Is it Ok to Write Down Your Prayers: 3 Reasons To Start Prayer Journaling
Is it ok to write down your prayers? Absolutely, here’s 3 benefits of prayer journaling.
Is it okay to write down your prayers? This is a question that I hear often because I am really big on prayer journaling and putting pen to paper as a way to communicate and connect with God.
Many women come to me because they believe that it’s a sin or cheating to write down their prayers. And so I thought that this would be perfect for today’s episode. I want to address these concerns today.
Listen on Apple Podcasts | Spotify
Let’s start with a few important things. First, there is no one right way to have a conversation with God. That is legalism and a trap that we fall into often as Christians. Believing the only “right way” to do XYZ is the way that you do it, the way it’s done in your church, the way your pastor does it, or the way some random person did it 100 years ago.
Listen, God is super creative and he made every one of us unique. We are not all the same. Nobody is the same as anybody else, not even identical twins. God made each of us very different because he is very creative. Because God made each of us unique and different, we are all made to connect with him uniquely and differently.
If you are hung up on thinking something is not right because it doesn’t look like anybody else around you, that’s okay. God may have simply made you different. The other thing I hear a lot is, that prayers don’t count if you’re not speaking the words out loud.
A lot of church and advice on spiritual disciplines promote and celebrate extremely extrovert-centered faith. For example, talking, being loud, and being around lots of people are things that extroverts excel at. If you are introverted like me and half of the population of the planet, especially if you are also highly sensitive, that is not how you’re wired.
That is not how God made you to be with people and or him. I want you to know that if you’re trying to do something that everybody else seems to think you’re supposed to do but it doesn’t work, it’s not because you’re doing it wrong. You may just be wired differently.
Is it okay to write down your prayers? Absolutely. Yes, it is. There’s a whole book of the Bible that’s essentially a collection of prayers written down.
Reason #1 It’s Okay to Write Down Your Prayers: Helps You Focus
There are so many reasons and benefits to writing down your prayers whether you’re writing in a journal, keeping a notebook, or typing in a Word doc. The first one is focus. Putting pen to paper engages parts of your brain because you’re holding the pen, looking at the paper, and writing. All of those can help you focus.
If your mind feels scattered and goes in a million different directions when you pray, picking up a pen and writing things down can help you stay focused. It can help black out all the stuff that’s going on around you so you can focus on the conversation that you’re trying to have with God.
Feeling overwhelmed by challenges, uncertain about your faith, and struggling to manage your emotions alone? Want to climb out of your pit of despair? It’s exhausting when every hurdle feels insurmountable and your emotions threaten to drown you. But what if you didn’t have to navigate this journey alone? Take the first step towards peace. Book your Emotional Resilience Coaching package today!
Reason #2 It’s Okay to Write Down Your Prayers: Process Your Thoughts
The second reason that you want to write your prayers is to help you process your thoughts and your feelings. If you feel like you don’t know what to pray about because everything is so big, there’s so much hurt and pain, and your thoughts are overwhelming try journaling.
Writing down your prayers will help you process your thoughts and your feelings because you’ll stop keeping all of that in your head and heart and get it out onto the page. Once it’s out of your head and onto the page, you can deal with it.
There are many pages in my journal where I am processing something with God. Long drawn-out conversations with God where I’m wrestling through something that I’m feeling or where I’m trying to figure out exactly what I think about something.
That’s what your journal is there for, being able to get all that stuff out on paper so you can see it and either realize you don’t need to worry about it or that you want to dig more into that. You can take all of that to God and have deeper conversations with him.
Reason #3 It’s Okay to Write Down Your Prayers: Record of Asks and Answers
The third reason that you might want to write your prayers is because you can keep a record of requests and answers. I love this idea of leaving behind a legacy of prayer for my kids or grandkids one day. It’s great for me to be able to go back and see the kinds of prayers that I have prayed to God and to see his answers.
To remember five years ago when you were going through a hard time and prayed and how God answered. It can be encouraging when the next crisis happens because you know you can pray the same prayer and that God will answer that as well.
You don’t have to verbalize your prayers for God to hear you. He’s all-knowing. He knows what you’re thinking before you think it. You don’t have to put your voice to the words for God to hear you or for God to speak to you.
You can in your heart just share it on the page and you will still connect with God possibly deeper if you’re made to connect with him in that way. It still works. It’s still awesome. It’s still just as powerful.
Final Thoughts About Writing Down Your Prayers
I want to talk about one final thing before we wrap up today. It’s the idea that writing down your prayers is bad or wrong because then Satan can see them. If you’re praying out loud, he can hear your prayers so you really shouldn’t be worried about writing them down because you think he can see them.
Second thing, Satan is Satan. Whether you think your prayer, write your prayer, say your prayer, sing your prayer, or paint your prayer on the sidewalk, it’s not going to change the fact that he wants to destroy you and he wants to get in the way of what God has for you.
That’s just what He does. It’s who he is. He’s a lion prowling around looking for somebody to eat up and that’s not going to change because you pray or don’t pray a certain way. Satan is really good at what he does. He’s been doing it for thousands of years. He’s good but he’s not better than God.
He can’t even be everywhere all at once to look over all of our shoulders while we’re writing our prayers. Even if he was going to use that against you, he’s still not bigger or better than God. He can do something that God won’t allow.
Remember, Jesus came so that you could have victory in the world. My sister, if you want to write your prayers, pick up a pen, start writing, and get to it. Don’t let fear rob you of possibly finding a way that you can deeply connect with God.
Other Helpful Resources:
No more asking is it ok to write down your prayers. Grab a pen and a journal and start talking to God.
Do you emotions feel too BIG to handle? Learn how emotion mapping can help you calm down, rewire your brain, and learn to cope better so you can have peace and joy again!
