It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises to the Most High. It is good to proclaim your unfailing love in the morning, your faithfulness in the evening, accompanied by a ten-stringed instrument, a harp, and the melody of a lyre. You thrill me, Lord, with all you have done for me! I sing for joy because of what you have done. – Psalm 92:1-4 (NLT)
How do you start and end each day? Honestly, I usually start by looking at my phone before I even get out of bed. And I usually end by looking at my phone after I get in bed!
There’s nothing wrong with that in itself, but Psalm 92:2 that tells me there may be a better way to book-end my days.
“It is good to proclaim your unfailing love in the morning, your faithfulness in the evening…”
Morning and evening are natural times for prayer. In the morning, it is way to orient our thoughts and dedicate our day to God. In the evening, it is a way to acknowledge that His sustaining grace helped us through the day. William Gurnall, a 17th-century English clergyman, said:
“He that takes no care to set forth God’s portion of time in the morning, [does] not only rob God of his due, but is a thief to himself all the day after, by losing the blessing which a faithful prayer might bring from heaven on his undertakings. And he that closes his eyes at night without prayer, lies down before his bed is made.”
Some of the most intense and difficult moments of my battle with infertility came in the morning and in the evening. I’d wake up and immediately be seized by a feeling of sadness and grief over my inability to conceive. And at night, when I’d try to sleep, I’d be kept awake by thoughts of “What if?” and “Why?”. Oh, how I wish I’d made an effort to put this verse into practice, and instead focused on God’s love and faithfulness.
It can be hard to focus on His love and faithfulness when we feel like He’s withholding something good from us. It certainly will take mental and emotional discipline to make the choice to remember all God has done for us. But verse 4 shows us that meditating on what God has done for us will lead to joy!
“You thrill me Lord, with all you have done for me! I sing for joy because of what you have done.”
Isn’t that what we want most during our struggle with infertility? Joy! Thrills! It doesn’t mean we have to feel joy because of our infertility. But we can feel joy in the midst of it. Despite it. During it.
Let’s aim to start and end our days by focusing, even briefly, on God’s love and faithfulness. Doing so will surely lead to joy!
Image courtesy of Pixabay. This post is linked up at several different blog hops. You can see everywhere I link up here.
Same here…I look at my phone immediately and I should definitely change that. Now, I have a question. I would like to start Bible journaling, do you have any recommendations for a good Bible? We have our wedding Bible that has our wedding date engraved on it, it’s too pretty to write all over. But I would like an easy to read, easy to carry Bible. Hope you have a great weekend!
Oh, I love this question! I’ve been using the same NIV Study Bible I’ve had since college, but I’ve been thinking recently I’d like to get a new one that has wider margins so it’s easier to write in it. Your question gave me the perfect excuse to research what’s out there! If you’re lucky enough to have a bookstore where you live (even better if it’s a Christian bookstore), I suggest you go there and look at the Bible there. You can open them up and see how big/heavy they are and whether or not they have enough room to write in. However, if you’re like me and the nearest bookstore is almost an hour away (SO SAD!), I suggest you go on Amazon and look there. I will say it’s hard to find a Bible that has extra space for writing AND is compact in size. You’ll probably need to decide which is more important. (For me, writing size would be more important since I have the You Version Bible app on my phone for reading on-the-go). Check out these links for Journaling Bibles and Wide-Margin Bibles on Amazon (affiliate links). You can choose which translation you prefer on the left-hand side of the screen. I prefer NIV, ESV, or NLT (I think NLT is easiest-to-read), but of course, that’s just my preference. Have fun choosing one! I’d love to know what you decide!