katThursday morning I woke up with my heart beating out of my chest. I checked the time and it was 2:48am. Suddenly, the memory of my nightmare flashed into my mind like a movie playing from beginning to end.
In my dream, I’d woken up early to meet God at church. I was clothed in a white 2 piece top and skirt set. I checked the time and it was 2:40 am. I was all ready to leave my house and get in my car when suddenly a man with a dark aura entered my house. He asked in a despicable tone what religion my family and I belonged to, which was odd, and he started walking deeper into my house as if he owned the place. I had a feeling he would go straight to my kitchen. I grabbed a nearby wooden folding table and started smacking him, but to no avail because he’d reached the kitchen and grabbed a large thick knife! He started wielding it around and I continued fighting him, smacking him with only a folding chair as a weapon. Then I woke up.
The night before I expressed really wanting to go to church to pray. At my church, we have an early morning or “pre dawn” service that begins around 4:30 am. I live about 15 minutes away from my church so I really could go. If I go to sleep early around 8:30 pm I can get 7 to 8 hours of sleep and get an early start to my day. I’ve woken up that early many times before and it’s really great! I am able to get a lot done.
I think it’s important to meet God early in the morning and connect with him. Now don’t get me wrong, if you’re sitting here thinking, “4 AM, are you insane?!” TRUST ME I understand more than anyone that 4 am IS REALLY EARLY.
Truthfully, this 4 am prayer habit is something I only developed when I started to believe in Jesus and decided to surrender my life to him.
Part of that “surrender” meant meeting God not according to my own convenience and my own timing, whenever I felt like it or wanted to- but rather when Jesus wanted to meet me. Overtime, God convinced me that he wanted me to meet him early in the morning.
If you don’t know what the predawn hours are, they can range from midnight 12:00 am to the rising of the sun. When I learned Jesus prayed at the predawn hours, I was shocked. That man really did not stop, like ever. Imagine preaching and healing all day long, and then going away to a mountain or solitary place to pray for HOURS. Did Jesus sleep? Probably not. Because he had one mission: SALVATION. He wasn’t going to let sleep keep him from saving people.
Are you still not convinced Jesus prayed at the predawn hours? Check out Mark 1:35 which says, “Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.”
Very early in the morning, while it was still dark. …yes it’s in the Bible!
I mean what better time for Jesus to pray and converse with the Father? There would be no time during the day for him to truly be alone.
You might be thinking, “Well good for Jesus but I’m not him,” and that’s understandable.
When I first came to the faith a lot of my church friends woke up early to pray, but you see I had the habit of going to sleep at about midnight, “So that just won’t work for me”, I thought. However, as I kept listening to Jesus’ words I wanted to grow closer to him, more spiritually attuned with what he desired of me.
One day I thought, “How can I say I love and believe in Jesus if I don’t attempt to connect with him, or live like him?”
When I was in a relationship, I would wake up super early like 4-5 am just to cook this person breakfast because I cared for them deeply. So I thought, if I did that then, I can wake up early to meet God. It doesn’t just benefit God or others, but it also benefits me too.
I think once you find your beloved one, you want to take action together with him.
Matthew 5:48 says, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect,” and while this can be interpreted in many ways, especially since we live in a culture that says, “Your imperfections are what make you beautiful,” and “No one can be perfect,”- I believe this very scripture is calling us to live as Jesus did, for the Heavenly Father resided in him.
But back to my nightmare-after that I couldn’t go back to sleep I was wide awake.
Still, I contemplated if I should go to church. “Surely I can just pray from home?” Frankly, I thought that because I was scared to drive to church in the dark, but “I drive in the dark all the time,” I thought. “How many times have I driven back home late? Plus, it’s the predawn time so there shouldn’t be that many cars out in the streets or the highway.”
That moment reminded me of a story my pastor told us. He’s a devout believer in Jesus Christ. He grew up in a remote village and since the age of 15, had been praying in the mountains, praying at the predawn.
