During the time Mary Jane was carrying our first child, my uncle (dad’s oldest brother) had a heart attack and a subsequent open-heart surgery. After smoking cigarettes for most of his life, he suddenly quit smoking when I was a young man. Realizing the difficulty of such a break from nicotine, I asked him how he did it. He said, “I lacked that much being the kind of man I wanted to be.” About ten years ago, Uncle Harry died of lung cancer that had become brain cancer. A few years before his death, he stopped all treatments for cancer, choosing rather to reap the consequences of terminal cancer. Several months before his death, I visited with him, and we talked about death. He was prepared. He knew it. I knew it. He had worked for the Lord and made certain his preparation for eternity. He said to me that day, “I’m ready to go and be with Bessie,” my aunt (my mother’s sister) who had died a few years earlier. How did he face death so calmly? His priorities were in proper order.
What are your priorities in life? What are your priorities for any given day? What’s your first order of business besides getting out of bed followed by a shower and a shave (or putting on makeup)? Here was a priority of Jesus for morning time: “And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed” (Mark 1:35). I don’t know if Jesus did that every morning, but He did that morning. There is no New Testament command or implication that the child of God must pray before daylight every morning, but the Lord’s example does help us to see what is important.
The New Testament does command this: “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). Please make this a priority for your days in 2015.