A Prayer Journal

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

I am taking diakonia, a two-year course of study on Christianity and Christian service offered by a few of the synods of the ELCA. One of the recommendations that was made in my most recent class, coming from Bill Hybels's “Too Busy Not to Pray,” was to maintain a prayer journal. I've never been much for journals or diaries, but the suggestion was noted. We've also studied Dietrich Bonhoeffer's “Life Together,” in which Bonhoeffer suggested the praying of the Psalms as means of learning healthy prayer habits and structure.

Entirely coincidentally, my congregation has recently begun singing the Psalms again. I was asked to lead the responsive singing of the Psalms at our early service, making me de facto cantor. With this public role necessarily comes an increased respect for, and attentiveness to, the Psalms.

I've always been envious of contemplatives, and other people whose lives permit them adequate, defined, time and space to pray, study, etc. It hardly seemed possible for someone who lives a life that has as much chaos around it as mine does to satisfy, even in the most permissive sense, the injunction of 1st Thessalonians to pray without ceasing.

Finally, I recently read A. J. Jacobs's, "A Year of Living Biblically," in which he describes his experience in trying to live a prayer-filled life for a year, the extent to which he succeeded, and how doing so impacted his life.

This was a “perfect storm” for me. Although I've always enjoyed Bible study, I've never been much more than mechanical in my prayers, so I decided to do a mashup of Hybels's and Bonhoeffer's strategies. I'm going through the Psalms sequentially, one per day, praying them (or at least reading them slowly and with comprehension), and journaling as I go.

For me, this is working.

Some days, the journal entry is just a citation, e.g., Psalm 17. With increasing frequency, though, I write a longer entry, sometimes because the Psalm of the day seemed to speak to something that is happening in my life, and sometimes just because. And I now find myself much more inclined to pray at odd times of the day, and my prayers seem more flexible and certainly more spontaneous.

Peace