What is the last thing you do before you go to bed and the first thing you do when you waken up in the morning?
If I’m honest, mine is checking my Instagram feed. Without fail, my automatic reaction is to pick up my phone, take a quick scroll and then put it away. Half the time I don’t even stop long enough to look at the photographs. What would happen though if we turned our attention to God first thing in the morning?
One guarantee we have is that God will be there! He is waiting for us to get up and praise Him. “He wakens me morning by morning, wakens my ear to listen like one being instructed,” Isaiah 50:4. He’s ready to speak and lead us, are we ready to listen and follow?
I love the idea of being able to set my alarm half an hour earlier, to get up and spend time in the word and prayer. It’s something that I just haven’t been able to grasp the discipline of…I must keep trying. However, even if I can’t get myself organised enough to get up early, surely, I should be able to put my mind on Jesus from the moment I waken anyway. I should be able to open my eyes and praise Him for a new day. It’s so hard at the moment when I waken up and it’s dark, cold, windy, sometimes wet outside and all I want to do is stay under the covers and fall back to sleep. How do I encourage myself to change my attitude and find the beauty in those things and praise God for my new morning?! Well… the Psalmist says, “Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days,” (Ps 90:14). I want to learn to pray this before bed every night so that when I waken, I am reminded that whatever it’s like outside, whatever my day holds and whoever comes in my way, I have the unfailing love of God in my heart and on my side and I want to SING for joy for all that means.
Ladies, I don’t know what you are like in the morning. Maybe you are a morning person and it’s easy to get up and sit with God, and for that I encourage you to keep it up! However, if you are not, don’t reason with yourself that it’s ok to just start your day and talk to God later. Pray a short prayer, something that praises, thanks and acknowledges Jesus as your reason for living. See if that can set you up for the day better. Before your feet hit the ground, praise your Saviour.
“Seek FIRST His Kingdom and His righteousness and all these things will be given to you.” (Matthew 6:33)
By: Bethany McDowell
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