You Read the Devotionals, Now What?: Three Ways to Retain Lessons From Devotionals

The internet is filled with tons of free resources. For every e-newsletter you sign up for, there’s a free e-book, resource guide, or toolkit to help you with whatever that brand caters to. Even DEAR QUEENS is coming out with a devotional-esque workbook, to help you tap into better parts of yourself. Free resources have become a marketing tactic for many; and an easy, yet effective, way to give back to others. However, what the heck are you supposed to do with all them?

Sure, these free resources, workbooks, and devotionals are amazing, until we realize that we don’t remember a thing we’ve learned from them. We could read all we want, but if we're not retaining the information, shifting our thought processes, and actually putting into place what we've read, what good are they? 

I'm here to help. These three tips can help you retain and apply the lessons you receive from those great free resources. 

Meditate

Before you even begin your devotional, or workbook content, pray over it. Ask God to illuminate the things that are most relevant to what you're enduring or will soon go through. Pray for the ability to interpret the lessons in the most appropriate way. There’s dire importance in praying about the information you’re about to digest before you actually digest it. It allows what's meant for you to leap off the page, and makes it meaningful to your specific situation. 

Dedicate

Be committed to spending time fully digesting the content you read. It's easy to print out a resource and read it, it's another to print it with the full intent to dive in and digest it. To apply it to your life and figure out the ways in which it can make you better. Reading a passage may take you five minutes, but identifying creative ways to make it applicable and practical to your life may take longer. Dedicate yourself to finding the time and space to do that. Give yourself a half hour to an hour to spend time with what you're reading. Don't rush through it — take notes, highlight, and reread the sentences that resonate the most with you. Think critically about the passage or chapter after reading it, then read it over again. 

Fixate

Rest your mind on the topic at hand. After you've read it, continue to think about it. Think about it with every interaction, every situation, and every big moment that comes of your day. Find a way to recall yourself back to the reading. Write the key points on a post-it note and take it with you. Put it on the wallpaper of your phone. Screenshot and review it every hour. The key to remembering material is repetition. Fixating your mind on what you learned in your reading will help you retain the lesson. Repetition will help you remember, and remembering will help you live what you just learned. Put yourself in the position to live the content you just read. Refer back to that day's passage in all you do, so you can begin forming habits that actually create change. 

Are there any other ways that have helped you retain the information you read in devotionals? How else have you been able to effectively apply the content in your life? Feel free to share in the comments below.