Each morning, before I take the girls to school we read the Bible, we review memory verses, and we pray. (To put your mind to ease, we also brush our teeth.) One day Bella, our youngest, had a short and simple prayer “Dear Jesus, please help the adults today to be well and obey. Amen!” In my heart I raised my eyebrows, trying to figure out why she prayed that way. I’ve always encouraged our kids to pray for themselves to be obedient, so they could please Jesus, and avoid trouble. But, hey can you tell a kid not to pray that way? Not sure if, political as she is, she was actually praying for mommy to be obedient or not. But, who’s overthinking?
I love the simplicity of that prayer. When I wake up each morning, where does my mind run first to? Checking the news for tragedies? Counting how many likes I got on the last post on social media? None of these are bad, or sinful unless they completely take over your life. But, how would my day look if I started it with the right mindset, with a God-mindset? What if I would utter Bella’s simple prayer ‘Dear Jesus, please help me to be well with my soul no matter how painful, or frustrating today’s circumstances are going to be. Also, please help me obey You, my heavenly daddy.’
“Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.” Colossians 3:2
I love practicality. I don’t function well having just theory in my head, I usually need visual, and at times palpable aid to help me apply something. With that in mind, I’ve set a title for my morning alarm, as some phones allow that. So, each morning when 6:00 AM rapidly comes and startles me out of bed, when I press the snooze, and eventually the stop button I read ‘Say good morning to Jesus!’.
The legalistic part of me would say, I need to wake up at 5:00 AM each morning to have undisturbed time to read the Bible and pray in the silence of the house. But, since the Bible doesn’t put restrictions on time of the day to retrieve from the mundane to refill spiritually, I can’t do that either. Some night owls can better focus on their time with God at night, other early birds love to chirp for Jesus in the wee hours of the dawn.
I’m not talking about what time of the day you have a quiet time to read and pray. What I’ve been challenged on is to ask myself if I say ‘Good morning to Jesus!’ ? Do I invite Him in a short prayer to help me be well and obey? Do I quote a verse to remind myself of a godly principle from His Word? Does my mind run to Him in any way, shape or form first thing in the morning?
This way, I have greater chances of having a more godly day ahead of me. Maybe that would help me do what verse 17 of Colossians 3 says “And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”
Our girls speak great English, but because Romanian is their first language, they struggle with spelling at their young age. Mina, our oldest, on Mother’s Day gave me a beautiful card where she misspelled a few words that, I did not want to correct, selfish as I am. This is how my card read “Momo, I love you! Happy Mother’s Day! Have a god day! Hope you are filing god! Love, Mina”
Two mistakes. She meant to write ‘Have a good day!’ But, can you even blame me for not correcting it? It spoke more to me in the misspelled message. ‘Have a god day!’ We make errors, God doesn’t. I needed to be challenged that way. Each day needs to be a God-focused day.
The second mistake was ‘Hope you are filing god!’ Of course she meant to say ‘Hope you are feeling good!’ Another synonym for the verb ‘to file’ is ‘to organize’, ‘to put in place/in order’. So, when she wrote ‘Hope you are filing god!’ it challenged me to put God in the right order in my day, I need to file Him under the ‘Most Important One’, the One I want to start and end each day with.
Can you just picture what a God day would look like? A day filled with compassion, humility, patience, forgiveness, love, thankfulness and a heart that sings praises. Rather than a heart damaged by evil desires, impure thoughts, anger outbursts, obscene talk, and deceitful schemes. Only God can bring beauty to our filthy heart!
Since things will not go our way today and we’ll bump into other sinners as well, let’s strive to have a God day in spite of all of it.
If you have no hope because of past mistakes, forget how messy yesterday was and rejoice in God’s new mercies every morning. Pick yourself up just as Rocky Balboa does, and tell the Author of Life that gives us breath in our lungs each day ‘Good morning Jesus! Help my soul be well, and my heart obedient. Amen!’
Things I need to work on:
- Study more Colossians 3:1-17
- Be intentional in finding ways to say ‘Good morning to Jesus!’
- Memorize Colossians 3:2