PURSUING GOD’S GLORY (4)

“O God, You are my God; early will I seek You; my soul thirsts for You; my flesh longs for You in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water” (Psalm 63:1 NKJV).

Most people who walked with God sought Him early in the morning. Your waking thought sets the pace for your day and to a large extent dictates the tone of your life. The thought you wake up with reveals what you are truly passionate about.  When you wake thinking about God, you will more easily and consistently seek Him the rest of the day.  This is so because the first thought that grips your heart in the morning is most likely to control it for the rest of the day. The popular saying holds that first impression is the lasting impression. The thought that makes the first strong impression in your heart will be the thought that will linger in your mind most of the day.  It will not be easy to be dislodged and replaced by later ideas because it has become deeply fixed in the mind before other ideas begin to arise. The Psalmist understood this secret therefore he sought God early –“early will I seek You.”  He prayed, “My voice You shall hear in the morning, O Lord; in the morning I will direct it to You, and I will look up” (Psalm 5:3 NKJV). Endeavour to direct your heart to God first thing every morning through prayer.

Here is a powerful incentive to seek God early –“I love them that love me; and those that seek me early shall find me” (Proverbs 8:17 KJV). Prayer is the surest way to seek Him.  People who have done the most for God on earth have been men and women who sought God early in prayers and heard His voice early before hearing any other person’s. According to E. M. Bounds, “He who fritters away the early morning, its opportunities and freshness, in other pursuits than seeking God will make poor headway seeking Him the rest of the day.” It is beyond question that only those who are in a hot passionate pursuit after God can break the seductive appeal of early morning sleep to fellowship with God in prayer and meditation on His Word.  Our Lord Jesus modelled for us the uttermost necessity of seeking God early. Mark testified of His life habit, “Now in the morning, having risen a long while before daylight, He went out and departed to a solitary place; and there He prayed” (Mark 1:35 NKJV). Adam Clarke provided this insight, “By the morning, is to be understood the whole space of three hours, which finished the fourth watch of the night.” Our Lord spends three hours, from 3am to 6am, in prayer every morning. 

That window of time is when God activates our spiritual senses to receive revelations of His Person, activities, and programs so that we can serve Him better. The Prophet Isaiah reveals what God does with people who pray at the fourth watch:   “The Lord GOD has given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him who is weary.  He awakens me morning by morning, He awakens my ear to hear as the learned” (Isaiah 50: 4 NKJV). Early morning is the time of revelations when God imparts knowledge to us as He opens our spiritual ears to hear and anoints our tongues to speak with His authority.

Seeking God early as the Psalmist exemplified would demand everything in us to do.  It would surely take the longing of the flesh and the thirst of the soul to shatter the smug complacency of the flesh in order to pursue God. E. M. Bounds once more declared, “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...Our laziness after God is our crying sin...We do not seek God with ardour and diligence. No one gets God who does not follow hard after Him.” Why not consider the example of Jesus and give God the first hours of your day?  This is how to go from glory to glory.

Let us once more pray with the Psalmist, “O God, You are my God; early will I seek You; my soul thirsts for You; my flesh longs for You in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water.”