Prayer Binder Set Up

Jan 30, 2019 | Bible Journal, Faith, One Little Word 2018 | Connect

At the beginning of last year, I made a goal to spend the entire year focusing on connecting with God in prayer. I read a couple books and did topical bible studies based on prayer and in August, I upped my game by creating a prayer binder. It has easily been one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done to invest in my quiet time with God. Now that I’ve had some time with it, I thought it might be a good time to share it here, too.

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First things first, a prayer binder is a tool that helps to keep all of the things I want to pray for in one place. The best thing about using a binder, as opposed to a journal, is that it can always be evolving. Throughout the past 5 months, I’ve rotated and changed things out so that the flow of prayer comes naturally to me. My prayer binder now incorporates prayers (both written by me and by others), scripture, photos, and a couple embellishments here and there. I’m really into paper-crafting, so I had a lot of supplies on hand that I used to get started. Even though mine has lots of patterned paper and decorative bits, it can also be as plain as you want it to be. Here are the supplies I used:

Untitled by Jacqueline and Kevin Reape on 500px.com

When you get down to it, my binder is comprised of 4 main parts that are made up by the acronym PRAY: Praise, Repent, Ask, Yield. I also have a resources section to keep random information and notes. Each day, I start by praying my way through both the praise and repent sections. When I get to the ask section, it’s set up into daily and weekly prayers. There are things I pray for each day, an then a rotating list of things I pray for weekly. This process give me a more reasonable amount of things to pray for each day and it helps remind me of specific details that I may forget without notes in front of me. This is followed by a section where I yield and being still before God. Throughout all sections, I write my prayers on sticky notes so that they are easily movable. It’s a way for me to wait expectantly, because when God answers the prayers, they get moved to the praise section. This way, I can continually see the work he’s done and the prayers he has answered. Here’s a look into what I’ve included in each of the sections:

 

P – Praise

Untitled by Jacqueline and Kevin Reape on 500px.com

 

R – Repent

A – Ask – Daily

Untitled by Jacqueline and Kevin Reape on 500px.com

  • I also pray for Kevin and our marriage daily using the 9 Prayers Audrey wrote as a template.
  • I pray daily for myself, my heart, goals, divine appointments, and my relationships as they relate to the prayers for the next section.

A – Ask – Weekly

  • Monday – Our Marriage
    • Even though I pray for Kevin and our marriage daily, I include it on Mondays as well in more of a ministry type of way and the way we welcome people into our house and life. This is also a catch-all for anything else related to our marriage that doesn’t fall into the daily section. For example:
      • Our House
      • Hospitality
      • Our goals
  • Tuesday – Friends, Small Group
    • This is easily my most robust section, as it includes both photos of each person/couple, scripture I pray over each, and any prayer requests or things going on in their lives that I want to pray for. It brings me so much joy to see their sweet faces as I’m lifting them up in prayer.

Untitled by Jacqueline and Kevin Reape on 500px.com

  • Wednesday – Non-Believers, Social Media/Influence, Blog
    • The third day of the week is all about praying for non-believers all over the world and non-believers we interact with on daily basis. I pray for interactions with non-believers and the people we may have influence on in terms of social media, the blog, etc.
  • Thursday – Our Jobs, Work, Stewardship/Finances, Military
    • This is a big one – I pray for our specific roles and interactions at work as well as the way we steward our money and pay off our student loans. I ask God to continually give us direction in these things. I specifically work with people who have served in the military, so i’ve included that in this section as well.
    • The prayer below is from Belief Net

Untitled by Jacqueline and Kevin Reape on 500px.com

  • Friday – My Family
    • This is pretty self explanatory, but I also have pictures, verses, and specific things I am praying for for each person in my immediate family and my relationship with them.
  • Saturday – Kevin’s Family
    • This is the exact same set up as I have for my family, except with Kevin’s side.
  • Sunday – Government, Our Community, The Crossing (Our Church), Missionaries, Ministries and Organizations we Support
    • This is also quite the doozy of a section. I originally had these split apart but I kept feeling myself overlapping them in prayer, so I put them all together. I’ve found a couple really great prayers online for each of these.
    • Isaiah 9:6c-7 (Government)
    • Colossians 3:14-16 (The Crossing)

Y – Yield

Resources

I’ve drawn a lot of inspiration from Cori the Reset Girl (her video is below), but there are tons of great resources on the internet.


Untitled by Jacqueline and Kevin Reape on 500px.com

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Now it’s your turn! What’s in Your Prayer Binder?