Recently he told us the story of when, back in his village, he traveled through a storm to meet God at the predawn.
That day it was raining heavily, but he really wanted to meet God. He made the daily journey by foot that he always made to church, but that day he reached a stopping point at a river bank.
It was completely flooded but it was the only way to get to church.
He decided to go through the water even though it was 4 feet deep reaching up to his chest. At one point he slipped and the water threatened to pull him away. Quickly, he scrambled looking for a tree branch until he finally found a thin one and grabbed hold of it. He held on carefully and tightly so as to not break it until he made it to the other side. The current was so strong it would’ve swept him away.
When he arrived at church nobody was there. He couldn’t believe it. There were people who lived closer and whose journeys to church would’ve been possible, yet they didn’t come.
He sat down to converse with God in his soaking wet clothes and tears spilled from his eyes as he thought about how God saved him. God made sure that branch would be there and he could grab it in time. Warmed by the gratitude in his heart, words of thanksgiving poured out from his lips, endlessly.
Who would go through such lengths? I don’t have to go through a storm to get to church and I have it so easy that all I have to do is hop in my warm car and drive.
So I hopped in the shower because I was really sweaty after that nightmare. I quickly brushed my teeth, changed into some clothes, drank some water, stretched and hopped in the car. Before driving, as I always do, I said a little prayer asking God and the angels for protection from bad drivers, and then I made my way to church.
There weren’t that many cars on the road. I made it safely and had a deeper time of prayer than I have in a while.
Meeting God at the predawn has many benefits.
Did you know some of the most successful people wake up at 4 am? Some even at 3 am. Google it and you’ll read many stories of successful people waking up early. The predawn is their secret weapon. They all have some sort of quiet time, ritual, or workout routine that helps them.
Here’s list of benefits of waking up early straight from google:
- Increased productivity
- Enhanced mental health (I agree. Praying in the morning clears my mind and helps me make better decisions throughout my day.)
- Exercise
- Improved sleep quality
- Healthier diet choices
- Increased focus and concentration
- Better time management
It doesn’t take a genius to come to the conclusion that early mornings are beneficial and a determining factor to success.
It does, however, take a disciplined person to change your habits.
I now realize what my nightmare meant. Why was I fighting an opponent with a wooden folding table? Although a wooden table is bigger than a knife, it wouldn’t be strong enough to defeat my opponent- he could do more damage with the knife.
My pastor once said, “The person who fights and competes with your soul in dreams refers to the things that you failed to complete in reality. These things sometimes appear as the environment, sometimes satan, an animal, a snake or other beast, sometimes a person who doesn’t exist in the physical world. If you have to do something by fulfilling your responsibility 100% but in reality have finished only 80%, the 20% you failed to complete appears as an opponent who fights and competes with your soul in a dream.”
Since I had been failing to wake up and converse with God early in the morning, I was fighting an opponent in my dream.
So I realize, I need to win by completing the things I must in order to fulfill God’s will. First, I must meet God and connect with him so I can receive strength from his Word, then I can use what he has given me.
It’s 3 simple steps: Connect, Receive, then Use.
Meeting God early isn’t an easy habit to build. It’s something we have to work on. I didn’t suddenly wake up one day and became naturally good at waking up early. I still have days where I have to drag myself out of bed, or days when I miss my morning prayer time. However, I can say 100% of the days I’ve woken up early and prayed at the predawn God has given me a physical and spiritual strength I can only attribute to him. He makes sure everything works out, he protects me, he showers me with love, and together we get things done.
As they say, “Early bird gets the worm.” or as they say in Spanish, “El que madruga, Dios le ayuda,” which is the same as Early bird gets the worm but literally translates to, “God helps the one who wakes up early.”
So let’s pray early in the morning following the example of Jesus. Let’s meet God so that we can receive his inspiration and accomplish big things.
