Prayer Journaling, Planning & Free Printables

What is Prayer Journaling?

Prayer Journaling is a visual way to connect with God by writing your prayers, thoughts and petitions in an organized fashion usually in a central location such as a book, binder, file folder, etc. Instead of having verbal prayer, it’s a written form of prayer. Think of it like a diary that holds your conversations with God.

Many people use prayer journaling because it creates a convenient and easy way to refer back to those conversations you have with God, to keep your prayers organized. Prayer journaling allows you to put your thoughts or questions down on paper creating a visual connection in prayer to God.

Here are just a few ways journaling can be helpful for prayer…

Requesting assistance.
Praising, showing gratitude.
Elaborating on a particular devotional or prayer.
Expanding on scripture or bible verses.
Jotting down questions.
Writing for inspiration.
General thoughts.
Professing.
Confession.
For accountability.
Keep track of thoughts.
Writing intentions for others.
Tracking prayer requests and needs.
Organizing your prayers.

Prayer Planning?

People have different ways they pray. Some people have a daily regimen set on how they pray. For these people, planning prayer is not really necessary because they know what they will be doing.

For instance, for the most part, I have a daily regimen I follow for my morning prayer time. It includes reading and reflecting on various prayers and daily devotionals that are pretty much set for my day. I don’t need to do much planning for my morning prayer time because it has a process. My resources for morning prayer are pretty consistent and usually do not change unless I add a book to our change out a book that has been completed or no longer applies to me in that particular season of prayer. My prayers are gathered from a plethora of resources and types of prayers: from the heart, from devotionals, from scripture, from reading particular books, from watching videos, from listening to podcasts, from journaling…the list is endless.

For others, they like to focus on a particular book of the bible or another resource such as a book outlining a bible study. This is when prayer planning can be of great benefit. It allows the participant to create a plan for which bible verses, scripture or study chapter they would like to cover within a week. It’s like creating a lesson plan for prayer. It helps keep you on track, organized on focused. It’s also a good way to hold yourself accountable for prayer!

To assist you, we have created a few different printable templates for your personal use.