GOOD MORNINGS

Psalm 5:3, Psalm 55:17, Psalm 59:16, Psalm 88:13, Psalm 90:14, Psalm 143:8
Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul.

Ken was a morning person, up every day, work or no work, at 5:00 a.m. I am a morning person “under protest.” I get up and get going every morning, but I do so of necessity, and I do so because I don’t like how life goes when I stay in bed. So, even on mornings when I don’t have to rush to work, I’m up. There is a part of me, on the other hand, something I notice when I venture out into the very early mornings, and that is an overwhelming love of the crisp newness of dawn. Then, I inwardly chastise myself for not being a morning person!

Morning is many things to many people. Whatever one may think about it, morning is, plain and simple, the beginning of the day. Years ago, during the days of lots of little children and little babies and sleep-interrupted nights, I had my first encounter with a Bible verse bringing hope for my weary mornings. Psalm 5:3..."Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul." 
 

Imagine the salve it offered to learn that I could ask for God to bring me word of His unfailing love… “for I put my trust in you.” Through the years since, I have been thrilled by that verse and with the others I found having to do with the morning.

Lately, I’ve been working on two other morning verses: In the morning I will sing of your love, and in the morning I lay out my requests before you and wait in expectation.

I have spent far too many days with numb starts. I like the thought of morning purpose, and the truth that each of these verses offers is that I can do these things while I’m getting ready. I can lie quietly in my bed when I awake and let my requests be known unto God. I can sing of His love in the shower, and I can ask God to truly show me His great lovingkindness (hesed) as I blow dry my hair.

There are more “morning” verses in the Bible; whether you are a morning person or not, they hold the secret to a fine day. Sometimes I stop and think, “I wonder what I’ve missed by not taking time to look into God’s every-morning-new mercies.” Life is made up of days. Days begin with morning. You can spend an entire life knowing very little of communion with God at day’s start…or you can spend the rest of it cashing in on His “morning” promises!

2007