Matthew 14:23 And when he had sent the multitudes away, he went up into a mountain apart to pray: and when the evening was come, he was there alone.
Psalms 63:6 When I remember thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the night watches.
Psalms 5:3 My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O LORD; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up.
Psalms 55:17 Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud: and he shall hear my voice.
Mark 1:35 And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed.
This morning’s daily verse in Matthew jogged a pet peeve to mind again. It always amazes me how people, and in this particular case, a lot of people seemingly in high places within the global church of God, can build forceful doctrines out of sporadic verses here and there and teach them in such a way as to cause the layman to look at each other in judgement if they don’t follow said doctrines.
The doctrine I am speaking of, is that of the apparent necessity to rise early in the morning to spend time with God in prayer and Bible reading. The understanding is, that by giving up an hour or two of sleep every day, you are somehow being “more like Jesus” and developing a closer relationship with God the Father in the process. Being a night-owl by nature, this has always bothered me. In recent years, hidden health problems that finally surfaced this past year, are making the need for sleep even more apparent and the thought of losing sleep even more ludicrous. So I opened e-Sword to my favourite KJV Bible, and searched for morning and prayer.
What I found, was that whenever God had a specific directive to a specific person, He often called that person to rise early to complete that directive. However, the concept of mixing prayer and mornings together is no more frequent than that of other time frames throughout the day. What jogged this issue for me today, is that this morning’s verse from Matthew does not mention Christ getting away in the morning, like other passages do such as the one in Mark shared above. This verse shows Christ getting away to pray in the evening! But Christendom has been taught that to be like Christ, we need to get up early and pray! Then I found the verses in Psalms, written by the man God called “A man after my own heart”, and find King David speaking of engaging in prayer, praise, and meditation at all hours of the day!
“All hours of the day”. . . We are told in 1 Thessalonians 5:17 “Pray without ceasing.” The basic definition of what this means, is to always be in conversation with God about everything going on in your life, all day long. Whether you are concerned with a family member, bothered by traffic, late for a meeting, making a difficult decision. . . God wants to be included in everything you do, in all aspects of your life, but the only way He can be included is if you do the including!
As a single mother for the past 15 years, hearing sermons and attending Bible studies where doctrines about early mornings and regular daily devotions were heavily taught, often brought me to feelings of condemnation, until I realized one very key fact about spending time with God in a day. God doesn’t care how it looks, just as long as you give Him the best part of your day, whenever that lands in your usual routine. Sometimes giving God your best means rearranging your schedule and you are encouraged to do that whenever circumstances let you. I have found that daily responsibilities have meant a schedule shift every few months, so having a regular quiet time has always been a struggle. It is encouraging then to find that “The man after God’s own heart” found time for God at any point throughout his day! It is encouraging for me to discover that Christ got alone with God the Father at evening as well as morning. I’ve also discovered that my love for writing gets me into the Word and meditating on it fairly frequently as well. This has been a saving grace for me at times when daily schedules have run me off my feet.
Not everyone is blessed with the health required to cut short their sleeping schedule to fulfill the apparent doctrine of rising early to meet with God as a sign of personal holiness. There is grace in the heart of God for people to include Him at all times of the day, and in all reality, God would prefer we include Him throughout the day, rather than just for one or two hours first thing in the morning.
Something to think about.