My oldest daughter Courtney gave this guided prayer journal to me for Christmas 2018. I just this week finished it. It's a wonderful tool for prayer journaling which is still rather new to me.
The book is a challenge to journal, pray, reflect/meditate, and connect with God.
It's divided into 7 sections: Requests, Gratitude, Lament, Intercession, Faith, Repentance, Awe
Each section begins with a reading and a Scripture verse to meditate on and that is explained. Each section has 7 weeks of a Scripture, a short reading, and then two prompts for journaling/prayers. Sometimes the prayer prompt is very specific and other times it is more general. A few of the prayer prompts ask you to first look up a Scripture and then journal about it.
For example: Section Two is Gratitude with the Scripture of Hebrews 12:28&29. Week 8 (the first reading) in that section is titled Be Thankful and the Scripture to meditate on for that week is Psalm 100:4. The first prompt is "how can you begin praying with a grateful heart?" and room to journal your answer. The second prompt is "list 3-4 characteristics of God that stand out to you and why you're thankful for them." and a large space to journal that answer.
I love that it's divided into sevens (the number of God!).
This was a wonderful way to stay focused on my daily prayer time. I'm much more comfortable with prayer when I have something specific to either pray for or about.
My favorite part of the journal was the Gratitude and Awe sections. I thought it a bit odd that the author didn't start out with the Awe section since our model for prayer is to begin by worshiping God for Who He is. But it was last. Perhaps the author started with requests because most of us, especially when we are new in the faith, begin talking with God and telling him our needs and wants.
In any case, I highly recommend this prayer journal for ages 14 and older and for any stage of your Christian walk.
I plan on keeping my journal and will refer back to it to see how some of my prayer requests have been answered and to reflect on what I was thinking about. I did add the dates at the top of each day when I went through the book.
There are 52 weeks total and like I said there are 7 weeks for each section. It took me a little over a year to complete this journal though because I had forgotten to pack it during our summer vacation and again when we were away at the end of August. But it's doable in one calendar year.
On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the highest, I rate this a 10.
3 comments:
I love this! It is sometimes a challenge to stay focused in prayer, just like with meditation. I have a wandering mind. Sounds like this would be a good help. WIll look for it. I wonder if Barnes and Noble has it. I still have a Christmas gift card there! Have a good weekend.
I was confused over the timing and the contents of the book until I realised I'd missed it was for Christmas 2018! Well done on your achievement.
I have never seen this around but then since our Christian book shop closed down I miss out on a lot of good stuff like this.
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