper.

Let this line probe your heart:

Return to what you did at first.