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I’ve always loved having my quiet time with the Lord in the early morning. Well, I suppose not literally always, but?in the last decades. It just seems like always. When our children were small, I knew that to satisfy?my desire for more of God, I would have to discipline… myself to getting up early before the rest of the family was awake. You parents especially will know what I mean! If you don’t make that time, it won’t?just “happen” to be available for you.

I know that my life would have been different if I hadn’t followed that prompting of the Holy Spirit. How it would have been different, I don’t know, but I wouldn’t really care to find out. The early morning is when the Lord revealed His Word to me, refreshed and sustained me with His Presence, and gave me glimpses of His future plans.

In the last year, though, since Dale and I have now come into the empty nest stage of life, something has changed. Those early morning times are still necessary, and I still receive daily refreshing and downloads of revelation,?but now the Lord has required a shift. I just don’t get everything I need there. There is a withholding that cannot be broken through by insisting on doing things the same old way. There are important things that must be released, desires that He has planted in the heart that can only be received or moved into by being obedient to this shift.? For me, in this season, that translates to taking chunks of the prime of my day to study His Word and spend time with Him. Why would I have to do this when I had my days structured in such a sensible way? For one thing, God wants the prime, the best. He deserves it.

The flesh wants convenience. It’s easy to fall into the rut of scheduling God to fit where we want Him to fit. Indeed, it IS important to schedule in our study and prayer time as a priority. But what used to be a temple of worship can become a box. This is precisely the point where we begin to live religiously rather than by the freshness of relationship. God doesn’t like to live in boxes. If we’ve given our lives to Christ, He wants to inhabit everything about us.

If?I want more of Him, He must have more of me. Giving?my all today, plays out differently than giving my all ten years ago, last year, or even yesterday.

Anyone who’s sensitive to the Spirit of God knows that we’re in a new day. “Arise, shine, for your light has come and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.” It’s upon us. Our heart’s devotion followed through in obedience will open the way to seeing this glory.