Nearly a Month Has Gone by...

...and I'm so grateful, both for the word that God gave me for this year, and the habit of arising that He has helped me develop.  Here, quickly, because I want to get to bed early enough to wake on time tomorrow, are some thoughts about this that I've gathered this week...

~ I haven't missed a morning; but once in a while, I don't hear my alarm when it first rings, and Jeff has to poke me so I get up.  ;-)  One unfortunate morning, I heard my alarm, got up, was SURE I turned off the alarm so it wouldn't continue to ding after its specified interval of minutes, but apparently was not successful in hitting the off switch.  I was downstairs reading my Bible and didn't hear a thing, but Jeff later told me that I had indeed not turned it off and he had to hear the rings and finally turn it off.  I didn't mean to do that!  :)

~ I finished Ordinary Faithful People this past week and really, really enjoyed it.  I feel kind of silly that it took me so many years to finally pull that book off the shelf and read it; but maybe God knew that, at this point in my life, I would be able to glean so much wisdom and encouragement from it, so He was saving it for me.  :)

~ Right now, I'm reading the book of Zephaniah.  It's not a very long book, so I won't spend too many days on it; but in reality, I do more than just read.  In fact, the first day I was studying that book, I read the entire thing to get an overview of Zephaniah's whole message.  But now I'm enjoying reading and studying in depth smaller portions of it so that I can really get a lot out of it.

~ My time with God zips by, and I'm realizing that it would really be great to have even more time so that I could read and study and learn even more.  :)  But as of yet, I haven't nudged my alarm clock any earlier.  In my mind, there's a huge difference between waking at, say, 6:55 and waking at, 7:00--a much bigger difference than the five minutes that it really is.  ;-)

~ So far, I've been spending most of the time reading and learning from His word, but I am recognizing that I don't want this to be a purely academic thing of adding to my knowledge.  Rather, I want it to be a profound deepening of relationship with my Savior; and to facilitate that, I know I need to spend more of the time in prayer.  Starting tomorrow, I'd like to spend the first few (at least) minutes of the time on my knees, before I even dive into the Word.

~ Even when I go to bed too late and I really would rather sleep longer in the morning, it's not too hard for me to get up because I've gotten lazy and have come to rely on the fact that almost always, there is a little gap of time before the boys get up and I can actually grab a little more shut-eye on the couch after I finish my reading.  Sometimes one of the boys will come down and snuggle with me while I drift off.  Sometimes Josiah will be up reading his Bible.  But quite a few mornings, I've been able to take a short power nap before I really have to get up and get on with my day.  As grateful as I am for the refreshment that those times bring, I do not, however, want to come to rely on them.  I still want to become more disciplined at night so I can get to bed on time and awake ready to get up--and, what's more, stay up!

~ I've enjoyed searching for some more songs with the word "Arise" in them, and this week I discovered this one.  It is glorious!  Besides the beautiful music, the words are powerful, ringing with truth, and calling the church to action.  Which reminds me that, now that the basic habit of arising in the morning for this time with God is in place, I want to grow past this.  I long for the word "arise" to come to signify so much more than simply waking up.  I look for an arising in other areas of my life, an onward journey towards maturity, and a look-beyond-myself shift in perspective.  To not just arise and sit at His feet (although that is the absolutely essential starting place), but to arise and FIGHT - that is my desire.  Here then is the song that reminds me of all of this...