The Case for Morning Devotions

Morning Worship in a Desolate Place

Psalm 119:147 I rise before dawn and cry for help; I hope in your words.

God’s grace doesn’t eliminate our spiritual practices. Grace energizes them. Our spirituality is actualized by the grace of God.

Do you see the same trend of downplaying morning devotions? I suspect a variety of reasons can be summed up in these four:

1. Undervaluing deliberate and undistracted time with God.

2. Laziness. Plain and simple.

3. Undisciplined. Morning devotions are a previous-night decision.

4. Misunderstanding the dynamics of grace and freedom.

When the question comes, “Should I meet with God to start my day?” my reply is, “Why not?” How we start our days is not inconsequential. Desires are declared. Needs are displayed. But do we realize how much we need him? And, do we want him?

Biblical Example

While we certainly aren’t required by law to wake up before dawn and hear from God’s Word and respond in prayer, it is a biblical pattern we are wise to imitate. There’s some wisdom in launching our days with communion with God.

• Job got up early in the morning and worshiped God (Job 1:5).

• Hannah and Elkanah rose early in the morning to worship God (1 Sam. 1:19).

• Jesus would rise “very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed” (Mark 1:35).

• Jesus even rose from the dead before the sun rose (Mark 16:2, 9; Luke 24:1; John 20:1).

Jesus went out to these “desolate” places—wilderness, desert, or uninhabited locales. Jesus would invite the disciples to join him in these places: “Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while” (Mark 6:31). The point of the desolate place isn’t its vibe. It’s about the lack of people. In the New Testament, “desolate” is meant to “focus primarily upon the lack of population rather than upon sparse vegetation, though the two features are closely related ecologically in the Middle East.”¹ So, how can we do this in the suburbs, on a college campus, or in the urban sprawl?

Getting up before the sun—and kids, blenders churning, microwaves beeping, or TVs talking—is a way to make our own “desolate place.” Find the time and place in your space where the population is thinned out because they are asleep. Find your quiet “wilderness”—the couch, a desk, the porch. Or, pull a Susanna Wesley and put an apron over your head and pray.² Make it a habit. Make it your thing. Prepare the night before. When I go to bed, I punch my ticket for the desolate place by:

1. Clearing my desk for my journal and Bible.

2. Preparing my crazy coffee machine to have the nectar ready when I stumble to the kitchen.

3. Knowing what I’m reading in the Bible the next day.

A Worshipful Time

Like a priest preparing the altar for worship, prepare to meet with God for morning worship. And that may be one of the more helpful ways to think of “quiet times” (not my favorite phrase) and “morning devotions” (not bad). View this time as morning worship, as communion with God. Hear his voice from Scripture and let him hear your voice in prayer (aloud or written). Read a hymn, sing a worship song on a walk, worship as you read a work of theology. Whatever you do, worship God.

Be like the Psalmists and resolve:

• I will pray in the mornings: “But I, O LORD, cry to you; in the morning my prayer comes before you.” (Psalm 88:13)

• God will hear my voice and my worship in the mornings: “O LORD, in the morning you hear my voice; in the morning I prepare a sacrifice for you and watch.” (Psalm 5:3)

• In the morning, I will read the word and hear of God’s love: “Let me hear in the morning of your steadfast love, for in you I trust. Make me know the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul.” (Psalm 143:8)

• In the morning, I will pray for God to satisfy me with his love: “Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.” (Psalm 90:14)

• In the morning, I will respond to his love: “But I will sing of your strength; I will sing aloud of your steadfast love in the morning. For you have been to me a fortress and a refuge in the day of my distress.” (Psalm 59:16)

Let’s be the people that start our day crying out for God’s help for all the day holds. We need his help to turn from sin, to grow in godliness, to love others, to work for his glory, and on and on and on. As Spurgeon said, “Let us give to God the mornings of our days and the morning of our lives.”

1. Johannes P. Louw and Eugene Albert Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament: Based on Semantic Domains(New York: United Bible Societies, 1996), 16.

2. Susanna Wesley, John Wesley’s mother, had 11 children and made time to pray. “Among the noise and activity of her many children, Susanna's trick was to pull her apron over her head—signaling to them and anyone else around that she was in prayer and not to be disturbed.”