Prayer Journal Format — February 2021

Above is a photo of about forty years of my prayer journaling, compiled by year—great for writing notes—but mostly a detailed account of my walk with God. About five years per binder.

Many folk have trouble journaling. They start and stop—all those words and paragraphs just bog them down. My prayer journal is a series of lists I make in the morning and evening and sometimes in the middle of the day. It is a record of 40 years (since I first started) of my relationship with God—the good and the bad of it. This has been a format that has helped many. If it helps you, that pleases me.

1. Record the Date and Place
These are simply identifiers so that when you look back over the journals, you have a context.

2. “Lord, I Praise You For…”
(That You are a God who is in control, is interested in the minutiae of our living … etc)
I then freeform and record any ideas that fit with the character quality of God on which I have chosen to center my praise. Right now, I am praising God that He is the Master-gardener.

3. The God Hunt
This is how I saw You work in my life today (or yesterday). See the book The God Hunt (read the Book Corner for more info). If you’d like a copy, email me at Karen@hungrysouls.org. Or call the Mainstay office at 630-293-4500. Price is $10 per hardcover copy, or $6/each if you order six or more.

4. Confession and Forgiveness
For myself and others. This kind of clears out the closets of my soul. Do it daily. Sometimes I write in code, but most of the time, everything is on the pages. I confess my own sins, ask for forgiveness, and forgive the sins of those who have erred against me.

5. Quotes and Scripture Portions
I write out the Scriptures and quotes from devotional readings that strike me. Reading back through my journals is often a rich feast of remembering.

6. “I Need Help With…”
These are the details and minutiae of my living. I need help with most everything. I list the daily need, then go back in the columns and jot a note when the help comes (sometimes in amazing ways!).

7. “I Remember the Needs of…”
  a. On Monday, I intercede for family.
  b. On Tuesday, for our church and the Church in the world.
  c. On Wednesday, I pray for creative people in the secular art forms.
  d. On Thursday, I pray for our ministries.
  e. On Friday, I pray for the world.
  f. On Saturday, I lift up Sunday services and begin to participate in a Sabbath-keeping practice.

8. Reviewing and Checking Off Answered Prayers
The joy of keeping this record is that it provides me with a means of capturing all the ways God works in our lives. My journal has little notations where prayers have been answered; then I write out more succinctly in my “God Hunt” section what God has done for me.

Of all the spiritual practices that have most formed my life, keeping a prayer journal has been, by far, one of the most dramatic in its impact.

I’m planning to practice Going on a God Hunt for the first part of this year. I’ll use this Soulish Food platform to remind others of what David Mains and I have designed that has helped literally thousands of believers to know God more thoroughly and to recognize His work in their everyday lives. This is a GREAT spiritual discipline to pass along to new Christians or to younger family members. That reason is that it’s framed as a spiritual game. It is based on the whole seeking-and-finding principle that inhabits much of our living. What’s learned with pleasure is learned full measure.

Let’s see if we can discover all the ways that God shows up!

Karen Mains

Reminder!

The Soulish Food e-mails are being posted biweekly on the Hungry Souls Web site. Newcomers can look that over and decide if they want to register on the Web site to receive the biweekly newsletter. You might want to recommend this to friends also. They can go to www.HungrySouls.org.

Karen Mains

BOOK CORNER

THE GOD HUNT
by Karen Mains

To buy The God Hunt, email Karen@hungrysouls.org or call 630-293-4500. Price is $10/copy, but if you order six or more, we will reduce the price to $6/copy.

We have about 20 boxes of The God Hunt in our garage. They are doing NO ONE any good sitting on those shelves! You may want to order in quantities for gifts to friends and family, or as a resource, such as for a study group.

If a stalled car, with a dead motor, immoveable and intractable, can be a sign of God’s tender care and love, then think how many divine and caring incidents are missed each day when we don’t pay attention.

Finding God incognito in the world... is delight. It is joy. It is wonder. It is a childlike, wiggling anticipation that somewhere, any moment, just around the next corner, when you least expect it, the Divine is going to jump out ... and you are going to respond, "GOTCHA!"

Join Karen Mains on the God Hunt—a playful and profound way to seek and find those seemingly ordinary moments when God intervenes in your life with guidance, care and help.

You'll find such moments happen more than you think! And you'll be drawn into deeper communion with God as you tune in to the many ways He answers prayer, shows evidence of His love, helps you do His work in the world and "works all things together for good."