-----Original Message----- From: Harry - United Kingdom
Sent: Sunday, December 28, 2003 5:58 PM
To: webservant@prayertower.net
Subject: prayer journal

can you suggest ways of keeping a prayer journal?

To me, a journal is similar to a spiritual diary. A diary will track your personal experience through life while a journal tracks what God is doing in your life and the lives of those for who you are called to intercede. I write down those things for which I pray and date them, leaving a lot of room beside those requests.

Next, I use "Scripture" prayer. That is, I ask God to supply references from the Bible by which I can pray his desire into those situations. I write down every verse he gives me. (I normally have my Bible open and beside me when writing in my journal.) I find God's response is often right there in the Bible when I need it and I'll write the verse down by my request.

Another method I utilize is "Doodle" Prayer. While reading the Bible I'll often find a verse that makes me think of something or someone. I believe the Holy Spirit is giving me a job to do at that point. I write that person or thing down leaving plenty of room all around it. I then read the verse with that prayer object in mind, transfering it to my picture. For example, "God is my refuge," can simply be drawn as a curved line over a stick figure. As I draw that line over and over, I pray that verse into the person's life. "God sustains us," could be recorded by writing the words, "food," "shelter" and "clothing" beside the image of the person. A circle drawn around them could indicate, "Lord protect them with your circle of grace and your ministering angels," as you draw smaller bubbles all around the larger circle. This is hard to describe, but I hope you get the picture. (sorry for the word play)

In simple terms, my journal is a prayer notebook. While everything I pray is not in my journal, it does help me stay focused on prayer needs around me. With hundreds of journal pages cataloged in my library covering previous years of prayer ministry, I enjoy going back and visiting those memories every now and again. It always leads me to pray about things I have forgotten.

Journalizing begins with a desire to remember what you've prayed. I'm not certain that keeping a consistent journal is a product of God granting a request as much as it my desire to recognize what he has done, is doing and will do through his promises. I urge you to carry your personal journal with you everywhere. (I use a three ring binder/calendar that holds a lot of blank notebook sheets.)

Ask God for desire; then do it - daily. You may not feel like doing it when you first pick up your journal, but I've found it's easier to concentrate when I write it down. Before long, you'll find you've written many pages and journalizing becomes a part of your spiritual walk with the Lord.

I leave you with this thought too. This is hard to do in a way, but I urge you to practice "time travel" prayer. That is, look to the future and pretend you're not there in person but with the Lord instead. Your loved ones are still on earth and so is your journal. In it you've prayed in advance for everything you can imagine claiming the promises of God's word. The fact you've prayed it is fantastic enough, but the possibility your written prayer will affect those coming behind you is greater still. Amen?

Praying for you brother! I hope this helps. WebServant