Have you ever used writing prompts?
My friend and I were using some this past Monday night when I realized I should make some prompts to use in my prayer time with my prayer journal. I just got this cute notebook last week and it’s been working great as a prayer journal. It has three different sections. The first section I’ve dedicated to prayer requests and answered prayers, the second section is for Bible verses, and the last section is for written prayers.
If you are like me and want to improve your prayer life too, I would definitely encourage you to find a notebook to dedicate to prayer. It’s helping me already! If you are new to prayer journaling or you need some fresh ideas…keep reading! The following prompts can be used in your prayer time, whether written or spoken -it’s totally up to you.
31 Prompts for Your Prayer Time
1) Your goals and plans for this month (What do you hope to accomplish this month? Ask God to help you align your goals and plans with His.)
2) A sin (or sins) you need to confess
3) A person you have a hard time loving
4) A prayer to your Heavenly Father from His daughter -you! (God is your Heavenly Father, say or write a prayer to Him as a daughter to her loving Father.)
5) Three decisions you need to make
6) A prayer for your church
7) Someone who needs salvation
8) Our government and political leaders
9) A miracle you want to see God perform
10) A friend who needs prayer
11) Your future husband
12) A fruit of the Spirit you are lacking
13) A prayer for your family members
14) Something you feel guilty about
15) Boldness to shine for Him
16) Something that is on your heart and mind today
17) Something you need
18) Someone who is sick or elderly
19) A fear you need to face
20) A prayer for your pastor
21) Something that makes you angry or bitter
22) Your worries for today, this week, or this month
23) A missionary family
24) A foreign mission field
25) A prayer using Scripture
26) A prayer for someone in need
27) A thank you for Salvation and Christ’s resurrection (March 27 is Easter Sunday!)
28) A prayer for your role model
29) An area of your life that needs victory
30) Something you need to do
31) Anything you want to talk to God about today (It’s the last day… Just chat with God!)
How I am using these prayer Prompts
Starting on March 1st (that’s this coming Tuesday!) I am going to challenge myself to pray everyday using these prompts. March has 31 days which is why I came up with 31 prompts. Even if I don’t write all my prayers, I can still use these prompts in my spoken prayers or the ones I just simply say in my head. Would you like to join me?
Here is a special image with all 31 prompts to “pin” or save to your device. Feel free to share it with others! (You can find a printable on my resources page as well.)
I Would Love to Know
- Do you like to write your prayers?
- Do you plan to use these prompts this coming month?
Feel free to share your answers in the comments! I ♥ hearing from my readers!
I’ll join you in the challenge during March! 🙂 I really liked your prompts; many of them end up in my prayers, but some of them don’t, and some I don’t pray for enough. I do enjoy writing my prayers out–not all of them, of course, or even a prayer time in its entirety, but I do write them down, or at least portions of them. As a writer, I find that it helps me when I’m really struggling with something, or especially burdened about a specific person or thing, as words come from me easier from my pen than my mouth sometimes. 😉
http://www.victoriaminks.com
Great! I think this is really going to be a great way to grow in prayer and walking with Jesus! The biggest reason why I write my prayers is to keep my mind focused! 🙂
These are great prompts! I never write prayers, mainly because our church doesn’t believe in written prayers for reading/and or reciting, and things like that, so I personally don’t do it either. But we do have prayer requests! So I could always use these prompts when I say my prayers, and journal my answered prayers for encouragement! Wonderful post!
Thank you! Yes, these prompts definitely don’t need to be used with written prayers…they are for any way you choose! 🙂
Oh yes I agree definitely! It could be used in any way! 🙂 I’m super curious now 🙂 I read your post for “4 Women of the Bible Every Young Woman Should Study,” and I saw your prayer in there, and today’s post has intrigued my interest since I’ve been a follower of your blog for a while. Does your church teach written and reciting prayers? I read the post you wrote about yourself, and I could not remember if you specified denomination /religion you are when you talked about your church, like “Pentecostal, Catholic, etc. ” 🙂 and it sounded like something I’ve heard that some religions do, but I’m not familiar with them all!
I am a Baptist 🙂 My dad is actually the assistant pastor where I go to church :). My written prayers are simply my thoughts and prayers to my Heavenly Father, that’s it. I don’t usually read prayers as I have a hard time applying those to my life, but I do find them helpful sometimes. I guess I am a little confused as to why written prayers would be a problem? Maybe if you explained what your church believes and what kind of church you attend I would understand better?
They’re not a “problem,” it’s just sort of a new concept I was curious about. I go to a non-denominational church I guess you’d say, and we were taught in church to take requests to the Lord in prayer, but never to read our prayers already pre-written, to avoid it being like a ritual. To try to explain it, the Holy Spirit should direct your heart in prayer, and be personal between us and the Heavenly Father. Where I’ve learned in other religions that prayers are recited out of prayer books, and you follow pre-written things. That’s all, I was just curious with this post, I had mixed feelings and was just trying to clarify! I am so sorry if I offended you, they are really great ideas! 🙂
Oh no worries… you did not offend me one bit 🙂
What you were asking makes a bit more sense now! Once I have written the prayer I don’t usually read it out loud or anything. What I write is personal between me and God. I see what you mean about other religions and recited prayers… there definitely is a distinct difference between “saying prayers” and having a personal relationship with God. I feel that writing out my prayers can help me in my walk with God and that’s why I sometimes journal/write them. I hope that makes more sense! 🙂
I will probably make a “What I Believe” page sometime in the near future. Sometimes I forget that my readers don’t know me personally and may be uncertain or confused about what I really do believe. I hope if you have any other questions you won’t be afraid to ask! 🙂
I am like January, we do not write prayers, or do reciting or anything in our church or at home like you might, but I could incorporate these ideas and modify it to something that would work for me! Great ideas! I’m always looking for inspiration!
