Starting the Day with God

It's good to start the day with God. And it's good to go on from the there and live the day with God. How we start has an ongoing effect on how we continue, and, while we can still turn to the Lord at any moment of the day, beginning it with Him is a great privilege and blessing. 

There are all sorts of ways we can start the day with the Lord. And sometimes it helps to have a bit of help — a bit of guidance to get us going. So, that's what I want to share with you today. Lately, something I've been finding very helpful in starting the day with the Lord is guidance from Andrew Murray in a little chapter he wrote called ‘Daily Fellowship with God.’ There Murray suggests that our first act each day shouldn't so much be to come to the Lord with all our requests and busy thoughts, but to set ourselves quietly before Him and wait on the Lord. Here's how he puts it:

The first and chief need of our Christian life is, Fellowship with God. The Divine life within us comes from God, and is entirely dependent upon Him. As I need every moment afresh the air to breathe, as the sun every moment afresh sends down its light, so it is only in direct living communication with God that my soul can be strong. The manna of one day was corrupt when the next day came. I must every day have fresh grace from heaven, and I obtain it only in direct waiting upon God Himself. Begin each day by tarrying before God, and letting Him touch you. Take time to meet God. To this end, let your first act in your devotion be a setting yourself still before God.

Start the say by ‘setting yourself still before God’, by tarrying (waiting) before Him. It's good advice. But what does that actually look like? How can we start the day this way. Well, Murray knows we'll ask that question, so he shows us how as well. 

You can read Murray's chapter here and see exactly what he says. But it helped me a set out his advice in a bit more of an outline form, so if that might help you, here it is as a little PDF. (I've printed it out in booklet format so the four pages will fit onto a single sheet of A5, or A4 if you want bigger print.) Most of the words on the PDF are Murray's own, I've just drawn out the key points, rearranged them a bit into a helpful structure to follow (which is Murray's structure, just not always the order of his sentences in the chapter), and paraphrased one or two things. The little PDF should make sense and be helpful by itself, but it'll be even more helpful I think if you read Murray's little chapter first and then just use it as a set of notes to help you.

This isn't everything Andrew Murray has to say about our daily life of prayer and our daily walk with the Lord, but it is a good help to beginning the day with the Triune God. I hope it's of some use.