Bible Journaling – Psalm 5:3

Sep 25, 2018 | Bible Journal, Faith

In the morning I lay my requests before you and wait expectantly. – Psalm 5:3
Is anyone else here a fan of the Enneagram? I started learning about it a year ago and since then, it’s been such an awesome tool to learn about myself and how I relate to people around me.
If you’re not familiar, the Enneagram is a typology of nine interconnected personality types. On a basic level, it helps you determine who you are and why you operate the way you do. Even though there are lots of tests similar to this -strengths finder, Meyers Briggs, etc – this one really has a growth mindset and has a foundation of faith.
I’m a type 8 (The Challenger) and in all my research, one of the most helpful things I’ve learned about myself is that I tend to have a hard time being still before God, which means I need to work extra hard at it.
Since realizing this, I’ve been setting aside 5 minutes a day to be still and it’s been super encouraging. Lately, I’ve been hearing God tell me to wait expectantly. This bible journaling entry is a representation of my busy mind contrast with the hope of God’s word.
So now I’m curious, what number are you? Let me know below!

Bible Journaling – Matthew 6

Sep 18, 2018 | Bible Journal, Faith

Prayer ❤️

Prayer is not designed to inform God, but to give man a sight of his misery; to humble his heart; to excite his desire; to inflame his faith; to animate his hope; to raise his soul from earth to heaven. and to put him in mind that there is his Father, his country, and his inheritance. He is a Father to whom we pray; let us go to him with confidence: he knows our wants; let us remove far from us all anxious disquiet and concern. – Adam Clarke

Failure (A Follow Up on Feeling Raw)

Apr 12, 2018 | Faith

My type-A, perfectionist personality isn’t a huge fan of failure (who is?); I might even admit that I’m afraid of it. I fail a lot and, admittedly, I have a hard time seeing the positive outcome sometimes because I don’t like to reminisce on things that hurt.

A couple years ago, I wrote a post called Raw about changing majors in college, getting a lousy first job, and then failing a huge test that I thought would mean losing the second. I was newly married and we had a stack of student loans with our names on them, so I was terrified that I wouldn’t be able to contribute financially. At the end of that post, I talked about getting a call the next day for an interview and eventually accepting the job. I wrote that three days after I started.

It’s now been over three years and it’s taken me this long to put the words together of what God’s really done in the big picture of my life. I was reading Love Does by Bob Goff when it hit me, and I couldn’t help but stop, highlight, and scribble a ton of notes in my journal when I came across the following passage:

The thing I love about God is He intentionally guides people into failure. He made us be born as little kids who can’t walk or talk or even use a bathroom correctly. We have to be taught everything. All that learning takes time, and He made us so we are dependent on Him, our parents, and each other. The whole thing is designed so we try again and again until we finally get it right. And the whole time He is endlessly patient.

I love those passages in Scripture where Jesus teaches the disciples something, saying, “I want to teach you to think differently about life.” They walked with Him for years, and some of them didn’t learn everything they needed to know until after He’d gone back to heaven. Yet, even though they were slow to learn, they still referred to themselves as His beloved. Failure is just part of the process, and it’s not just ok; it’s better than okay. God doesn’t want failure to shut us down. God didn’t make it a three-strikes-you’re-out sort of thing. It’s more about how God helps us dust ourselves off so that we can swing for the fences again. And all of this without keeping a meticulous record of our screw-ups.

I couldn’t stop thinking, “why does this seem so counter-cultural and why am I so afraid of failure when I know that the Lord will see me through?”

By God allowing me to fail my test by just two points these things that happened: 1) He prevented me from pursuing a career that wouldn’t have been the best fit for me, 2) He allowed me to start a job that I absolutely loved, and then to become a leader within that role, and 3) He helped me to see why I got that ‘ole college degree in Nutrition and Exercise Physiology.

So this whole time, what I considered failure – not pursuing a more high paying field, failing my exam, etc. – was really just God closing some major doors so that He could make way for so many blessings. And I’m glad he did after looking at that (non-comprehensive) list. I’d be lying if I said my insecurity surrounding failure is gone, but God is walking me through grace in my failure by reminding me that I’m not my own savior and that I couldn’t even take a guess at the amazing things God has in store for me. I’m just grabbing at crumbs and he is offering me the whole feast.

The best part, though, is that my story isn’t over. Looking back on these blessings that came from what felt like serious frustration and heartache lead to some of things that have so thoroughly shaped my life over the last couple of years. Over the past three years, I have been confirmed by God over and over again that this is where I’m supposed to be. That this is where he has me today. I know that I will continue to fail and the only thing I can guarantee is that if my trust is in Him, my future is in good hands.