Today we are going to finish setting up our prayer journals. If you haven’t read the first 3 posts on why a prayer journal is helpful to me, what you need to get one going, and how to start getting one set up… then you should start there. Here are the links to Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

Last week you should have set up four pages in your journal on Praise, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Intercession. Today will will finish making the remaining pages in our journals.

#5 Family

I have this portion of my family broken up into two parts. First I pray for my wife. I pray the IOUS prayer that was mentioned in the previous post. I pray that my love, affection, and delight in her would grow every day. Then I have a list of things I pray for, and these I pray through one each day. As stated last week, I put a mark next to the one I prayed for today. Once they have all been marked I pray through them one by one and erase the marks that I had previously made.

Next I pray for my children, again praying the IOUS prayer for them. I pray that they they would be disciplined in their Bible reading and prayer, that they would have Godly friends that point them to Jesus, and various other things for them. Again, I don’t pray for every kid every day. I pray for them one by one. I also pray for other family members at this time.

#6 Petition

Petition is a generic list of prayers that people have asked me to pray for. If you come to me and ask me to pray for you it is likely to go on this list. As a rule, this sections is filled with request that are more short term. Long term requests go in another spot, I will explain that later. But if people are having surgery, going to a job interview, or any other request that has a time limit, I put it here. I do not limit myself to one request per day here, I usually pray for 3-4.

#7 Evangelism

This list is the simply the names of people that I am praying will come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. It could be friends, family, neighbors, or anyone I am asked to pray for. I typically pray for 1-2 per day from this section of my prayer journal.

#8 Missionaries

Here I keep the names, location, ministry, and specific requests of missionaries and individuals that are support by my church or my family. Be sure to get regular updates from your missionaries and put their requests here. Then you can pray for one each day and pray with their specific requests in mind.

#9 My Church

Finally I pray for my church. Below is a picture of the first part of my prayer journal. At the top is a section of requests that are more short term requests. This is followed by a section of characteristics that I think the church should have/display.

In the first section I pray that the church would gospel centered, that we would be an evangelizing church, that the church would be marked by peaceful relationships, and that my ministry here would have a fruitful and joyful start (I have been at Trinity for less that three months at the writing of this post). The more long term requests are high views of God, obedience, humility, etc. In each of these sections I pray for 1-2 items a day.

After I have prayed for these things I pray for one elder, one staff member, and one ministry per day.

While I don’t keep it in my prayer journal, I also have a pictorial directory of the people in my church. Each page of the directory has eight families listed. I pray for one page per day. I use post it notes in this directory to keep track of the specific requests of each family.

Between these two things I get to pray for the church generally, but I also get to regularly pray for every family in my church as well!

#10 Answers

This is important as it is really encouraging to see develop over time. But when there is something that I have been praying for specifically and regularly that God chooses to answer according to my asking, I put that it in here. It is amazing to see how faithful God is to us, both in answering according to how we ask and answering according to his wisdom!

Conclusion

So to sum it all up… I read a Psalm, work through my prayer journal, and then when I am done with that I do my Bible reading for the day. All in all it takes me about an hour to an hour and fifteen minutes.

As a last recommendation I would commend a little book to you called “The Valley of Vision.” It is a small book that is a collection of puritan prayers that was compiled by Arthur Bennet, an Anglican Priest. When my prayers feel anemic and repetitious, this little volume has served to often breathe substance in my prayers. I will often pray slowly through one prayer a day, using the prayers of saints who have gone before me to help inform my prayers.

I hope this series of posts serves to strengthen your prayer life like it has mine.