What is the point to morning devotions? This is a question that I have pondered before and others have ask me the same question. Jesus was our perfect example for us to follow if we want to live the best life possible and to establish an eternal life with Him. Since He is our best example we see that He chose to rise up early in the morning to spend time with His Father everyday so that He would remain connected no matter what happened throughout His day. The reason for this is to start your day right, right with God in it. Through spending time with God is how we draw closer to Him and when situations arise during our day we have God at the forefront of our minds to help us, to know how to deal with it and to send the devil packing. When the day starts and we haven’t spent any time with God, we get too busy with work or everyday daily living, that we often forget to spend any time with Him at all and how do we expect to have a relationship or grow in our faith if we leave Him out. Like any relationship, if we don’t communicate or communicate often enough, it soon breaks down and withers away to non existent.
I wrote this list to help someone I know who was struggling with having a devotional time. As we all have struggles, knowing what to do for our morning devotions and being motivated to get out of bed, haha, I thought that I would share this, so I hope this may help you too:
- Get to bed at a reasonable hour even if you don’t want to. Allow a day like Saturday to be your late night unless there is an exception like you’ve gone out for someone’s birthday meal etc. Otherwise it makes getting up in the morning harder, especially if we are always tired.
- Wake up early and just start off with 15mins if that is all you can do to begin with. That’s better than doing nothing. Then you can slowly build up to a time you feel your able to do.
- Pick what you would like to do in your devotional time prior such as the night before or beginning of the week, so that you don’t have to figure it out in the morning. Here are some ideas to help you get started:
a. Read a chapter of Proverbs every morning. There are 31 chapters in Proverbs so this will last a month if you read one a day. Read over each chapter and carefully look at what each verse is saying. You can even write down what you get out into a journal if you are someone who keeps journals to help you remember the key points.
b. Buying a devotional book or e-book and read this through the month/year (how ever long that one goes for). You should be able to get these at your local Christian book store or online at book depositary etc.
c. There are devo plans if you download the Youversion Bible app (it’s the little brown Bible). There are lots of different devo plans that you can do on a range of different topics. They also vary in how long they go for, such as some last 5-7 days while others go for 13 days.
d. Lesson Book if your church does one. My church does one for our Bible study hour- read each day’s lesson and look up the Bible verses with it. You can also read up on the verses in a commentary to help you understand the context and meaning more. I sometimes do this and write certain key points in my lesson book for easy remembering.
e. Could choose a book of the Bible that you really want to study or a Bible character. I often like doing this along side the Bible Commentaries and I write it down in a journal. (Not all the time). This isn’t my specific way of studying, but this could be one of the ways that you really want to do every morning. I do this not as a morning devotional but rather if I am just studying something in particular.
f. Write in your prayer journal every morning or once a week. There are a few websites now with people creating prayer journals or devotional writing journals for quiet times that you can order to help you. (www.wholeheartedquiettime.com, www.findwondrousthings.com/heyfriend– are a couple of those sites) I will write up a post sometime of how I made mine.
g. Get little study books and read a page every day and fill it in as you go. (Manna Bookstore has some. I have 3- Prayer, Joseph and one on the Prodigal Son). You may even be able to buy study books for Kindle.
Other ideas of staying in tune with God:
- Reading a good Christian book every night just for a little bit, helps you stay in tune with God also right before you fall asleep. This helps you to think on good things and to have God always on your mind.
- Memorizing scripture- write on big pieces of paper, stick to drivers wheel and when you stop at lights etc, you can start to read and memorize some. You could also place one on your fridge so you read the verse every morning as you have your breakfast.
- Change the music you listen too. This is one I am trying to work on haha. And also the entertainment you watch or involve yourself in. Don’t let the devil in, in any small or big way. We don’t want to give him even an inch. What ever you see, hear or taste moulds us.
Hope this helps you in some way :).