Introduction to our "Good Morning Lord" Devotional

Good Morning Sistas! Welcome to our first devotional series…Good Morning Lord, I Don’t know where You’re Going Today, But I’m Going With You by Sheila Walsh. 

I love how the forward to this book begins. For the most part I would say that I could be considered a morning person.

I rarely struggle with getting up and starting my day. And I don’t need a cup of coffee before I greet people. So here is my story…around the time I turned 40 my inner alarm clock started to wake me up around about 5 am. It didn’t matter what time of the night I went to bed. I would be bright eyed and ready to go! No matter how much I tried to fight it once I was awake that was it. It didn’t make sense to lie in the bed and stare at the ceiling while Marc lay beside me sleeping. So I would get up and go in my family room and scroll through either Facebook, or Instagram. Some mornings I’d think about getting up to start cleaning, but the problem with that is I would have probably woke everyone else in the house up.

Many of those mornings I would wake up frustrated because I could not understand why I was waking up at 5 am exactly. Then one day I was read a blog, or it could have been an article somewhere, where the person talked about how sometimes God wakes you up early in the morning so he can have a conversation with you. OK, so I am just going to be transparent with you all and say….that wasn’t my first thought. I didn’t automatically say…oh is that what’s happening. And honestly I thought the person writing it was just trying to say something spiritual. Why would God wake me up out of perfectly good sleep so that I could spend some time with him. Especially when I did that every Sunday when I went to church. Or when we had Bible Study time. Or on the occasional moments when I actually set down and prayed with him.

I wasn’t that important enough that God wanted me to carve out a portion of my morning to sit down and just spend time with only him. Time before my household woke up and I got to busy to even think about time with the Lord. And even if I set down with him, what would I say to him. It didn’t occur to me at the time that he might have a few things he would like to say to me.

And I will admit that even today knowing the benefits of sitting down with God, Carving out time for devotions and listening to what he has to say…I don’t always do it. I wish I could say I was more consistent with that but I am not. But you know what. That’s OK. When he really has something important to say to us, it will happen whether we make time or not.

But here’s the thing….what I have found is that when I do make the time to study Gods word. To sit down with him for a devotional period, to find a peaceful and quiet place to commune with him…that it makes all the difference in my day!

When we ended our 21 Days of Prayer journey last month I realized how much enjoyment I got out of it. Carving out a small portion of the day to spend with you all, helped me get through the day. It helped me stay calm and it gave me something to focus on other then my own circumstances. Basically, it gave me a purpose!

Then after listening to a few of my friends who had been following along and who were telling me how much it was helping them to get through the day I understood why God had even placed it on my heart in the first place. So I started to look into ways that we could keep it going after the 21 days were finished. I knew I wanted to find a devotional book, and I knew I wanted to concentrate on connecting with woman. You may recall that I said during the prayer journey that God had placed a ministry to woman on my heart many years ago. I had just been to scared to do anything about it.

That’s when I happened to stumble across Sheila Walsh book “Good Morning Lord”. I had actually been following her journey back when she use to be a host on CNN. And years later I got to hear her in person at a Woman of Faith event that a few of the woman from our church attended. But I received her book at a Pastors Wives Conference that I helped to host years ago in Nashville. Like many of the other ladies probably did. I brought all of my goodies home from the conference, stuck it on a shelf and forgot all about it. Until a few weeks ago. Don’t you love God’s timing? He knows what you need when you need it. And frankly when we got close to the end of the 21 days of prayer I knew I needed more. And I figured I might as well take a few Sista's along for the ride.

So this is the way this thing will work! Every Sunday night I will upload a short video message about the daily devotional from that week (the first video will go up on May 17^th, so be sure to start your journey on May 10^th in preparation). You will have time to read it throughout the week at your leisure and then I will ask that you participate in a discussion of the week’s topics here on Facebook. A kind of “how was your week” and what blessings or lessons did you gleam from the book that week. Hence the need for you to have a bible, your book and a journal or a notebook.

Sista's, this will require participation so be prepared to comment and share your journey with the other ladies gathered here. I am just here as your facilitator.

So like Sheila said grab your bibles, a cup of coffee (or in my case a cup of tea) and let’s spend a little time with our Lord.