The Need to Keep a Prayer Journal

The biblical account of David and Goliath is one of the few Bible stories the world of unbelievers know (1Samuel 17). And it's about conquering faith. At one time or another, all of us have faced our Goliath or two. Whether our "giant" is in human form or just another one of our seemingly overwhelming situations, if we are to be victorious like David, we must trust our Lord to see us through the challenges (Ps 23). And when we keep a written record of our personal histories with the Lord, we will discover for ourselves that God is faithful to us.

David trusted God because his past experiences with Him proved He was faithful ... the young shepherd could recall God giving him victory over a lion and a bear that threatened the flock of sheep under his care (1Sam 17:34-36). Our fledgling faith is strengthened in a similar manner by reading how the Lord protected men and women of the Bible ... but it's strengthened even more by our remembrance of His provision in our own lives. How many meals has God forgotten to feed us? How many nights have been spent out under the stars because God failed to provide us shelter? This is one of the best arguments for keeping personal prayer journals. Most of us have often tried to keep a prayer journal, but if you're like me, no matter how great the effort and intention, we keep losing interest. But we should keep trying or just stay faithful if we've been successful, because it's the one place we can return to and be strengthened by our own writings of the knowledge that God has proven trustworthy to us in the past. If we keep a journal of God's faithfulness to us, we can jog our memories with a look back in our very own lives. Yes, journaling has a definite place in the lives of believers and we should endeavor to keep our own records of our God's dealings with us. All those times when we've sent a quick prayer heavenward and been rewarded with an answer need to be written down and preserved so we can find the reason for our faith (that God Himself is Faithful) when the need arises.

Trust in the Lord, in what He can and will do for us, is what gives us the courage to face our "giants" each day and being so armed with our journals we can respond to challenges on the basis of three important truths:

1. Who we are in Christ ... an adopted child of God, legally entitled to an equal share of the inheritance, eternally secure in our salvation, and indwelt by the empowering Holy Spirit.
2. Who Christ is in us ... our Savior, Provider, and Sustainer.
3. What we have in Christ ... the promise of instant access to Almighty God the Father.

Keeping a journal provides us a place for our struggles. When we are pressed in on all sides and can't resolve our emotions or can't distinguish what is troubling us, we can go to our journals and write it all out before the Lord. We can chronicle our troubles and see that He is amazingly faithful to provide us with the answers we need but are otherwise unable to find on our own. It's a record of our personal walk with God, the day in and day out, where-the-rubber-meets-the-road kind of record that we will find ourselves returning to time and time again. It's where we will see God's faithfulness to us and the assurance that He will always be active in our lives, that He cares, that He will always be there when we need Him and that He will never let us down. Often it's only in the looking back at our writings that we will see things clearly and can determine just where God intervened in our lives to bring about the best results for us. Notice I said best results. I intentionally wrote that because the answers to our prayers may not be the answers we were hoping for but they will always be the best things for us in the long run. We may even pray for something we think we need only to be relieved later that God didn't answer our prayer in the way we had been hoping. And looking back on it we can see that God did answer our prayer, just not in the way we had asked for it. We may have even felt deprived at the time, only to fully understand later on that God's way will always be the best way. But even when we don't come to that realization, we can look back at what we've written and see that God's faithfulness can be counted on.

How do we go about journaling? There isn't just one way to journal. There are probably as many different ways to journal as there are people to write them. I use mine to record my feelings on various matters. I'm a very emotional person and am sometimes so full of conflicting emotions that only by writing them down will I discover how things really are. Our minds can get so confused that we become paralyzed, unable to move forward in a knowledgeable way. Journaling can help us in this effort. I use my journal also to keep a record of things that are so easily forgotten. God can be trusted. He does answer prayer. He is faithful, honest, and true. He can be counted on to be there when no one else is around. He can be counted on when everyone else has abandoned us. He may not always prevent bad things for happening, but He will always be there with us to hold our hands and walk forward with us through the difficult times and these incidents need to be recorded for our own benefit in the future when we need something or Someone to cling to.

Our journals needn't be a boring account of every little thing that happens in our lives. They are just the place where we can record the important things, the things that will benefit us in the future should we ever have to face such a situation again. They are a place we can go to where we can be brutally honest with ourselves. It's just God and us and there is nothing we can write that will shock Him. He already knows more about the situation than we do so we might as well be truthful when we journal. There are no requirements to journaling other than to be honest with ourselves and with God. There are no rules, no set design, no do's and don't's. Just write. Not necessarily as much to write about happenings as it is to write out our reactions to these happenings.

We, as believers, can be victorious when we affirm and reaffirm that the Lord who resides inside us by His Holy Spirit, is making us adequate for the situation. He is faithful and when we depend upon our God and can read the recorded answers to our prayers in the past, we will likewise conquer our Goliaths in the present and future. Journaling is a way of building an intimate record of God's intervention in our lives and a place to record His faithfulness for the future.

We had a very big scare over the weekend. Kayla wrecked her car but thankfully she wasn't hurt too badly. Mostly just sore and beat up from the air bags and seat belt. It was real scary because the woman who called Ken just said that she had been involved in a really bad accident and that she had been talking to her but she was then unconscious. And that's all we knew other than that she was in an ambulance enroute to the hospital going code 3. That shook me up hearing that ambulance go by me and knowing she was inside it. But God was faithful and good and He prevented further injury to her. She has a couple small cuts on her face from the broken windshield but no other physical injures other than her soreness as I've mentioned. But she felt good enough to go with me to church the next morning and evening. She just moved a little slower than usual. She'll take off a few days from work and be none the worse for wear. How she's going to get to and from places is going to be a challenge until she can get another vehicle. But we're all just so grateful and praising God for His mercy toward us.

I'm going to let this be it for now. I've got several things needing to be done today and I better get busy or I won't get them all done. I have no other news to write about right now anyway. And I'm not going to take the time to go back and proofread this so hopefully I did a good job as I went because you're going to get it, mistakes and all. So until tomorrow...