I like starting my day in peace and quiet. Maybe it matters so much to me because I have so little expectation of the day continuing that way. I have learned that if I start my day in chaos, that is how the day is going to likely going to unfold (or, more accurately, unravel). But if the day starts calmly, I feel that I have a better chance, at least, of facing my day centered and calm.
Anyone who spends much time around me in my natural habitat knows that I do all I can to protect my quiet mornings. Generally speaking, that means a ban on early morning noise: no music, no electronic media, no idle chit chat.
Part of my quiet morning regimen includes prayers committed to memory. These prayers have the effect of guiding my thinking and getting me in a proper perspective as I start my day. These prayers are simple, even a bit simplistic. However, if I open myself up to what they are saying, they can have a fairly profound impact on me.
The first of my two morning prayers is actually taken directly from the Psalms. Frankly, I don’t understand why I have never heard of anyone else using this as a morning prayer. Ever since I first adopted it a few years back, it has seemed like the perfect way to begin my morning conversation with God. It expresses perfectly the two desires of my heart: relationship and direction.
Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul.” Psalm 143:8
A good many mornings these are the first words I speak to anyone. In them I am crying out for new mercies, fresh joy in the morning as God reveals to me a new ‘word’ of his unfailing love.
Why is this so important to me? Because “I have put my trust in you.” And, if I am truly trusting him, I need him to be close by and personal, not distant and silent, as I go through the day.
But then I also ask him to guide me; “Show me the way I should go”. Again I explain, because “to you I lift up my soul”. My soul, my self, my total being is offered up, laid on the line. “So, God”, I ask, “since you have me, what is it that you want to do with me?”
This is my first early morning prayer. But it is not my last memorized prayer of the morning. Generally, the last thing I pray by myself in the morning is a prayer borrowed from one of my favorite prayer guides[i]. It says,
Lord God, almighty and everlasting Father, you have brought me in safety to this new day: Preserve me with your mighty power, that I may not fall into sin, nor be overcome by adversity; and in all I do, direct me to the fulfilling of your purpose; through Christ Jesus my Lord. Amen.”
Gratitude for the new day and my arrival in it, prayer for protection and a request for guidance that leads to the fulfilling of his purposes for my life. It’s hard to cram much more good stuff into one relatively short sentence.
Sure, as soon as I head out the safety of my quiet home into the busy-ness of the day, it’s easy to lose my focus. But some days these words stick with me. Some days they continue to channel my head and my heart in the right direction.
Perhaps it doesn’t happen as often as I would like, but I think it would happen far less if I started my day in just about any other way.
Shalom.
i Phyllis Tickle has compiled a three-volume set of fixed-hour prayer books. Each is called The Divine Hours, but there is a volume for Springtime, Summertime, and Autumn and Wintertime. They are published by Doubleday.





