sow to the spirit challenge No. 3: prayer journaling

These last few weeks of winter it is my goal to offer three weeks of challenges to give us that needed bump of inspiration and energy to get us through to spring. It's been a mild winter and I am thankful. But the blahs and the blues of dreary, gray days still make me and my littles a bit restless and stir crazy and the math lessons seem to grow longer and harder, the reading a bit tedious. And who wants to read about science... we want to get outside and experience the re-birth of spring and get dirty! Thus the challenges...

He draws near to you in His word.

You draw near to Him in prayer.

-John Piper

This morning's Sow to the Spirit challenge is about prayer. The challenge is to [re]commit to prayer journaling during your daily study. There is sweet fellowship to be had with our Living God when we study His word intently, listen hard, and pray big prayers.

I shared on Tuesday about my method of studying scripture. The last portion of my study is prayer and I'm learning to pray specifically regarding the scripture I studied. I recently started “tagging” my entries in the margins of my page and tracking the tags on the first page of my journal so I can go back and reference my entries according to categories.

Ann at A Holy Experience has some extensive information on prayer journaling, writing prayer poems and tagging/tracking your entries:

Journaling as a Spiritual Discipline: An Act of Prayer (includes info on writing prayer poems)

Journaling as a Spiritual Discipline: How to Set up and Organize a Journal (includes info on tagging and tracking your entries)

Hurry is the death of prayer.

-Samuel Chadwick