Late last year, Apple saw fit to release a new iPhone app that suddenly appeared on my screen. Journal is an app that’s intended to help you capture your thoughts, your feelings, and even the photos and videos of your life. According to Apple, “Journal makes it easy to preserve rich and powerful memories, and practice gratitude by intelligently curating information that is personal to the user, right from their iPhone.”

Of course, I immediately deleted the app. Not that I believe digital journaling is a bad idea. I’m sure many people may naturally be drawn to the convenience and structure of journaling on an iPad or iPhone. And as a decades-long proponent of journaling as a spiritual discipline, I believe that if it works for you, that’s great. No, it’s not about the concept—it’s about the medium. And as I’ve argued many times before, medium and message are inextricably integrated with one another.

There’s something about putting pen to paper—the nib gliding along the smooth surface, the muted scuffing, scribbled sounds, the words appearing in one’s unique and often sloppy script. There are the arrows, the bullet points, the punctuation marks, the double-underlined parts, all the personally quirky notations which make the page come alive. Then there’s just the simple action of turning a page—backwards to refer to some thought or feeling from the past, or forwards to the next blank page, and the limitless possibilities it represents. Book journaling is kinesthetic, palpable, visceral—much more than just collecting one’s thoughts.

And for me, there’s one more very important aspect to book journaling: the doodles.

My journals are filled with nonsensical doodling. Mostly graphic and iconic designs, but occasionally landscapes or whatever object is in front of me. For me, it’s a way in which I can “get inside myself,” and focus more on my thoughts and feelings. Often, it helps me concentrate better in a meeting or when listening to a sermon. It has been a form of unspoken meditation, a prayer without words. And in it’s purest form, it’s just an act of creativity made in the presence of the Creator.

There’s something pure and uncomplicated about pen on paper, as if it were the most direct path from thought to depiction, from idea to reality. I always recommend that artists carry a sketch book or music staff paper or a camera or a digital recorder app on their digital device. Creatives should always arm themselves with the means necessary to get their ideas “on paper” when ideas strike us. Act on the muse when we can, and do not take the sacred stirring for granted. In a way, doodling is a means upon which one can tap into the sacred act of creativity, in a way that is simple, immediate, personal, safe.

I suspect that one day, my adult children will find my drawer of journals—filled with prayers for them and their children, my friends and colleagues, my church and co-workers, my wife and our marriage; filled with sermon notes and Scripture references and quotes from scholars; filled with prayer-bathed future plans for ministry, family, retirement; filled with unfinished ideas for my next book or album; filled with deep and silly thoughts.

And doodles. Lots and lots of doodles.