Rick Henderson – The Everyday Prayer

New Year New Song

Re:Verse passage – Psalm 96 (day seven)

Sing to the Lord a new song. vs 1

As 2024 draws to a close this week, it gives us a chance to reflect on the year that has passed. There have likely been moments of surreal joy, but there have likely been moments of pain and sorrow. Each year it seems to be the same old routine of enduring this roller coaster of emotions. It becomes natural to feel stuck, but a new year brings hope. We begin to set our mind on goals we want to achieve and things we want to do. We believe that the next year will be even better than the last.

This is true in our spiritual life as well. It can become too natural to feel stuck in your walk with the Lord. Though we are promised that God is constant and will always be the same, we have an equal promise that His mercies are new everyday (Lamentations 3:23). The manifestation of His grace is fresh in our lives through the work of the Holy Spirit. The truth is the same, but the revelation is new. When we realize this, our heart cannot help but sing.

Whether you feel stuck in a rut or are in a season of growth, God has something new for you each day. How will you look for the movement of His Spirit in 2025?

Anxiousness

Re:Verse passage – Psalm 89 (day seven)

Christmas through the eyes of a child is a beautiful thing to behold. As I have navigated this season with two toddlers, I have been able to capture much of the magic that beholds this season. In that, I have recognized that all of the glamour and sparkle that elicits a feeling of magicality inside of us is lined with Biblical representation that points us to the Christ.

Yet, I have also felt the stress and anxiousness that comes with keeping up this facade of grandeur. It has caused me to pause and realize that not everyone sees this season through a lens of magic. Some days just aren’t magical. This is why I appreciate the psalmist here so much.

He essentially spent 37 verses talking about how great the unfailing the love of God is. Then he turns around in verse 38 and begins to ask the question “If God is so loving, then why has He turned His back on the psalmist?”

I think we can all resonate with that. We have had those days, we have had those moments. Some days just aren’t magical, but we all come to realize that the love of God is not confined to the feelings of a day or a season. Often, God is working in those stressful and anxious times to show us something bigger is at work around us. It is not our job to question, rather, we are to trust that He is loving and good which will lead us to say:

Blessed be the Lord forever!
Amen and Amen.

Merry Christmas!

Holy Right Arm

Re:Verse passage – Psalm 98 (day seven)

His right hand and His holy arm have gained the victory for Him.
The Lord has made known His salvation. vs 1b-2a

In high school, this verse became one of my favorites. My mother would write me a prayer before every game, and she would often use Psalm 98 to pray over me. What a fitting verse for a Quarterback!!! God gained victory with His Holy Right Arm (For my non-sport-ball fans out there, I was the one who threw the football with my right arm).

What this is saying though is that God has done the work to claim victory. He has rolled up His sleeves and personally put in the work to guide His people to salvation. The joy in this for us is that God chooses me and you to be His vessels for this message to be proclaimed. Have you ever gotten to be a part of that process? The joy in seeing someone go from death to life right in front of your eyes is unexplainable. There is nothing you can claim except Christ working through you.

If you have not been a part of that process, God is calling you to join Him in this work. Who is in your life right now that God is calling you to witness to? In this season of Advent we are asking you to Go and Tell it on the Mountain. Let’s all feel the joy of seeing God’s Holy Arm at work through us this week.

Not Today Satan

Re:Verse passage – Psalm 85:1-3, 8-13 (day seven)

You forgave the iniquity of Your people;
You covered all their sin. vs 2-3

What must occur to have peace amongst others? All parties involved must mutually agree that fighting is not beneficial to their cause. However, peace doesn’t mean that there won’t be tension.

In advent, we recognize that the coming of Jesus brings peace to the world, but until His second coming, we are left in tension. An enemy prowls on our doorstep waiting to devour us, waiting for us to give him an inch of room so he can get his foot in the door to disrupt the peace that has been guaranteed to us. Yet, this enemy has already been defeated; his fight is futile. The fight for your eternity was won on Easter, and Advent is the opportunity for us to tell the enemy, “Not today Satan. We get peace.” And the enemy has to obey because the One who defeated him lives in us.

Restoration and Revival

Re:Verse passage – Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19 (day seven)

O God, restore us

O God of hosts, restore us

O Lord God of hosts, restore us

Restore us. Is this not our prayer? The beauty of the intensifying refrain echoes in our heart. As our prayer deepens, so does our cry for restoration. Our heart craves and longs for the restoration with our creator, and the more we pray for it, the more we realize we need it. When that desire for restoration meets the goodness of God’s face shining upon us, that is where we will find revival.

