So you’ve read some of principles for having a healthy prayer life (found here) and you have all of your materials set up for starting your prayer journal (read about that here)… today we are going to start filling up the journal with the things you want to pray for. I will include some pictures along the way of my journal, which just happens to be digital. If you are keeping a written journal with Post-It notes then you could fill that the same way.
Note: I am not suggesting that you put all of the same stuff in your journal that I do, but if you find some of it helpful then feel free to use anything you like!
Reminder: I do not pray for everything on each of my lists everyday. In many of my prayer lists I pray for one item or one person a day.
#1 Praise
The very first thing I do before I start praying is read one Psalm (unless its Psalm 119, then I don’t read the whole thing in one morning). As I read, I am specifically looking for things about who God is and what God does for which I can praise him. Then I simply reflect on that attribute/work and express my gratitude to God. I also have a list of attributes that I do the same thing with.
Below is a picture of this page in my prayer journal. The little dot to the left of each word is the last attribute I prayed for. After I have placed a dot next to each one, I then begin to erase them one by one as I pray through the list again.
#2 Confession
Next I confess sins to which I am prone. If there is something that I am feeling conviction over specifically then I might pray for that. But I also always reflect on one of the sins that I find easily entangling and then think and confess it. I keep Psalm 41:4 written at the top of the page and often pray it as my own prayer.
“Oh Lord, be gracious to me, heal me for I have sinned against you.”
Some of the sins I ponder and confess are…
Underestimating God’s holiness
Overestimating my own goodness
Pride
Unforgiveness
Selfishness
Complaining
Doubting God’s love and affection for me as displayed in Jesus
Not confessing my sins quickly
Self- Reliance
There are meany others as well. Take a few minutes each day to be reminded of the areas in your life that you need God to work on you. The word “confession” simply means “to agree with.” So I agree with God that these things are wrong and that I need a Savior, namely Jesus. This helps me to be mindful of things I need to work on regularly.
#3 Thanksgiving
This is easy and difficult all at the same time. The easy part is that I write down three things that I am thankful for. The hard part is not being overly repetitious in what I am grateful for. Ann Voskamp’s book titled One Thousand Gifts might be helpful if you struggle to find things to be thankful for. Once I fill the page then I erase it and start over. (It’s about impossible to get through the list without my wife’s name showing up on there several times!)
#4 Intercession
This is the page in my journal where I pray for myself. I start out by praying what John Piper refers to as his IOUS prayer. It goes something like this…
Incline my heart to you- Ps. 119:36
Open my eyes to see wonderful things in your Word- Ps. 119:18
Unite my heart to fear your name- Ps. 86:11
Satisfy me with your steadfast love- Ps. 90:14
After I pray that I have a list of things I work through one by one. I put character traits of Jesus that I want to emulate, the fruit of the Spirit from Galatians 5, prayers for daily provision, and anything else I want to pray for regularly here. And like all of my other lists, I reflect on and pray for one thing a day.
Conclusion
Take the opportunity to get these lists set up and begin praying through them. Resist the urge to over do it. We are going to add six more lists before we are done. You are more likely to get discouraged if you try to do too much.
Keep an eye out for another post next week where we will keep organizing and filling our prayer journals!