Give God Your Early

Full confession: I am a morning person. I wake up with a smile. I get excited to go to bed at 9:00 because I know I'll wake up early the next morning. My favorite time of day is right at the dawn, when the sun peeks out from behind the horizon and whispers God's name.

 I'm a wife and homeschool mom who is also a part-time piano teacher, writer, musician, business owner, and unpaid life coach to all of you out there. I love my life. But the one thing that makes it all work, holds everything together, and keeps me standing strong whatever comes is this: how I spend my early.

 Early is different for different people. I know a woman--one of the godliest out there--who got up at 3:30 for years so she could study her Bible before she had to go to work. That's early. My husband had a great-uncle who got up at 4:00 every day to spend an hour reading his Bible and an hour praying. Then he could start his 14- or 16-hour days of farming. That's early.

 And regardless of what early is to you, I dare you to learn the secret that so many people don't discover until they are decades into adulthood: 

 Give God your early.

 "My voice You shall hear in the morning, O Lord; In the morning I will direct it to You, and I will look up" (Psalm 5:3)

 "Through the Lord's mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness" (Lamentations 3:22-23)

 "Cause me to hear Your lovingkindness in the morning, for in You do I trust" (Psalm 143:8)

 "Oh, satisfy us early with Your mercy, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days" (Psalm 90:140)

God meets you in your early. He hears your voice when you sacrifice your early to meet with Him. It's in the early that we see and know His compassion, His faithfulness, His lovingkindness, and His mercy.

 By giving God your early, you're giving Him your first hours. Your most precious time. You thought about that early yesterday, when you were planning how your day would go. Your alarm didn't go off at the last minute; it went off with plenty of time for God to speak and reveal Himself to you and to allow you to find joy in His presence.

 How long does it take? Depends. Sometimes I'm done and ready for breakfast in 20 minutes. Sometimes it takes 2 hours and 2 cups of coffee to hear and see and taste (Psalm 34:8) all God had for me. 

 But please hear me clearly: there has not been one time that I gave God my early and regretted it. Because when I give Him my first words, my first thoughts, and my first focus, He shows up. 

 We who love Jesus are NEVER beyond giving our early to God. This whole faith thing is never something we master or understand completely. You know that; you've walked in total victory to fall into the mud the next day. 

 In fact, Jesus gave God His early, too: "Now in the morning, having risen a long while before daylight, He [Jesus] went out and departed to a solitary place; and there he prayed" (Mark 1:35)

 I always smile when I think that Jesus didn't need to do Bible Study because He was the Word made flesh (John 1:14). But even Jesus needed that time alone with God. Jesus knew the importance--the ultimate necessity--of being with God early. 

 You can come up with a million excuses not to give God your early. I'm not even going to list them here because I don't want to give you any ideas :) 

 But I dare you to do this one thing. 

 Believe what the Bible says and trust God to show up. 

 Give Him your early, and see what He gives you.




@leslienotebook
myleslienotebook@gmail.com

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