9 Begin the Day with Prayer
I ought to pray before seeing any one. Often when I sleep long,
or meet with others early, it is eleven or twelve o'clock before I begin
secret prayer. This is a wretched system. It is unscriptural. Christ arose
before day and went into a solitary place. David says: "Early will I seek
thee"; "Thou shalt early hear my voice.'' Family prayer loses much of its
power and sweetness, and I can do no good to those who come to seek from me.
The conscience feels guilty, the soul unfed, the lamp not trimmed. Then when
in secret prayer the soul is often out of tune, I feel it is far better to
begin with God -- to see his face first, to get my soul near him before it is
near another. -- Robert Murray McCheyne
THE men who have done the most for God in this world have been early on their
knees. He who fritters away the early morning, its opportunity and freshness, in
other pursuits than seeking God will make poor headway seeking him the rest of
the day. If God is not first in our thoughts and efforts in the morning, he will
be in the last place the remainder of the day.
Behind this early rising and early praying is the ardent desire which presses
us into this pursuit after God. Morning listlessness is the index to a listless
heart. The heart which is behindhand in seeking God in the morning has lost its
relish for God. David's heart was ardent after God. He hungered and thirsted
after God, and so he sought God early, before daylight. The bed and sleep could
not chain his soul in its eagerness after God. Christ longed for communion with
God; and so, rising a great while before day, he would go out into the mountain
to pray. The disciples, when fully awake and ashamed of their indulgence, would
know where to find him. We might go through the list of men who have mightily
impressed the world for God, and we would find them early after God.
A desire for God which cannot break the chains of sleep is a weak thing and
will do but little good for God after it has indulged itself fully. The desire
for God that keeps so far behind the devil and the world at the beginning of the
day will never catch up.
It is not simply the getting up that puts men to the front and makes them
captain generals in God's hosts, but it is the ardent desire which stirs and
breaks all self-indulgent chains. But the getting up gives vent, increase, and
strength to the desire. If they had lain in bed and indulged themselves, the
desire would have been quenched. The desire aroused them and put them on the
stretch for God, and this heeding and acting on the call gave their faith its
grasp on God and gave to their hearts the sweetest and fullest revelation of
God, and this strength of faith and fullness of revelation made them saints by
eminence, and the halo of their sainthood has come down to us, and we have
entered on the enjoyment of their conquests. But we take our fill in enjoyment,
and not in productions. We build their tombs and write their epitaphs, but are
careful not to follow their examples.
We need a generation of preachers who seek God and seek him early, who give
the freshness and dew of effort to God, and secure in return the freshness and
fullness of his power that he may be as the dew to them, full of gladness and
strength, through all the heat and labor of the day. Our laziness after God is
our crying sin. The children of this world are far wiser than we. They are at it
early and late. We do not seek God with ardor and diligence. No man gets God who
does not follow hard after him, and no soul follows hard after God who is not
after him in early morn.
Posted on
Thu, November 19, 2009
by Wildewood Church