Journaling My Journey

It’s been twenty-five years since I started journaling my journey, and I’m still doing it. It is the most effective way I have found to develop a habit of prayer.

My wife, JoAnn and I served the church in Pittsburgh, PA for 47 years and we discovered that church leaders need to pray more because they minister to so many people who look to them for support and counsel. It is virtually impossible to do justice to your congregation unless you keep a record, a history of your interaction with them and with God on their behalf.

When we got serious about journaling, I realized that prayer was not a problem of desire, as most people have a desire; it was a discipline problem.  We weren’t organized; we had no plan. At that particular time there were a few prayer planners sold in bookstores, but they were very detailed, and we needed something simple.

Our first meeting with our Sunday School teachers about developing a plan for prayer was enthusiastically received. Everyone agreed that we needed a plan. I picked up some single subject notebooks and printed up a sheet of basic instructions and off we went. The result was immediate success. One person who had a rather large Bible class and was an outstanding Bible teacher shared that he had been unorganized in prayer. Other teachers said similar things.

Our plan would be simple: set a time (what we called our divine appointment), record the time, and increase the time. One teacher soon said that he was praying an hour a day. I determined that an hour a day, five days a week, would be my goal as pastor.

The enthusiasm spilled over from our Sunday School teachers to the church and youth ministry. It was contagious. It seemed that no one wanted to be left out. It was refreshing to see our people carrying their Bibles in one hand and their prayer notebook in the other. What a visual picture of Ephesians 6:17-18, “And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints.”

Unexplained, but not unexpected, things began to happen in individual lives. The church was energized. The word was getting out; there was a revival of prayer taking place. A pastor friend in Pennsylvania asked me to come and share my thoughts with his church. He was very discouraged in ministry and the church was marked by division.  He warned me that what I was going to share may not be well received. I told our story. At the end of the service I felt led to ask the congregation how many would like to adopt this prayer plan to please indicate by standing so I could have prayer for them as they started. The entire church stood to their feet. We were shocked. They wanted to pray; they only needed encouragement. They were trying to solve their problems in the church on their own. I thought to myself, “This church is on the way to healing.”

Back at our church, two young couples entered our foyer on a Sunday morning and said, “We are looking for God.” They didn’t know each other but the same thought was on their mind. Now how often does something like that happen? I believe that God loves to use people and churches He can trust. And our people were proving their commitment to Christ by their communion with Him. We directed them to our new believer’s class and that evening both families were led to Christ in their homes. One husband was a doctor in a Pittsburgh hospital and He said that in three months he would be traveling back to Japan to visit his mother and he would tell her he had discovered the true God. Both families started to come to church and grow in Christ.

Our youth pastor inspired the teens of our church to use prayer notebooks to record their journey as well. They met each Sunday evening in his home to encourage each other and hold each other accountable in their quest for souls. They conducted a concert of prayer for their friends, praying for them by name and need. The result soon began to unfold. The youth center began to burst at the seams and many teens came to Christ and into the church. Prayer, which is communion with God, is the catalyst for spiritual vitality.

How many times have people asked us to pray for certain needs, and moved by good intentions, we agreed to do so; but our good intentions soon turned into embarrassment when we were thanked for praying for the specific need, but we had forgotten.  One of the biggest problems is prayer promises unkept, but it can be easily resolved by keeping an up-to-date journal.

Prayer in action is the greatest teacher of prayer. I grew up in Pittsburgh, PA and as a young child my parents became faithful Christians, modeling prayer and faithfulness in the church. We went to the Wednesday evening prayer services where the older saints would stand, one after another, and call on God, not embarrassed to pray in public, and plead for God’s blessings. It made a big impression on me as I look back.

My mother prayed that I would become a preacher and God answered her prayer. After joining the Air Force, I was again influenced in prayer at the men’s prayer meeting at Central Baptist Church, Sherman, Texas. When I went to those sessions, as I remember, I was the youngest man there, but I kept going because I knew we were doing something important. Off to Baptist Bible College in Springfield, MO we went with our young family to study for the ministry and then back to my hometown to start our life’s work.

