Wake Up Early

I am convinced that if you want to have a great life, you have to start early.  Sure, it helps to start early, like when you are young.  But, what I mean today, is that you have to start each day early.  Here are some things that I think we have to do early.

1.  Pray early.  Prepare your day in prayer or you will repair your day in prayer.  The devil wants to own your morning.  Don't let him.  The name "Lucifer" in the Old Testament means, "morning star" or "son of the morning."  My goal is to pray at least one hour every day.  Sure you can pray any time, or even all day while you do other things.  What I mean is praying for one hour doing nothing else.  When you do, take a note pad along to write down thoughts and things to do.  Write them down so you don't forget and so that you can get back to praying.

2.  Read the Word of God early.  My goal is to read the Bible through as many times as I am years alive.  Each time, I read with a pen to take notes and underline.  When a Bible is too full of notes, I save it on a shelf.  I have two full Bibles like this now, and have a third in progress.  I am saving them as wedding gifts for my kids.

3.  Exercise early.  OK, this might not sound as spiritual.  But, the Bible says that, "physical exercise is of some value..."  If you don't exercise early, I think you will most likely not exercise at all.  For three months in 2011 I exercised every day, except the sabbath, at 4:00 in the afternoon.  It was fine for a season, but not sustainable when there are so many other things that need to be done at that time of day for kids, dinner, activities and meetings.

I am not perfect at these things by any means.  Sickness in the home, late night emergencies and various other odds and ends can knock this off schedule easily.  But, it is good to have a strong morning routine.

For you night owls, I know what you think, "I do my best work at night."  Well, I do pretty good work at night too.  I have written three books now, all at night.  But the morning is still important.  I bet if you get up at 4:00 a.m. Tuesday, pray, read, exercise and then get th kids up make them breakfaast and go to work, about 8:00 p.m. Tuesday night the spirit of deliverance will set in, and you might go to bed early.