Updated Sep. 23, 2019. Originally published Sep. 10, 2013.

If you’re just stumbling across this, please click here for the other posts in the series.

Prayer is Personal

How you organize your prayer life is – probably more than any other category in this series – a very personal thing.  So I can offer a few guidelines, but I cannot get too specific.  Even at that, you may have to tweak this to meet your needs.  If you use it to ensure that you have some means in place for keeping track of your prayer requests and such, then as long as it works for you, it’s served its purpose.

Keep a Record

Assuming you’re a praying person (which is likely the case if you’re reading this blog), you will find it beneficial to keep track of your prayer requests.  Not only will this help you avoid forgetting to pray for a need you wanted to lift up to the Lord, it will help you to see more clearly how God has answered your prayers.

As usual, you will need to decide what is most important to you in terms of portability, location, etc.  Some people may prefer to keep their prayer requests close at hand all the time and, therefore, want them in their day planners.  Others may prefer to keep them set aside with their Bible study materials and, therefore, keep them in a prayer journal or something of that nature.

Break it Up

I have found that it’s easier for me to really pray for everything I want to be in prayer for if I don’t try to pray for it all every day.  Instead, I break it up into categories and assign each category to a day of the week.  That’s not to say I can’t pray for something on the “wrong” day, but it allows me to really delve into the day’s category without worrying that the other things will get missed.  I know that I will get to them before the week is out.  If you want to read more about my prayer notebook, you can find it (starting) here.  For now, let’s work on your method.

I divide mine up into the following categories: church, government, missions, immediate family, extended family, friends, self.  You might choose different categories, and that’s okay.  I plan to praise every day, I pray briefly for my family each day, and pray for any urgent/time-sensitive needs.  But then the really “meaty” prayers are according to this routine, so I don’t feel like there’s not enough time for each one.

If you do it this way, you might want multiple lists – one for each category – so you can keep them behind separate dividers or something like that.

STEP 1: Choose seven categories for your prayer requests.

STEP 2: Decide where you want to keep your prayer request list, and whether it needs to be broken up.

Then you need to make up a list(s).  I like to note three things:

1. The request itself
2. The date I began praying for it
3. The date I saw a visible answer (with a bit of space in case I want to make a note of how the prayer was answered)

So set up a list.  You might want to just mark in some headings so you won’t forget to leave space for things.  And then write in everything you can already think of that belongs on the list.

STEP 3: Make the list(s).

STEP 4: If you need to, add reminders for yourself to each prayer category. 

(For example, I have photographs of my husband and children in the family section of my prayer notebook.)

Of course, actually praying for the things on the list is the most important thing.  🙂  But now hopefully you won’t forget what you intend to pray about.

If you’re just stumbling across this, please click here for the other posts in the series.