Our Day’s Priorities: Meeting Your Creator Before the World Calling
Before your feet ever touch the floor in the morning, your heart has already revealed something about your top priorities. The very first thoughts that enter your mind as you begin each day often point to what occupies the greatest place in your life. For many of us, those thoughts immediately turn to the day’s schedule, unfinished tasks, work responsibilities, financial concerns, or even the cup of coffee waiting in the kitchen. None of these things are wrong in themselves. They are part of ordinary life. Yet they raise an important question: Where is God in our day’s priorities? Or is God only for Sundays because that is what your schedule says? Jesus taught:
But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (Matthew 6:33, ESV).
Notice that He did not say to seek God whenever it is convenient or after everything else has been taken care of. He said to seek Him first. As Christians, if our relationship with God truly is the most important thing in our lives, should He not also be the first one we acknowledge each morning? Before we begin serving our worldly schedules, should we not first bow before our very Creator and Savior?
Prayer
The first few moments after waking set the direction for the entire day. Rather than bringing up our “to-do” list, beginning each day with prayer reminds us that we do not face life alone. It reorients our hearts away from ourselves and toward God. It acknowledges that every breath we take is a gift from Him and that every blessing we receive comes from His gracious hand.
Prayer is essential because it is the nourishment of a spiritual life. Just as our physical bodies cannot survive without food, our souls cannot remain healthy without communion with God. Imagine refusing to eat for days or living on only a few crumbs each day. Your body would become weak, your muscles would waste away, and eventually you would perish. The same principle applies spiritually. Prayer is the food for one’s spiritual life. A Christian who rarely prays slowly becomes spiritually weak. Faith loses its vitality, temptation becomes harder to resist, and the joy of knowing Christ gradually fades. Jesus reminded His followers that:
Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God (Matthew 4:4, ESV).
While Scripture feeds our minds with God’s truth, prayer is the means by which we commune with the One who gave that truth. And through prayer we receive fresh strength, comfort, wisdom, and grace. It is the daily manna that sustains God’s people on their journey through life.
What Should I Pray About?
Many Christians wonder what they should pray about. The answer is simpler than we think. Here are some suggestions.
Pray to Give Thanks
Begin by thanking God. Gratitude transforms the heart because it reminds us that every good thing comes from Him. James writes:
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights” (James 1:17, ESV).
Thank Him for your life, your health, your family, your friends, your church, your daily provision, and above all for the gift of salvation through Jesus Christ. Even during difficult seasons, there are always reasons to give thanks because God’s love remains constant.
Pray for Spiritual Needs
Pray for your spiritual needs before your worldly desires. It is natural to ask God for help with finances, work, and health, but Jesus taught us to value eternal matters even more highly. Pray for greater faith during trials. Ask Him to make you more humble, more patient, more forgiving, and more loving. Pray that He would strengthen you to persevere through suffering. The Apostle Paul prayed that believers would be “strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being” (Ephesians 3:16, ESV). Those are prayers that delight the heart of God because they seek to make us more like Christ.
Pray for Others
Scripture repeatedly urges believers to intercede for one another. Pray especially for those who are suffering, those battling illness, those approaching death, and those weighed down by grief. Pray also for those whose faith has grown weak and for those who have never truly come to know Christ. Ask the Holy Spirit to awaken their hearts, grant them repentance, and give them new life through faith in Jesus. As Jesus said, “You must be born again” (John 3:7, ESV). Only God can perform that miracle of spiritual rebirth.
Pray for Sanctification
Ask the Holy Spirit to continue to transform your heart. We often focus on changing our outward behavior, but God desires to change us from the inside out.
Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Thessalonians 5:23, ESV).
Pray that the Spirit will continually convict you of sin, helping you recognize what is right and what is wrong. Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit “will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment” (John 16:8, ESV). Pray that He would reshape your deepest desires so that you increasingly long to obey God rather than satisfy your sinful nature. As David prayed, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me” (Psalm 51:10, ESV).
Pray for Understanding the Word of God
Pray also for understanding as you read Scripture. The Bible is God’s inspired Word, but understanding its truth requires illumination by the Holy Spirit. Before opening the Bible, ask God to teach you. The psalmist prayed, “Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law” (Psalm 119:18, ESV). And Jesus assured His disciples that “the Helper, the Holy Spirit… will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you” (John 14:26, ESV). As you faithfully study God’s Word, the Spirit gradually shapes your thinking until it becomes more like the mind of Christ.
Sitting Quietly in God’s Presence
Sometimes, however, words are unnecessary. There are moments when the greatest prayer is simply to sit quietly in God’s presence, setting aside every distraction and allowing your mind to rest upon Him. In those quiet moments, when you do not know what to say, the Holy Spirit Himself comes to your aid. Paul gives believers this wonderful promise:
Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. (Romans 8:26–27, ESV).
What an incredible comfort! Even when our words fail, the Holy Spirit does not. He prays for us and presents our deepest needs before the Father in perfect accordance with God’s will.
I once had a habit of reaching for my cell phone almost immediately after waking each morning. Within minutes of opening my eyes, I would be checking messages, emails, or the latest news. Without realizing it, my phone had become the first object of my attention each day. But over time something changed. That little device actually became a psychological reminder instead. Now, whenever I reach toward it, or even notice it on my bedside table, a question immediately comes into my mind: Have I prayed today? If the answer is no, I stop before picking it up and offer my morning prayer.
I truly believe it was the Holy Spirit who graciously gave me this simple mental reminder. Left to myself, I am no different from anyone else, and my natural tendency would be to satisfy my own desires before seeking God’s will. Scripture reminds us that “the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God” (Romans 8:7, ESV), and that is why we need the Spirit’s continual work within us. He gently redirects our hearts, forming new habits and new desires that lead us toward Christ. The change is often slow, almost imperceptible, but it is real. Day by day, He teaches us to love God and to love others more than worldly things and to seek His presence before anything else.
What Will Your New Mornings Be Like?
Each morning therefore presents us with a choice. Will our first thoughts belong to the world, or will they belong to God? If Christ truly is the Lord of our lives, then let us begin each new day by acknowledging Him, thanking Him, seeking His guidance, and resting in His presence. For there is no better way to start the day than by first meeting with the One who gave us the day itself.