The hope of revival isn’t in the restoration of our fortunes, nor is it in a restoration of the days of old. The hope of revival is that the Lord will shine His face upon us, restoring us with a fresh new perspective and fresh vision. It all begins with personal restoration. So on this first week of Advent we pray: restore me, restore my heart, restore my hope.

Prayer Upon Prayer

Re:Verse passage – Ephesians 6:17-20 (day seven)

With all prayer and petition pray at all times.

In English, it feels a little clunky, but Paul tells us to pray in three different ways. It almost reads like “Prayer with prayer upon prayer.” The message is loud and clear: we need to prioritize prayer!

This is a very Pauline way to tell us that there is no wrong way to pray and that we should actually pray in lots of ways. We should pray in small groups, individually, corporately, with our family, on the go, in the work place etc. We should always be looking for new ways to pray. In doing so, we will find the Armor of God much easier to put on, and in turn, we will be able to fend off the attacks of the enemy more effectively.

So today, find ways to pray. Pray as you always do, but use your Bible study and church community to explore new ways to go before the Lord. If each of us will put prayer with prayer upon prayer, our strength will rise together.

Basic Training

Re:Verse passage – Ephesians 6:10-17 (day seven)

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. vs 10

We live in Military City USA. We are all well familiar with the process of Basic Training, but just for posterity, lets break it down. Basic Training, sometimes referred to as boot camp, prepares recruits for all elements of service: physical, mental and emotional. It gives service members the basic tools necessary to perform the roles that will be assigned to them for the duration of their tour. Before you are given a gun or put in charge of crucial information, you are required to test your limits and strengthen yourself.

What is the training ground for Spiritual Warfare? The Church. We gather together to learn the tools necessary to perform the roles God has assigned to us. We have a tendency to treat the training like the war. We prepare ourselves for Sunday, when Sunday is what prepares us for Monday. The reason we gather is to be trained, equipped, and deployed. Today as we gather, will you test your limits? Will you learn how to wear the Armor of God? Will you strengthen yourself so that you might be able to stand against the attacks of the enemy all week long?

Reedem Your Opportunities

Re:Verse passage – Ephesians 5:15-21 (day seven)

making the most of your time. Vs 16

I love reading scripture in different translations. Here are some of my favorites of the week:

Making the best use of the time (ESV)

Make the most of every opportunity (NLT)

Redeeming the time (NKJV)

What becomes abundantly clear through these differing translations is that we, as children of the light, have been called by God to make the most of the opportunities we have been given. This is not a call to programming. We have a tendency to think that “making the most of our time” means that we need to do more, so we proceed to cram our schedule with things that we perceive will help us make the most of time. Yet, this passage takes a different route. He is calling us to take the moments that arise in a given day, those that are dark, bleak or even uneventful, and redeem them. Take the moments where the enemy is trying to push forward the darkness and shine the Light back into it. “The Light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not comprehend it.” How can you redeem the moments and opportunities that will come up today?

Darkness of Our Past

Re:Verse passage – Ephesians 5:8-14 (day seven)

for you were formerly darkness, but now you are Light in the Lord. vs 8

You were darkness itself. Before you were adopted as a child of the light, you were eternally separated from God with sin darkening your soul. Verses 3-7 showed us that immorality, impurity, covetousness, and crude humor are symptoms of this darkness.

Despite our best efforts to walk in the light, these deeds of darkness have a way of sneaking back in don’t they? Darkness is who we were and that past continues to have its hold on our life. We let it back in out of familiarity, thinking the taste of darkness won’t completely extinguish our light. Though it may not be extinguished, participating in such deeds causes our light to become more dim.

We need repentance to recharge our light by reaching the darkest corners of our heart, even those places where we are holding on to the familiarity of our past. Repentance allows us to personally walk in the light as children of the light to help the light to shine in the darkest parts of the world.

Put Him On

Re:Verse passage – Ephesians 4:17-24 (day seven)

But you did not learn Christ in this way. vs 20

Having a toddler in the house means we are doing lots of learning. One of the things we are learning is how to dress yourself. I say this all as a disclaimer: if you see my son walking around the church with clothes on backwards or inside out, we are not terrible parents, we have allowed him to be proud of the fact that he put on his own clothes, and frankly, we are just happy he has clothes on.

Similarly, we have to learn how to put on the new self. We have to learn how to put on Christ. The goal at first is just to get it on. It may not feel like it fits quite right or may even feel backwards, but that is because Christ is counter cultural. To put Him on should feel different, but if we are faithful to put Him on everyday, the fit will begin to feel seamless.

It begins with a conscious effort, will I put Christ on today?