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When we believe we must hide our feelings from God because they aren't holy enough or are bad for some reason, we are hiding ourselves from God.  That hurts us, not Him, and it stands between God and us.  When we acknowledge the truth to God, then we are able to move past the feelings and see how God is the provider for every one of those needs.  We are able to learn the truth of how God views us.  We can see this in the Psalms as well.  David cried out the truth of His feelings to God but he always ended up praising God for His provision, protection, etc.   Although we read about this process in the matter of a few verses, David didn't necessarily experience the process that quickly!  God's love for us is not changed by the truth of our feelings.  But we are also only able to appropriate God's healing and answers for our struggles when we have been able to be honest with Him about them.

This aspect of keeping a journal is particularly powerful if you are walking through healing -- whether from a traumatic circumstance, the loss of a loved one, or an abusive past.  A key part of the healing process is acknowledging the reality of what has happened.  Putting it in black and white on paper does that while still letting you feel "safe" if there is no one you can talk to.  I have found this helpful even when I have had people I could talk to, simply because sometimes it's just too much to talk about.  Nobody can listen while I talk through all that has happened in my life.  And sometimes I need to dump onto paper today the same thoughts and feelings I needed to talk about two days ago because they are still there or have resurfaced.   If you are in counseling, keeping a journal can be a valuable tool there as well.  During a time that I was going to a Christian counselor I couldn't verbalize what was going on in my head.  But we found that if I wrote it down and then let the counselor read it we could then address whatever issues we needed to discuss  (I used a three-ring binder during this time so I could remove the relevant pages).

A third reason for keeping a journal is because God works over the course of time.  Sometimes God does dramatic works in our lives that change us in a moment.  But more often God changes us in steps over weeks and months and years.  Unless we are keeping a record of what God shows us each day, we cannot get the full benefit of His efforts.  If we document what He teaches us each day, we can later look back through the pages and see full life-changing lessons revealed over the days, weeks and months.  This is something that has been particularly powerful in my life.  I make a habit of occasionally looking back through my most recent journals to see what greater work God has been doing in my life.  It is always amazing.  And because I have this record and see His work, I am able to glorify Him and thank Him for it.   I would be unable to do that if I didn't have a record to look back at.

Over the course of years of keeping a journal there are some practical things that I have found beneficial.  There is no one way that is "right" for keeping a journal.  The one thing that I would say is most important is that keeping a journal cannot be a heavy obligation or another "should" to add to your life.  When I first started journaling, I just occasionally jotted down a few sentences about something interesting that I saw God do in my life or an insight He had given.  I didn't right every day, only occasionally.  After I learned that I could hear from God every day, I began to write down each day just the Scripture that He'd spoken to me from.  I made no notes about it and I didn't write down my thoughts, prayers or anything else.  I just wrote out the verse(s). 

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