The Making of a Prayer Journal - Part One

As I began last Wednesday talking about discipleship, this will be an explanation over the next few weeks on how we view discipleship and our J-Life ministry at Rainsville First Baptist.

We call it J-Life because we ask what would the life of Jesus look like being lived through me.

I want to begin with "How to Make a Prayer Journal."

Exodus 16:33 records how Israel was instructed to save two quarts of manna as a reminder of God's care for them in the wilderness.  I'm sure when generations would see the quarts of manna, questions would be asked and a reminder would be given of God's faithfulness to provide for the needs of His children.

It was a reminder....Oh how we need to be reminded of God's faithfulness in our lives.  He has been faithful and His acts in our life needs to be a constant source of faith that He will continue to be faithful.

This journal will also serve as a legacy to pass to your children and grandchildren.  They will read of your notes and prayer points showing them the faithfulness of God in your life.  Oh, what a blessing such journals would be to the next generation.

I love Southern Gospel music and there is no one greater of a writer and singer than Dottie Rambo.  She wrote, "Roll back the curtain of memory now and then. Show me where you brought me from and where I could have been.  Just remember I'm human, and humans forget. So remind me, remind me dear Lord."

We do forget what He's done and we need to be reminded.  One of the greatest ways to remember is through a journal.  So how do we begin?

I suggest two different types of journals or notebooks.  One to record our daily walk with God, sermon notes, and notes from other sources we want to "capture."  We will talk about this in later weeks.

Then the second notebook is a prayer journal. A 5 1/2 by 8 1/2 size is the best but anything can work.  There are many journals now being made and that is fine to use.  However, a prayer journal will change and you need flexibility to add sheets and remove sheets.  These journals produced are great to journal your time with God and sermon notes, but for an actual prayer journal, a loose-leaf notebook would be best.  But anything is better than nothing.

Get seven dividers and index tabs where you can create a section in your notebook for each day of the week.  Each section will be for prayer needs for which you regularly pray.  These are not just immediate needs (such as the prayer requests from your Sunday School class or a friend), but requests for which we should pray through on a regular basis.  

Here is a picture of my prayer journal just to give you an idea.

I will write next week about the seven tabs.