O God, You are my God
\nAnd I will ever praise You
\nOh God, You are my God
\nAnd I will ever praise You
\nI will seek You in the morning
\nI will learn to walk in Your ways
\nAnd step by step You’ll lead me
\nAnd I will follow You all of my days
\n\u201cStep by Step\u201d \u00a9 1991 BMG Songs, Inc. \/ Kid Brothers of St. Frank Publishing \/ ASCAP \/ All rights reserved<\/p>\n
One of the most profound disciplines I\u2019ve bought into over the years is that of seeking God in the morning. I\u2019d love to say that I\u2019ve been consistent with this practice day by day, week by week, year by year, over the span of nearly forty years. Unfortunately, I cannot say that.<\/p>\n
I can<\/em> say this. The Lord taught me the value of seeking Him first thing, and as a result, I\u2019ve almost always had some sort of fellowship with Him before I head out the door.<\/p>\n Like most of you, I\u2019ve gone through ebbs and flows with the Lord in the mornings. More than once, when carnality and chaos seemed to rule the day, He would gently remind me, \u201cSeek Me now<\/em>\u2014and give Me first place in the morning.”<\/i>\u00a0And every time He redirects me after I\u2019ve been \u201ctoo busy\u201d to start my day in the Word and prayer, I pull myself out of bed the next day, find my Bible, a pen and paper, and start reading and talking to Him. Without fail, He shows up and highlights Scriptures and wisdom to my heart.<\/p>\n After a season in my life when I flirted with some carnality, the first thing God led me to do was to reestablish my time with Him in the morning. I purposed to set aside 6:30-7:00 before I left for work to spend time in the Word and prayer. (I had consistently prayed for longer periods of time as a younger believer, but I had to start over again with what I could realistically do. I’ve observed that sometimes we put bigger goals before ourselves than we can handle; when we fail, we give up. Start small; conquer that, and then increase as the Lord leads.)<\/p>\n As I remained faithful to my half-hour with God, the peace, revelation, joy, and blessing flooded back into my life. It always amazes me how God shows up when I obey Him.<\/p>\n I was one of those backwards things who didn\u2019t have a lot of technology in my home. Well, when I finally went online, let’s just say I was swept away. You see, I love to study and think and learn about what\u2019s going on in the world, and I discovered that every morning I had all of the world\u2019s issues laid out before me with a click of a button. Of course, I\u2019d pray and seek God, but something just didn\u2019t feel right.<\/p>\n Clear as a bell, in March of 2010, the Lord told me, \u201cDon\u2019t even look<\/em> at the news until after you\u2019ve spent time with Me each morning.\u201d And again, when I put my hand to the seeking-God plow first thing in the day, peace, revelation, joy, and blessing flooded back upon me in even greater measure.<\/p>\n And then I got my first iPhone less than a year ago. (Told you I was technologically backwards.) I learned how amazing it was\u2014an alarm clock, email, news, weather and so much more\u2014all at my fingertips! And what do you know, but I started checking my emails first thing (I\u2019m not on Facebook, or I would be checking that, too) and one thing led to another, and I had journeyed around the world, to international meetings and crime scenes before I even got out of bed! Several conspiracies were unfolded before my eyes and I even learned about all of the sales waiting for me on everything from storage cabinets to cat food.<\/p>\n Oh, I would pray\u2014way later in the morning\u2014and feel about as spiritual as an empty potato chip bag.<\/p>\n And conviction came over me again. Lord, I\u2019ve let go of what You told me in 2010. I\u2019ve put all this other stuff before You. I need help!\u00a0 <\/i>And it all happened on that snowy morning I told you about.<\/p>\n I knew I would hear from God if I opened up my devotionals, and right there in Streams in the Desert<\/i> by Mrs. Charles E. Cowman, I read, \u201cBe ready in the morning, and come up\u2026present thyself there to me in the top of the mount.<\/i> And no man shall come up with thee<\/i>\u201d (Exodus 34:2,3; KJV).<\/p>\n In the morning<\/em>. God had spoken again. Not only did He want me to present myself to Him each day<\/i>, but He also said this: \u201cAnd no man shall come up with thee<\/i>.\u201d Not emails, not the news, not the forecast, not sales, not the latest conspiracy\u2014no man <\/i>shall share that time slot which I have reserved just for the two of us<\/i>, I sensed Him saying to my heart.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd no man shall come up with thee<\/i>.\u201d That man\u2014my iPhone\u2014and the other man\u2014my laptop\u2014now stay in another part of the house when I go into the early morning secret place with God.<\/p>\n As you can see, for such an intelligent person, I\u2019ve been a slow learner. But oh, the joy of connecting with God in the morning before the world around me clamors for attention! Nothing that beckons for my notice can compare to the sweetness of early morning fellowship with Him.<\/p>\n Top of the morning to you!<\/p>\n Dorothy<\/p>\n In the morning, O LORD, You will hear my voice; In the morning I will order my prayer to You and eagerly watch.<\/em> Psalm 5:3<\/p>\n I love them that love me; and those that seek me early shall find me.<\/em> Proverbs 8:17; KJV<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" O God, You are my God And I will ever praise You Oh God, You are my God And I will ever praise You I will seek You in the morning I will learn to walk in Your ways And step by step You’ll lead me And I will follow You all of my days […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-connection"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4264"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4284,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4264\/revisions\/4284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}