Praying in the morning

Psalm 5:3 (NIV)

In the morning, O LORD, You hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before You and wait in expectation. 

“Each morning is a new beginning in our life.  Each day is a finished whole.  The present day marks the boundary of our cares and concerns.  It is long enough to find God or lose Him, to keep faith or to fall into disgrace.  God created day and night for us so that we need not wander without boundaries, but may be able to see in every morning the goal of the evening ahead.  Just as the ancient sun rises anew every day, so the eternal mercy of God is new every morning.  Every morning God gives us the gift of comprehending anew His faithfulness of old; thus in the midst of our life with God we may daily begin a new life with Him.  In the first moments of the new day are for God’s liberating grace, God’s sanctifying presence.  Before the heart unlocks itself for the world, God wants to open it for Himself; before the ear takes in the countless voices of the day, it should hear in the early hours the voice of the Creator and Redeemer.  God prepares the stillness of the first morning for Himself and it should remain His.”—Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Bonhoeffer was a young theologian in Nazi Germany who protested the treatment of the Jews, even participated in a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler.  He was arrested and spent two years in prison before being hanged brutally (naked and using thin wire to prolong the agony) only three weeks before Berlin was overtaken by the Soviets.  He wrote these words and many other writings while in prison.  I have seen the movie about his life and recommend that you rent/buy it (http://www.bonhoeffer.com) and be so moved by how submissive he was to the will of God.  Bonhoeffer’s most famous book, another must read, is “The Cost of Discipleship”.   

I think that this is the best description ever written about the meaning of mornings in God’s eyes that the psalmist affirms is a time when God is listening and willing to respond.  For Bonhoeffer to write something so beautiful, so full of the grace of wisdom of God, while having lost his freedom and likely knew that he was going to be executed is beyond comprehension.  Could you have written words like these knowing that your death was imminent?  Of course, you don’t know, but please take the time to read these words over and over and take to heart what they encourage about how you should start your day.