Psalm 5

    Greetings to you all in the name of Christ Jesus!  Well I know you are all wondering first and foremost about how the squirrel tasted.  It was delicious!  I am definitely going to shoot some more and cook them up.  It was a quick, easy, and best of all very good meal.
     It was a good weekend.  We had three adults get confirmed yesterday, so that is always exciting.  One of them was a college student, so I was especially proud of her.  She had a reception with her family and friends and invited pastor and I over too.  It was a fun celebration.
     Then I spent several hours windrowing all the leaves in my yard with the riding mower, and then raking the windrows into piles.  I wasn't sure what I was going to do with them, so I just left the piles in my yard.  I woke up this morning to a fresh layer of snow covering everything, including the piles.  Problem solved!  If this snow melts which I think it is suppose to I will have to clean them up quick before we get more snow.
     Here is my continuing psalm devotions with the one for Psalm 5.

Psalm 5 verse 3

     I do not know about you but I am not a morning person.  I would sleep in until ten every morning if I could.  I would much rather stay up late at night than get up early in the morning.  When I do force myself out o bed at the very latest minute possible, I rush to get showered, dressed, and ready for the day in about a fourth of the time it should actually take me.  I get to work still tired and about half awake.  A couple of the mornings when I have gotten up early to go for a walk, do some chores around the house, or things like that, I am much more awake and ready to go for the day.  It starts my day off much better and the rest of the day just seems easier.  You would think I would be smart enough to figure this out, go to bed earlier and start my day off this way every day. 

     I find it a pain to get up an hour early and get laundry started or empty the dish washer.  Imagine how much work David did in the morning when he says in the morning I prepare a sacrifice for you and watch.  He would get up, slaughter an animal, prepare it just right, and do all the work of a whole burnt offering to the Lord.  This probably took him a couple hours at least.  Now, maybe he really did not do this every day, but it is the principle of the idea.  He spends his first time awake doing something for the Lord.  Just like our tithing is suppose to be the first fruits, the first portion of our pay check that automatically goes to the Lord no matter what financial situation we are in.  Our time should be offered no different than our money.  We should spend the first fruits of our time with God.  We should wake up every morning and start our day off with our first time in the Word and prayer.  Portals of prayer or any other little devotion is a great way to do this.  We may not butcher and prepare a whole animal for sacrifice but we can still make sure we start every day with an offering of our time to the Lord.  We want God to hear our voice in the morning as we make an offering to Him and watch how He is active in our life every day. 

            So even I who am not a morning person, am striving to wake up each morning with enough time to read a short devotion or passage from Scripture, and say a prayer of thanksgiving for the safe sleep and for His guidance through the rest of the day.  This is my “sacrifice” of sleep, but it truly is my offering to Him who already gives me everything.