Free Prayer Journal Templates  

Create your own prayer journal to inspire you in cultivating a regular Bible study and prayer time into your daily life. You’ll be amazed at the joy it brings!

Prayer journal ideas

Whether you’re experiencing times of change or challenge, or you’re in a season of ease and joy, Christians often find that using a prayer journal is a helpful way to focus our perspective on God and for developing a regular habit of prayer and praise.  

It’s a wonderful encouragement to pray with other Christians, on a Sunday or at a fellowship group, but personal prayer is also vital for cultivating a close relationship with God. Many people find that prayer journalling encourages them to be more intentional in spending time listening to the Lord Jesus Christ. 

And keeping a prayer journal can remind us how God is faithful as we see how prayers are answered over time.  

Answered prayer, of course, doesn’t necessarily mean that God gives us exactly what we ask for! By writing down our daily prayer points, we can start to see the ways in which God’s grace is at work in our lives, often in ways we never expected. Over time, daily prayer and spending time in the Word of God will encourage us as Christians to develop devotional habits because we’ll have a deeper understanding of the power and privilege of prayer. 

Printing off daily prayer journal pages means we can put away our phones, which are forever tempting us to distraction!  

So, go ‘old school’ by printing our DIY journal templates, decorate your own prayer journal cover, staple the pages together, or tie them with ribbon or string, and now you have a personalised notebook where you can open your heart to God. 

Free ‘My Prayer Journal’ templates

We’ve created three stunning prayer journal templates for you to download. 

Print off a collection of templates, spend time making a cover and put together your own simple prayer journal. 

This prayer journal can be for personal use, helping you set an intention to guard time to be with the Lord. You could also use the templates to make a lovely gift for someone you’d like to encourage in cultivating a practice of regular quiet times. 

How to start a prayer journal?

1. Find somewhere quiet

Prayer journalling is a great way to escape the hecticness of life. A devotional time is often referred to as a quiet time, and for good reason. Quiet and solitude make it easier to concentrate, allowing us to reflect upon God’s goodness and remember His promises

Find a quiet space away from distractions to help you focus. This might be by choosing a time of day when it’s easiest to be alone, or a particular room where you’re less likely to be interrupted. 

2. Begin with a prayer

Before you start reading your Bible or writing down your prayers, take a moment to ask God to speak to you by His Holy Spirit and help you to concentrate.

3. Root yourself in God’s word 

Take time reading a Bible passage to help you know God better and learn His ways. Find out what the Bible says about the power of prayer to motivate your own prayers.

You may find our collection of encouraging Bible verses helpful as you start out. Fill in the scripture box on your chosen prayer journal template to record the Bible passages you’ve chosen to focus on.

“Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you” Jeremiah 29:12  

4. Date your prayer journalling

By dating your prayer journalling sessions, you’ll be able to look back at how God has been faithful over time.  

5. Remember gratitude as well as prayer!

Each of our prayer journal templates has a section for you to give thanks to God. Making a point of writing down gratitude points will help us gain a better perspective, and to trust in the fact that God promises to be with us always, even when circumstances are difficult. 

“I lift up my eyes to the mountains — where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.” Psalm 121: 1-2  

6. Take time to record answers to prayers

So often, we can forget what we’ve prayed for! Don’t miss out on noticing when God answers your prayers.  

Prayer journalling will help you look back over the past weeks and months and see exactly how God has moved in different situations in your life. Recording answers to our prayer requests strengthens our faith and teaches us to trust God and wait for Him. 

“Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.” Psalm 27:14 

Prayer Journal Prompts

There are all sorts of ways you can structure how you use your prayer journal – here are a couple of suggestions that might be helpful:

Create a Weekly Prayer List

You might like to create a prayer list of people or issues you feel called to pray for regularly.

An easy way to do this is to divide these across the days of the week. For example, you could pray for your church family every Monday, your parents every Tuesday, the global food crisis every Wednesday, etc.

You can have several people or needs on any given day; there’s always flexibility to add more, and to tick off answered prayers!

The S.T.O.P. Prayer

When we pray, we’re called to not only to present our requests (sometimes called ‘supplications’) to God but also to confess our sins, and to give thanks.

One way to outline prompts for daily prayer – which is a good one for sharing with children, whether as part of homeschooling, or leading a kids’ club at church, or family devotional time – is the S.T.O.P. prayer. These prayer prompts help us remember all the ways in which we are called to pray. It’s a useful for reminder for believers of all ages.

• Sorry: It’s a wonderful truth that we don’t have to hide our wrongdoing from God – He loves us no matter what. The Bible tells us that ‘when we confess our sin, He is faithful and just and will forgive us…’ [1 John 1:8-9]
• Thank you: It’s important to remember to always pray to God with thanksgiving, as taught in Philippians 4: 6. This is not only because it’s right, but it’s also wonderfully helpful for strengthening our faith.
• Others: We see so much need, suffering and injustice around us, both amongst people we know and love, and in the wider world. It’s all too easy to get caught up in our own wants and needs, but God wants us to care about the needs of others as much as He does. For ideas of how to pray for the wider world, head to: Prayers for the World, Our prayer page.
• Please: God promises always to be with us and never to forsake us [Hebrews 13:5]. Christians are encouraged in 1 Peter 5: 7 to cast all our anxiety onto Him because He cares for us. So come to God in confidence that He loves you and is always ready to listen.

We hope that these prayer journal templates will serve to encourage your hearts as you enjoy precious time with God. It is our prayer that you will experience the wonderful ways in which God works in our hearts and lives when we spend time with Him in prayer.

An answer to prayer

Reading stories of answers to prayer can also build our faith and remind us of God’s faithfulness, especially during challenging times. We recently heard this wonderful news from our colleagues in Honduras. It reminded us that when you sponsor a child with Compassion, you can empower them to see transformation in the lives of their family, community and country.

Six-year-old Obed lives in an under-resourced rural village with his parents and two older sisters. His father is a construction worker and the only provider for the family.

The situation became desperate when Obed’s father’s monthly salary was withheld. The family had little means to survive. That’s when Obed prayed.

“I learnt during Bible classes [at my Compassion project] that no matter our age when we pray to God, He is always listening. Because I know that He can hear me, I prayed about my father’s job, and he needed money,” says Obed. “We gathered every night to pray before bedtime.”

A few days later, there was a knock on their door. It was Obed’s father’s boss.

“We were surprised to see him,” says Obed. Obed’s father learnt that a new construction project was about to start, and he’d have job security. Furthermore, Obed’s father received his payment from his boss, which was more than they expected!

“We could not believe it. We all hugged each other at the good news and praised the Lord for answering our prayers and adding more than we had asked for. My parents shared this testimony with other people so they can learn to trust God, too.”

Give thanks to God for Obed and his unwavering faith. Praise God for Obed’s Compassion project that encouraged him never to give up hope but turn to God in prayer. Most importantly, join us in thanking God for His good provision – for blessing us with more than we expect – both now and into eternity.

If you’ve been inspired by Obed’s story to sponsor, begin with a child today.