God Speaking

“Because of the Lord’s great love, we are not consumed, his compassions never fail. They are new every morning great is your faithfulness.”

(Lamentations 3: 22 – 23)

As we grow older our morning rituals take on a new and quite different procedure to that when we were young and were working or had small children or sometimes both! Morning rituals then were chaotic. I was thinking back on my own life and remembering all the changes I lived through. When I was a new young teacher, I had a kindergarten class and one of the little songs they loved to sing (or perhaps shout might be a better description) had these words as the first verse;

I wake in the morning early  

And always the very first thing 

I sit up in bed 

And I sing and I sing and I sing 

When I was sharing this sweet song with one of my sisters, she looked at me in sheer disbelief, and this was her response; You let little children sing that! It is certainly not the way I wake in the morning. My sister was not known as a “morning person”

The Psalmists knew that one of the important rituals of the morning was to speak to God;

“In the morning, O Lord, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation.” (Psalm 5: 3)

As a young mother and also working, my request was probably a plea to get through the day, but as I grew in the knowledge of who Jesus was, my morning prayer time became the most important part of my morning ritual and I became more and more dependent on that precious time.

As we grow older, we no longer need to jump out of bed to rush to get all those important tasks done and sometimes I feel because of this there is less and less I can do for the Lord. One of my friends gave me some wonderful advice, she told me she said this beautiful verse while she was still lying in bed so her heart would be prepared for whatever lay ahead that day;

“Create in me, a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.” (Psalm 51: 10)

I often take her advice and feel it does prepare me for the day. Another old friend also told me of a wonderful way she prays that all important morning prayer. She asks God if she can be used in any way to help someone who needs it and asks him to place that person in her life that day.

Others have told me they write a favourite verse out on paper and leave it on the bedside table, so they read it as soon as they wake up.

Jesus himself calls himself the bright Morning Star and what a beautiful thought to have when one wakes up;

“…I am the Root and the Offspring of David and the bright Morning Star.” (Revelation 22: 16)