My Journey Through a Prayer Journal

Prayer journaling is something I’ve been doing for over a decade. I began in my early teen years, using it as a way for me to focus the same way I did in my quiet times, or my time alone with God. This was something I was taught to do in youth group at church by my youth minister who encouraged us to do this daily. He told us how much God wanted to spend time with us, and how it was like spending time with a trusted friend. He urged us to carve out time during our busy schedules of talking on the phone, doing homework, going to band practice and long days of school to spend time with our Maker.

Luckily, I listened. I began using the time just before bed every night to do just as my youth minister had inspired me to do. I remember my first prayer journal. My mom stuffed it deep inside my hand-knitted stocking at Christmas that year. I was 15, and had just gone through the worst year of my life. I was just starting high school, my freshman year. I had gone through what was, at that time and still is to this day, my most rebellious phase. Thanks to Godly parents, I was blessed to end those rebellious days right then and there, nipping my rebelliousness in the bud. Their influence and hard discipline steered me back onto the proper path.

Nevertheless, my first prayer journal was filled to the brim as I began my journey, not as a new Christian since I was saved as a young child, but as a revived Christian who finally understood what being Christian meant. It was at this time in my life that I began to understand that being Christian was more than just saying the right prayer, more than just a ticket to heaven, more than just going through the baptismal waters. I realized that it was about a relationship with someone, a very real Someone, the Savior of my life, the one who had died to wash away my sins, and wanted to help me through the ups and downs of life.

He wanted to help me understand why my rebellion was wrong, and He also wanted to give me the hope that I needed to face the days ahead. He wanted to guide me in avoiding the same temptations I had just succumbed to in the days prior and even tougher temptations that were still to come. He was going to be there with me for the long haul. But not only did I need to allow Him to do so, I needed to get to truly know Him. My prayer journal opened that door for me, allowing me to focus and share with someone who already knew me inside and out. I needed to be open to Him for my sake more than His.

This was the only way I was going to get to know Him, truly, deeply, as I needed to in order to be more like Him. I soon discovered this as the ultimate goal of Christianity, though it isn’t a goal we’ll ever fully reach. Our whole lives are a process of becoming more like Him, but it is a journey rather than a destination. We never stop becoming. He, Jesus Christ, is the only person who ever lived that is truly perfect and that’s how it will remain. However, He wants us to be more like Him, to get as close as we humanly can. This is why we continue to live for Him daily. Even though we will never reach perfection, at least not in this life, it is the journey that matters most.

There is, however, one thing we can reach. Through my hand-written journaled prayers, I have seen how God has guided me in every step toward the various milestones and places in my life that He had planned for me. I have seen His hand at work as I have fulfilled some of his plans and purposes for my life. Now, I can look back at a decade of hand-written prayer requests and see how He has slowly, over time, answered them.  Sometimes the answer was yes, and sometimes it was no. Still, sometimes it was sooner, while other times it was later. Nevertheless, He always answered.

It is inspiring to read prayers written during my teen years and realize they were answered even if it was years later. It is even more encouraging to see how God put together the pieces, helping me to yearn for His plan, rather than seeking my own desires. My own plans began to change as I continually poured out my heart to Him on the pages of a journal. At times my cries were quiet, while other times they were passionately desperate. Other times I would praise Him rather than putting out a list of requests, while others entries read more like a wish list than a conversation with my Savior. If you were to read the pages of my journals you would see the peaks and valleys of my relationship with my Lord. You would witness the growth and maturation of my faith. I remain in awe at how far I’ve come and how much different I am now than I was at the young, naive age of 15. Like most teens, I thought I had it all figured out. But now, like most adults, I know that I didn’t. I am thankful that I listened to my youth minister and gave God the time He deserved in my life.

I am also grateful for the blank, white pages of each journal that my mom bought me - each of them empty but filled with amazing potential. They were an open canvas to be filled with my words - words that described my hopes, my fears, my dreams, and my aspirations, all of which I can now see God’s hand in, making my faith in Him today, greater than ever before. All because I took the time to spend some time writing notes to my Savior on the pages of a prayer journal.

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