When you look at the early church Acts 2:42 (New International Version) 42They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. I have found myself challenged recently to spend more time in prayer. Prayer should connect us to the Living God. I have fallen in the trap of “pray without ceasing” such that I would ask for guidance from my Father throughout the day, but I would never really spend time praying for those around me, my church, my friends, my family, and not-yet believers. These prayers hadn’t really connected me with God. Often these spur of the moment prayers were simply about me and as I work to be more outwardly focused I needed to ad some tools to separate a specific part of the day and the week toward prayer.
The main discipline that I have started doing is simply writing out my prayers. This helps me to focus. So I have two specific prayer journals with a third notebook to write down prayer requests and those I have been prompted to pray for.
My first notebook is “Praying through the Psalms.” In this notebook I simply copy each verse from the text and then follow that with a written prayer. The Psalms are so rich and have a way of reminding you who really is in control. I find myself getting in the practice of praising God as well as lifting up my family in prayer during this time.
The second prayer notebook has an entirely outward focus. The tool that has made this notebook rich is some little notebooks that Beki purchased for me. Here is a link. They are incredibly small notebooks. They are small enough to carry around everywhere. I especially enjoy having it when I deliver bread to the apartments next to our church. When I meet someone for the first time I can write their name and address and maybe a little note about what we talked about or a prayer request. I also might write a name of someone that comes to mind throughout the day that I believe I should spend some time praying for later. That little notebook is simply a guide for my more focused prayer time later. I then use a larger moleskin style notebook to write out my prayers once again. Writing out prayers for whatever reason keeps me focused, more contemplative and frankly keeps me from falling asleep. It is also an amazing reference.
It seems to me that Spiritual Disciples are different for everyone. Praying is different for everyone. My hope is that by reading this you may get some ideas, but in the end find out what works well for you in your spiritual journey and your connection to the Living God.
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