I hope the prompts are helpful… use them however works best for you! ♥
I’ve never written my prayers before, but your post has me inspired to try! I love your prompts and plan on using them. I love how in-depth you go! This is a great way to cover more areas of life in prayer.
<3
Hi Cate, I am glad you would like to give it a try! It helps me stay focused so much more! Thanks for commenting 🙂
Thank you for the ideas! I will be doing your challenge as well. 🙂
I really enjoy your blog! It’s a blessing and encouragement. 🙂
You are welcome… I’m glad you will join in the challenge as well! :). Thank you for your encouraging comment! 🙂
These are amazing, I have done less intense version before. I really like your style of writing with art. Good bless
Thank you Lesia. I hope they are a help to you!
I love to write my prayers sometimes! I feel like it’s emptying all my worries into God’s hands, even though just talking to Him is the same, really. I am so excited about these prayer prompts, and I have pinned them! I will definitely be using them, so thank you! 😀
I am so glad you like the prayer prompts… And I am even more excited that you will join in on the challenge!! Thanks for pinning them as well :). Have a lovely day!!
I love the idea of writing your prayers, even though I’ve never done it! I do want to say something to others who are asking about the “written prayers”, though. I do understand that there are some religions who have a prayer for different situations, like a pre-written, pre-made prayer. I personally believe that those are not right! Because it’s just a ritual and there’s nothing personal about them. However, what Rebekah is talking about, writing out YOUR personal prayers, not reciting something in a ritualistic way, is completely fine, in my opinion! I can see where the confusion can come from, so I just wanted to help out and clarify. But this isn’t my blog, so please don’t take my opinions as the same as Rebekah’s! lol
Thank you for taking time to explain this, Elizabeth! Believe it or not I was going to post a general comment last night saying almost the same things (even down to the disclaimer at the end) but my comment got interrupted by a quick run for Friday night pizza for the family. 😄
My two cents: praying on paper is really no different from praying aloud, or even silently like Nehemiah did. Our hearts are communicating with God whether the thoughts are verbalized, written down, or even left unspoken (those times when we don’t even know how to put our thoughts into words!) The real issue, to me, is whether our prayer IS from our hearts—unembellished, unscripted, and unassuming (dependent rather than demanding). So there doesn’t have to be any ritualistic aspect to written prayer at all, nor there is any formula or “best way” to pray as long as our hearts are right before the Lord. 🙂
Yes!! What you said is sooo true! The important thing is how our heart is before the Lord. Thanks for commenting and helping to explain things as well… I am not always the best at explaining things. You girls seemed to know exactly what I was trying to say 🙂
Thank you ladies for clarifying, I agree 100% with you. However I wouldn’t personally say the pre-written prayer in the “4 Women we should study post” tool list, because then I’d feel I was saying someone else’s prayer, just like the difference between a pre-written prayer and writing MY prayer personally. I appreciate your help 🙂 everyone likes to give their two cents, so I thought I’d give mine 🙂 it’s a great idea, I will start a prayer journal to keep track of my requests, and the time they’re answered! It’s something I haven’t done, and it sounds like it would be beneficial to keep me focused!
Thank YOU for voicing your questions! 🙂 The timing of this discussion (and actually the whole post) was interesting since just days ago I opened my little notebook with prayer requests for the first time in a long while. It was wonderful to see how many things God has worked out in the meantime. So I hope keeping a written record will greatly encourage you too!!! He never fails.
I hope you will give a prayer journal a try… It is a great tool to have! Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts. I will be more careful next time with any prayers I include in my printables. I included it as a help for those who may not know exactly how to go about praying… and just to give an example on how to pray about that topic. I can always do it a different way next time, and I am glad you helped me see that…. I am still new to teaching others and I have a lot to learn! 🙂
I’ve written some prayers on paper, but it doesn’t feel as natural to me, so I tend just to do it in my head. I do have my prayer requests all in a journal. I’m really excited to do this challenge!! Definitely will help having others do it along with me 🙂
Quick question: were you going to use all the prompts for each day or one each day of the month?
Yup, use the prompts however it works best for you!! I will be using one each day starting with day one 🙂
I’m going to try and use these prompts this month. 🙂 This sounds like a good way to pray more!
Great! I’m glad you will join in on the challenge!! I am excited to begin 🙂
I did write my prayers down all the time. Not sure why I even stopped. The reason I would right them down was because I have a hard time staying focused. My mind will wander off of what I need to do for the day or something with my grown kids. You get the drift, just hard shutting my mind down. When I write my prayers, I focus on my writing and what I am really saying. It becomes more of a reality to me. I love these prompts and will definitely start writing my prayers down. It really does help me.
I love your prayer journal prompts!
Suggestion maybe making a monthly, weekly encouraging newsletter. Maybe you already do. I just found your sight. The prompts are vital for me, once I start writing, the flow of things happen.
Hi Keri,
I’m glad you enjoy the prompts!
I do have an email newsletter that you can join! It’s at the top of my website. I occasionally email out updates, new posts, etc.
Rebekah