As I’ve been exploring how to improve my prayer life this year, I’ve developed a prayer binder that has been immensely helpful to me. I’ve said it before, and it bears repeating: no system of prayer or prayer tool will produce a vibrant prayer life. A deeper prayer life will only develop if you get on your knees and pray. There have been months when, by the power of the Holy Spirit, I have been disciplined to get my hiney out of bed and USE the prayer binder in actual prayer. And there have been months when the prayer binder has gone unopened. It does very little good in that case. I hope these ideas might encourage you and inspire you to find a system that will facilitate a more vibrant and disciplined prayer life . . . just remember that this is a means, not the end.
In the past, I’ve used a spiral notebook to record prayers, leaving a couple of blank lines below each request to record the answer. It worked okay, but there were some requests that were answered fairly quickly, and others that were long-term requests. So I would have to start on page one and flip through the entire notebook to find the “active” prayer requests. It also did not incorporate the elements of praise, confession and thanksgiving.
So earlier this year, I switched to a prayer binder.
Those are my goals for 2010 in the front. Inside, I have a few hymns:
And these nifty tabs – Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Intercession.
There are 4 tabs in my Intercession section: Ongoing family needs, Ongoing needs of others, Temporary family needs, and Temporary needs of others.
And finally, a section to make notes about prayers or hymns that are meaningful to me in my prayer life. (Most of these notes come from The Valley of Vision
By the time I’ve gone through the entire binder, God and I have spent a nice bit of time together. It keeps me focused and on track, rather than offering a rote “Get me through this day, and please keep us healthy” and heading for the shower.
I’m going to address each these sections in their own post. But I will suggest one small, but important, aspect of my prayer binder to you. At the front of my intercession section, I have a weekly prayer list. I developed this list of people to pray for on each day of the week by listing all the individuals and groups I wanted to pray for over the course of the week, and then assigning each one to the day of the week. I left Sunday open for focused time on the rest of my intercession section, which lists short-term and long-term needs. Here’s a sample of what a weekly prayer list might look like:
If the idea of a whole binder is intimidating, maybe just one list like this could help focus your time with the Lord. Start big or start small, the important thing is to just do it. More to come!
You should submit this to the PCCA blog. Very helpful!
What a great idea. It is amazing how God directs each of us at different times to focus on details of our lives that need work. My whole summer has been focused on my prayer life. I was given a great book by a BSF group leader and I used it this summer. It has helped me pray God’s Word. The book is Before The Throne of God by Carol J. Ruvolo.
At the same time as I prayed at pre-prayer at church, one of my pastors set a great example for me on how to pray using God’s Words more and my own words less. God will direct us if we will listen and obey.
Thank you for putting this on Facebook. I probably would have never seen it otherwise.
~Monica~
Brilliant! Thanks for the tip. I have been looking for some structure in my life, and I think this tool might be just enough structure to help me along without feeling too legalistic or creating senseless guilt (when I don’t follow my neurotic organization ideas). Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for sharing! I’ve just recently started a prayer jourmal for each member of my family. Not sure how it’s going to work yet, so I’m excited to read about what is working for you. Looking forward to posts on each section of your notebook.