...morning prayer...

“1 Give ear to my words, O LORD, consider my sighing.

2 Listen to my cry for help, my King and my God, for to You I pray.

3 In the morning, O LORD, you hear my voice;

  in the morning I lay my requests before You

        and wait in expectation” Psalm 5:1-3.

This is a beautiful Lament, of which there are many in the Psalter. Laments are expressions of great needs felt by the Psalmist. And here the Psalmist is crying out to God to hear the Psalmist’s heart and words. Specifically, the Psalmist cries out to God to hear “my sighing.” Clearly the author is hurting, and can we not all identify with that? In the face of great suffering the Psalmist cries out: “Listen to my cry for help, my King and my God, for to You I pray” Psalm 5:2. If ever there is a clearer appeal to you and to me to pray in time of pain, it is these words. Listen to me, Lord, listen to my words, listen to my heart, listen to may pain, listen to my utter loneliness. “I need You, Lord, help me now, help me today, help me from abandoning You and sinning once again instead of listening to and following You!”

There is also a beautiful invitation here to pray in the morning, before you start your day. Now I know some of us are roosters and others are owls, but to start our day in prayer is so wise, so essential. WHY? Because we are procrastinators, by nature. We like to put many things off until later. We need our cup of latte first. A dear friend of mine from central America once told me that the worst word in Spanish is the word mañana, and yet it is often the first word we non-Spanish speakers learn. “In the morning I lay my requests before You and wait in expectation” Psalm 5:3. This is what “righteous God” is calling us to do: Pray first — Live later! We see the beauty, the blessing of praying in the morning — we get to spend the rest of the day “waiting in expectation” for the Lord to answer our prayer and to fill us with His grace.

So when you and I express our great needs to the Lord, do so in the morning — and then repeat your prayers throughout the day!

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me a sinner.

From the Bible:

“35 In the morning, while it was still very dark, Jesus got up and went out to a deserted place, and there He prayed. 36 And Simon and His companions hunted for him. 37 When they found him, they said to him, ‘Everyone is searching for you.’ 38 He answered, ‘Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.’ 39 And He went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons” Mark 1:35-39.