It took so long. I should have done this years ago, so many years ago. All my sporadic journaling and occasional prayer poems and (often unkept) promises to pray for various friends of mine. All my lazy days of not reading my Bible. All those days I pray sort of generically because I end up forgetting half of the things I meant to pray about. All of them... are maybe gone, at least on the way to being solved.
I decided to keep a prayer journal. Sounds weird, I know. But it's going to be more than just a list of prayer requests I have, or dearly-desired dreams that I beg God to fulfill.
This is a place to keep track of when I read Scripture, maybe how much I read, definitely a place to jot down important things from the reading. It's a place for me to craft my own words, in imitation of Scripture, into prayers that are not just spur-of-the-moment. A prayer is a speech to a King, and we should sometimes use care and effort, time and beauty, to make that speech as fitting as possible for its audience. And this journal is a place to keep a log of items prayed for, the thanks and the petitions, side by side and day by day.
This is, I hope, going to be instrumental in getting and keeping me on track with an actual prayer life and Bible study. I need that. I need to get that rhythm into my soul, into my life, into my daily routine. A few minutes of time, a book, a pen, the Word of God and the words He has given me are my tools. Let them work well and faithfully through me.
