But as for me, LORD, my prayer to you is for a time of favor. In your abundant, faithful love, God, answer me with your sure salvation. Psalm 69:13

In Psalm 69, we see some key characteristics of God. He has abundant and faithful love as well as sure salvation. These should provide us peace as we approach the throne and seek a time of favor with God. It is critical that we remember that often when we go to God in prayer, we are asking for resolutions to our problems and that many times we approach him with a resolution in mind. We must always remember that we need to seek God’s favor in prayer as well as his will. Whether or not we like it his will and our will does not always look like the same answer. It is imperative that we remember to seek his favor and to seek his response, not a response that we have pre-planned and identified as correct.

Prayer for Day 6: Pray today that we will focus on seeking God’s favor and his attention to our prayer requests. Pray that we will have better discernment in the outcome realizing that our desired outcomes may not benefit the kingdom of God and may therefore not be the answer we were hoping for.

“But when you pray, go into your private room, shut your door, and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” Matthew 6:6

We often think of prayer as an action that is performed publicly by our ministry team, or by those older members of the congregation who are not hesitant to pray in a group setting. We also tend to think of the mass-distributed prayer lists that are sent out digitally for the congregation to see as a checklist for others who are in need. If we remember that at HCC we are REAL people finding REAL hope, we will also realize that we are people who all have needs on a daily basis. No one person’s problem is less important than any others, and that is not what our Father in Heaven thinks either. While public and corporate prayer is an amazing tool for communication with God, our personal and private prayers are equally important.

This scripture reminds us to go into our private room and pray to our Father in secret. This should eliminate the pressure many of us feel to pray in a large group setting with just the right words. This should help us to remember that in our prayers, no matter the wording as we discussed yesterday, we have the Spirit acting on our behalf and they are all important and sought by our Father. He wants to hear from you individually, and he is interested in what you have to say.

Prayer for Day 5: Pray today that God will help you find a quiet place and that you will gain the time in your schedule to work toward building a one-on-one relationship with your Father in Heaven. Pray that you will be rewarded as the scripture tells you and that your relationship will grow and flourish the way that it can only when you are committed to building that relationship and dedicating private and personal time to God in prayer.

In the same way the Spirit also helps us in our weakness, because we do not know what to pray for as we should,but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with inexpressible groanings. Romans 8:26

We must remember that we are weak. But we have all been given the gift of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is a part of God that, upon baptism, we have been given to help us in our daily lives. We tend to focus on the fact that we don’t know how to express our needs. Prayer is not about fancy words but about communicating our needs from a deep or desperate place with our heavenly Father. We don’t need to have the right words, only the right heart and intentions. The Spirit will intercede on our behalf and any need we have will be appropriately received.

Intercession is an amazing benefit in our lives. Much like when you need it most, and one of your friends or family seems to come to the rescue in your time of need, the Holy Spirit will always come to the rescue in your communication with God. Certainly, we have all struggled with a trial in our work or personal lives. Our Father in Heaven is all-knowing, and the Holy Spirit is our direct link. We must work to give our feelings and needs over to him even when we don’t quite know how to express these things. Our expression is only useful to our processing as God the Father already knows each of us intimately and will be at work in our lives if we are open to his action.

Prayer for Day 4: Pray today to become more reliant on the Holy Spirit’s intercession on your behalf. Pray that your habit around prayer and spiritual growth will continue to develop and that you will learn to rely on the Spirit when you are ill-equipped to gather your thoughts and prayers. Pray that examples of this will become clear to you and that you will learn to lean into the Spirit and the beautiful gift that you have been given.

Devote yourselves to prayer; stay alert in it with thanksgiving. Colossians 4:2

We are to be devoted to prayer. Prayer is not something that we do only when we have a need but is rather something that we are to be devoted to. If we seek to grow in our relationship, with friends or family, we do so by devoting our time and energy to growing those relationships. Our relationship with God will grow only by our ongoing commitment and dedication.

As we enter the new year, let’s develop a newfound commitment to devoting ourselves to growing our relationship with our heavenly Father. In order to do this, we must commit to an ongoing focus on this relationship, which should be the highest-ranking relationship in our lives.

Prayer for Day 3: Pray today that God will help you grow your relationship and communication with him. Pray that you will find a time, morning, noon, or night that you can focus on your prayer time and build a strong routine that you will maintain through this year and all future years to continue to build a strong relationship with your heavenly Father. Pray that you will always remember the model prayer that he gave us and work to always approach his throne with thanksgiving and kingdom goals in mind.

Don’t worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. Philippians 4:6

Philippians 4:6 reminds us that everything should be done through prayer and petition. We are to be thankful and present ourselves to God. When the Bible tells us that everything should be prayed over, it is not at all unclear. As humans, our natural tendency is to be self-reliant and to believe that we are the ones in control of our destiny. If that were the case and we were capable of fixing all of our own problems, our lives would seem significantly easier than they actually are. We must remember first to go to God in prayer and submit our requests for his hand and his will in all situations that we encounter on a daily basis. Daily may not even be enough as we know that many situations arise that need prayer minute by minute, and yet we continue to focus on our will and ourselves as a source of resolution.

This scripture also reminds us that we are to present our requests with thanksgiving. We need to be reminded that there is always something to be thankful for and our God is awesome and pours out his blessings on us daily, yet we often don’t reflect on the greatness of God’s influence on our lives.

Prayer For Day 2: Let’s pray that we will become better at opening the communication and dialogue with God more regularly and focus on growing in our appreciation and thanksgiving for the many blessings that he has and will continue to pour out on our lives.

Answer me when I call, God, who vindicates me. You freed me from affliction; be gracious to me and hear my prayer. Psalm 4:1

In Psalm 4:1 we learn that God is gracious and hears our prayers. Prayer can be a request for help or an expression of gratitude. Prayer can be used in good times and bad. It allows us to cast our fears and concerns on God and to demonstrate our trust in his divine purpose and power as he acts in our lives through the gift of the Holy Spirit. In 2025, we will focus on building a prayer life that is rooted in biblical principles. We, as a church, need to be committed to growing our prayer life.

Prayer for Day 1: Pray that all members of HCC will be committed to growing their prayer life and relational communication with God for the 2025 calendar year and beyond.