Stepping Into the Word

In the morning hours pages are blurry and my words stumble.

I was not made for the morning.

I'm still building this habit, and now that it's getting colder and we're in the midst of furnace wars I have to admit that getting out of the warm bed is terribly difficult.

I convinced myself a long time ago that as long as I ended my day with God I didn't have to try to manage an early morning meet-up. After all- meeting daily is really great, right? But reading Scripture and devoting time to prayer at the end of my day didn't really work- I was exhausted and spent the time half-heartedly, and I must admit- eventually there became no time at all as other things seemed to take over. I had only given God the crumbs of my time and my soul.

I struggled to find a place for His Word somewhere and then realized not too long ago that that was precisely the problem. I was trying to squish my relationship with God into some place in my life, rather than setting my life around my relationship with God. I'm not sure exactly when all of that tangled up and shifted out of balance, but it was clear: something had to change.

Enter the new morning habit, which grew into a serious hunger for The Word, and now into a day defined by hard stops and a focus where it should be: reading, learning, absorbing, praying. In the middle of all the things that must be done we stop for the Book we cannot live without. It is still difficult at times as we are still learning this new lifestyle, but slowly I feel a change in my heart to seeing what truly must be done: time in The Word, time to hear God, time for a continuous conversation with Him. Suddenly laundry and dishes and the other "musts" seem so much less important.

I pray His Word in the in-betweens, I read and learn on my own in the morning and with my husband in the evenings, we stop our day mid-morning and mid-afternoon for prayer and Scripture memorization. We feed our kids The Word of God along with their meals and pray together.


Ann Voskamp invites us to write about feasting on His Word this week.