The Diamonds of the Morning

            I have found a simple, yet profound method of breathing new life into my prayer time: find a new spot or go back to an old one!  Now as a rule, I think meeting God in prayer at the same time and same place is very conducive to personal worship. However, there are times you need to do something different if your prayer life is beginning to get stale.  This past week I went to an old spot, the bayou edge path at Meyer Park.  I was early enough in the morning that the dew had not yet evaporated from the grass and foliage.  I don’t know that I have ever seen dew in such a beautiful setting.  The sun was just beginning to touch the tender leaves of grass, reflecting in prism beauty!  Why, it looked like the path I was walking was lined with tiny, sparkling diamonds!  There I was surrounded by diamonds of the morning.

            As we meditate on this thought, I bring to your attention:

1. Diamonds of the morning are for all.

            Prayer is not for the elite few, who have ascended the spiritual heights where only the strong and agile can climb.  Prayer is for those so weak, all they can navigate is the path of prayer.  Paul said, "...when I am weak, then am I strong" (II Corinthians 12:10).  The great prophet Isaiah gives us a preview of this wonderful truth when he said, "But there the glorious LORD will be unto us a place of broad rivers and streams; wherein shall go no galley with oars, neither shall gallant ship pass thereby. For the LORD is our judge, the LORD is our lawgiver, the LORD is our king; he will save us. Thy tacklings are loosed; they could not well strengthen their mast, they could not spread the sail: then is the prey of a great spoil divided; the lame take the prey" (Isaiah 33:21-23).

            Charles Wesley was inspired from the life-changing event in Jacob’s life when he wrestled with the Angel of the LORD until the blessing came.  Jacob was crippled by the altercation, but the poet laureate of The Great Awakening used Isaiah’s term combined with Jacob’s experience to explain how the victory in prayer comes about.   Notice these selected lines from Wesley’s Wrestling Jacob:

My strength is gone, my nature dies,

I sink beneath thy weighty hand,

Faint to revive, and fall to rise;

I fall, and yet by faith I stand,

I stand, and will not let Thee go,

Till I thy name, thy nature know.

Contented now upon my thigh

I halt, till life's short journey end;

All helplessness, all weakness I,

On Thee alone for strength depend,

Nor have I power, from Thee, to move;

Thy nature, and thy name is LOVE.

Lame as I am, I take the prey,

Hell, earth, and sin with ease o'ercome;

I leap for joy, pursue my way,

And as a bounding hart fly home,

Thro' all eternity to prove

Thy nature, and thy name is LOVE

2. Diamonds of the morning evaporate quickly.

            Carpe deum!  Seize the day!  I have found if I begin my day with other things, my time is not economized and I play “catch up” for the rest of the day.  If I give Christ the first place, most noticeably at the beginning, my day seems stretched out further -  "...that in all things he might have the preeminence" (Col. 1:18).  Don’t let the busyness of your schedule dictate and rule over you.  Let Jesus be Lord of your schedule and give Him give Him the proteuo (first place [Greek]).

3. Diamonds of the morning is the profit received from the escrow of prayer.

       The definition of escrow is: a written agreement or something of value put in the care of a third party and not delivered until certain conditions are fulfilled.  Jesus said, "And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son" (John 14:13).  When we obediently pray unto our Lord, we receive the profit of answered prayer.  We have the spiritual currency on hand to dispel doubts and alleviate fears.  I would be remiss to talk about the dew on foliage without a reference to the great song written by C. Austin Miles.  When Miles wrote this song, he was inspired by the episode of Mary Magdalene’s encounter with the Lord on Resurrection morning.  She was full of doubts and fears but in that early morning her “escrow account” came in as a reward of her faithful seeking of the Lord.  She now had the currency to cover her bankrupt faith and give her a new day, yea, a new life!

I come to the garden alone
While the dew is still on the roses
And the voice I hear falling on my ear
The Son of God discloses.

He speaks, and the sound of His voice,
Is so sweet the birds hush their singing,
And the melody that He gave to me
Within my heart is ringing.

I’d stay in the garden with Him
Though the night around me be falling,
But He bids me go; through the voice of woe
His voice to me is calling.

And He walks with me, and He talks with me,
And He tells me I am His own;
And the joy we share as we tarry there,
None other has ever known.

Don’t let another week lapse; begin tomorrow to gather the diamonds of the morning!

- Pastor Pope -

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