A number of years ago a missionary sent me an email and asked what he could do to fix his ailing prayer life. I suggested he ask the Lord to make him the best prayer he could be. I think so many times we are intimidated when we study the prayer lives of Christians of old, but the right attitude in every generation is for all believers to be the best prayers they can be. I pray this prayer almost daily. Jesus set the example for us. His life was marked by prayer from the very beginning of His ministry to the very end.  E. M. Bounds calls Jesus, “The Christ of prayer.”

Jesus emphasized the need for solitude in His teaching and practice. He said to find a private place and shut the door in Matthew 6:6. James Stalker, a Scottish preacher and scholar of old, said, “When Jesus arrived in a town, His first thought was which was the shortest way to the mountain, just as ordinary travelers inquire where the most noted sights are, and which is the best hotel.”  On the eve of the close of Jesus’ earthly ministry, he reiterated at least seven times the promise of prayer for His followers in John 14-16. His work will be done through His prayerful people.

The Christian church stands as a monument to the power of prayer. Acts 4:31, “And when they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness.” This is what we need: first is to pray, second is to be filled with the Holy Spirit, and then to preach. God powered preaching and witnessing is the result of communion with God.

Prayer gives wings to the Word of God. The apostle Peter, fresh from the prayer session in Acts, was spiritually energized and emboldened. He was filled with the Spirit. We can’t be filled with the Spirit unless we are in communion with God. And we can’t be as effective as God wants us to be in preaching unless we are filled with the Spirit. Any person or church that will follow the example of Christ and will make prayer a priority will succeed in their God called mission.

Missionary Adoniram Judson said, “I never prayed sincerely and earnestly for anything, but it came at some time; no matter at how distant a day, somehow, in some shape, probably the least I would have devised, it came.”

Oswald Chambers hit the nail on the head when he said, “Prayer does not fit us for the greater work; prayer is the greater work.”

E.M. Bounds in his book, Prayer and Praying Men, said, “… prayer is the most important of all things on earth. All else must be restrained, retired, to give it primacy.  Defeat and victory lie in this one thing.  If prayer is put first, then God is put first, and victory is insured. Prayer must either reign in the life or must abdicate.”

One of the most critical times in the life of the church is the transition of leadership. After serving the church for so many years we faced the inevitable, “Who will lead the church into the future?” I will never forget the deacons’ meeting when I announced we would be transitioning our ministry. It was a sobering time, an uncertain time. We had never done this before. We agreed to practice what we were preaching….and just pray.

We had no one in mind for this position but I knew that we had to move forward by faith, so I began to relinquish some of the responsibilities I had through the years so jealously embraced. I began sharing the speaking responsibilities with two staff members…and eventually one staff member and I shared the speaking.  It was as if I were expecting a person to walk through the door with a sign around his neck saying, “I’m the new guy.” That didn’t happen. We waited and prayed, and I critiqued his messages. God made it plain to us that the person we were waiting for was already on our staff. He and his family had our DNA.  The transition was seamless, and the church is doing better than ever. It is a great blessing to see the church move forward, not missing a beat.

Just recently, Sarah, one of our initial group, was called home to heaven and at her funeral service there were several of her well-worn prayer notebooks on display which she had filled as she recorded her journey. Sarah’s family gave out note books to those who wanted them with instructions for following Sarah’s example. Her testimony of prayer lives on.

Those initial weeks of enthusiasm and consequently spiritual power turned into weeks and then years, now two and a half decades, and some of those original Sunday School teachers who met with me 25 years ago are no longer teachers but are still proficient prayers. Our goal was always, from the inception, to develop a habit of prayer that would last a lifetime. I feel confident to say that our simple plan does just that.

We are now living in Rockwall, Texas and God has given us opportunities to serve in our Texas church and community, and I’m still journaling my journey.