prayer journal

Virtual communication has superseded verbal communication today, in a similar way to how communicating with God has evolved. 

We talk about God more than we talk to Him. Technology gives us access to many good articles, websites, and e-sources to help us in our relationship with Him. Our lack of time, however, makes it easier for us to focus on these rather than on the relationship itself. After all--and I'm guilty of this!--it only takes so long to read an article. Five minutes or less is enough for the average article nowadays. In one click and a few rapid scrolls we can get an espresso shot of insight and wisdom, and feel that we've 'done something about our spiritual life' for the day. As a healthy marriage requires time with each other, rather than individual studies of even the most helpful marriage counselling books, we need to change this mentality. 

(On a side note--yes, I'm aware how ironical this blog post is!) 

One of the most important and most neglected ways to 'grow spiritually' is prayer. 
Ouch. 
In today's fast-paced lifestyle, the mere idea of sitting still, keeping your eyes closed, or your hands clasped, seems agonizingly stagnant and static. Even though there are so many ways we can incorporate prayer into our schedule; on the treadmill, on the road, on the bus, (amen to that!) in the kitchen, over the sink...all the same, prayer is something most of us know we regularly neglect everyday. 

Ironically, one of the biggest reasons for this neglect--besides the delusion that it requires a solid block of unfettered time where we can sit in perfect hermit-like isolation, cool and cross-legged a la a yoga advertisement--is that there are so many things to pray about. It overwhelms us, especially when we feel we've only got five minutes to pray.

How can we possibly squeeze everything into five minutes?? We can't! Let's just avoid the whole issue and settle for a brief superficial Dear Lord, thank You for everything please help me to do everything I have to do today and keep me close to You Amen. 


If we had an empty morning to ourselves, preferably on an isolated mountain top with lots of green and perhaps a waterfall or two in the background, ah, then we could really pray, we tell ourselves. 


But since we don't--and it seems quite likely we never will--we need to have a sense of structure in our prayer.

Don't misunderstand me. 
Prayer should be, ideally, spontaneous and natural and uninhibited. When someone first suggested that I keep a prayer schedule, I was outraged. Perhaps with an instinctive knowledge of my go-getter, list-maker mentality, it seemed to me like a death blow to the ideal of prayer itself. Mechanized, automated, so horribly and meaninglessly structured. You might as well tell me to plan how to start loving someone. I had a very Dickensian reaction to this seemingly Gradgrindian proposal. 

But having started from that extreme, I've since changed my mind. In the constant struggle to maintain prayer in the 21st century lifestyle, I feel that a schedule of some sort is important in making any progress, or enabling any perseverance in prayer. 
Based on your context, lifestyle, personality, and even prayer items, your prayer schedule will, and should, vary. Some people have incredibly organized and precise schedules that specify what day, what topic, what particular request. Others have a much more flexible approach, more like a basic format of organization. Wary of my personality's bent, I'm trying to keep to this, encouraging prayer time to remain spontaneous and natural instead of becoming a list of boxes to be ticked. 

Even at such a simple level, this has helped me so much, I would like to share it here. It may be a very obvious idea to some of you, probably more mature Christians who have experience and wisdom. But, remembering how only a few years ago this was something I had to learn through sheer trial and error (I've been through both extremes of the hyper-organized and the hyper-flexible approach to prayer), I hope it will be helpful to some, at least, who want to do something about prayer but don't know how, short of a major restructuring of their lives. (and if you don't have time to pray as much or as well as you would like, I'm guessing you probably don't have the time for that either.) 


My prayer journal is a notebook I throw into my schoolbag on weekdays, and reinstall on my shelf on the weekend. It undergoes quite a lot of wear and tear from being fished out and chucked back so many times on the bus, on the way to classes. (Note to self: invest in a hardier notebook, or else a real leather book cover for protection. From the current state of my prayer journal I'm soon going to have to deal with bits of flaking grey synthetic leather. Ugh.) You could always do a high-tech equivalent on your phone, I'm sure--but keep in mind how easy it is to get distracted by social media notifications, emails, or texts. 

Every now and then--annually at the least, or else whenever I feel it's no longer relevant--I take time to reorganize my prayer schedule. 
There are several items that don't change: Myself. Family. My church. Friends. Specific people I'm praying for. Salvation for certain people. Missionaries, leaders, world events.  
Recently I've taken to organizing them a little differently, into Salvation (unbelievers), Spiritual Life (Christians), Prayer Requests (people I'm praying for), Me--in the roles and life You've given me, and as Your child.  There is a special one for thanksgiving as well, to remember answered prayer. 
You may not use the same format, of course. I suggest though, the simpler the better, especially when you first start. 

What I like about this method is that you choose whatever category you feel most drawn to pray for that day--it formats all those prayer items into manageable 'servings', so you don't feel overwhelmed, or guilty for forgetting to pray for that person you said you would. (aha! we've all been there, haven't we?) Most of all, it gives you what I call 'largeness of mind' (aka mental space) which is more tied up with heart space (the 'largeness of heart' that the Bible often talks about) than we often realize. When our minds are full of what we haven't done and what we need to do, we feel overwhelmed and unable to care for anything or anyone beyond our immediate circumstances. I don't even have time to pray for the salvation of my family, or for my spiritual life. Let alone Syrian refugees or that lonely girl people whisper about. Mentally, we feel harassed and frustrated and overwhelmed--and our hearts close up simultaneously...

Isn't it?

And God, knowing this, calls us to lay our burdens on Him--through prayer. Ironically, what a vicious cycle we sometimes make of this...






Psalm 119:32 ...For You shall enlarge my heart.