How To Keep a Prayer Journal: Tips and Ideas to Deepen Your Faith

Do you keep a prayer journal? I don’t, and I wondered how to begin. Here’s some tips and ideas we gathered.

Why should you keep a Prayer Journal?

We likely all have different reasons for keeping a prayer journal,

or as is my intention, keeping a prayer journal page in my Organizer Binder.

My reasons? Lately I’ve been unmotivated in prayer.

The day begins in a hurry, and continues to speed up until the evening hours, and not enough thought has been given to prayer.

Now we know the Word tells us to pray without ceasing, and that, I tell myself, is what I do.

I pray on the run. Every time I have a thought for someone, I sigh a prayer. I hear a news flash, and pray in my mind for the victims. And the day goes on. With no time for meditative, down-on-my-knees prayer.

And that’s a hard thing to admit. Why would a grandma, so indebted to a great God, neglect having lots and lots of meaningful prayer life? We used to think grandmas could rock and knit and pray all day long. I haven’t arrived there yet.

But I mean to do better.

Effectual, Fervent Prayer

Effectual, fervent prayer consists of several important points:

1. What is God asking me to pray about today?
2. Find a scripture that applies to the concern He places on your heart.
3. Meditate on the scripture, and let the thoughts flow into your spirit.
4. What do your meditations make you thankful for?
5. How could these meditations apply to your life?
6. Who does God want you to keep in your prayers?
7. Form your prayer (write it down) from the fulness of your heart.

We won’t have as much time to go through this process every day as we’d like, but maybe once a week we could pencil in a time block for voicing (on paper) the deep things God shares with us.

Those notes can influence our prayer time until the next time we journal. And every scripture we choose to read as the days go by will add to the meditations we wrote down. If you don’t fill out the prayer section completely you can add to it as these new ideas come along.

This is really intuitive to anyone who prays regularly. But it helps me to vocalize why and how I should pray. It brings an urgency to my heart, keeping effectual prayer in the forefront, not relegating it to a quickie on my knees now and then.

Let’s Craft a Prayer Journal

Here’s a list of items to consider to begin your prayer journal:

• I love this A5 size Binder with floral line art on a fabric cover
• Stickers
• A favorite pencil or pen, watercolor pencils or paint, paintbrushes, water and blotting paper.

Prepare a special place in your home
for your quiet time.
A comfortable chair, convenient lamp,
a candle or essential oil diffuser,
a cozy throw and a soft pillow.
Be sure the side table has room for
a cup of coffee, your Bible,  journal
and other necessary supplies. 

How do you set up your prayer space?

Share what you have in your prayer space that makes it special and inspirational for you.