Early Morning Prayer

At the beginning of every year, Young Nak has this tradition to have early morning prayers for the first full week of January at 6am everyday except for the Sunday. I’ll be transparent and say that sometimes I do dread waking up at 5:15am to get ready for it, but after every time I pray, I can again be transparent and say that I have never regrated going to pray. It was amazing to spend time with God in the morning in praise, in His word and to lift up prayers for ourselves, for others and for COAH. It was also encouraging to have people fill out the prayer cards for their prayer requests and to see others that come to pick up those prayer cards and pray for them. Although we are done with the full week of prayer, I pray that as we continue in 2026, we can continue to make time to pray for each other and our church. 

There are many reasons to pray, such as God commands us to pray in passages like 1 Thessalonians 5:17, James 5:16, Luke 6:28, 18:1, Matthew 6:9 and the list continues on, and that prayer is good for us because God is good and that everything He created was good and not bad (Genesis 1), and so anything that God commands is good for us. Prayer also increases our joy according John 16:24 and John Piper points out in his article on “Three Motivations to Pray”, 

“Ask. Ask. Because in coming to me as a needy person and depending upon me for everything you need, your joy will be fuller than if you try to get that need met another way. He wants you happy in him, and he says, “Ask, and your joy will be full.” 

There are many reasons to pray, but the one reason I want to focus on here is that prayer increases our heart for God and for others because it aligns us with God’s will and heart. We see this in passages like Matthew 7:7-14, Ephesians 6:18, 2 Thessalonians 3:5, 1 John 4:7-8 and so forth. I have also noticed that the more I pray for someone, the more I care and the more I seek God’s will for them in their lives. Even though the first week of prayers at the beginning of January have ended, I pray that we will continue to pray for other and share prayer requests with each other. I want to challenge you (and myself) (especially if you normally do not do this) that at the end of every fellowship, meeting, or talk with each other, we can share our requests and offer to pray for each other. You can even start this Sunday after service during the fellowship time in the gym. This way we can grow more of heart for God and others in our community here at COAH Young Nak. 

Blessings, 

Pastor Edgar