Because we all end up bowed down, low to the ground, eventually

My posture these days is running, standing, and going. My posture is muscular and active -  throwing people and priorities out of the way and out of my day because the school bell is set to ring. There's very little slowing down and kneeling down and falling down prostrate on the floor in quiet surrender because... well... Life.  

There is no time to fill up our souls with God's beauty before the sun rises - before my sons rise - and so we rush into life lacking beauty. Beauty within and beauty flowing out into the lives of our little people. We throw make-up on our faces at stoplights, but we can't cake it on thick enough that it eeks it's way down through our pores and into our souls. True beauty doesn't work that way. It's got to start deep within, and work it's way up and out. But we're living lives that are much too busy for such things.

Hurried, harried, and horrible: they go together. But hurried and holy rarely co-exist.

Holy and hallowed and hushed, now those are true companions.

They meet together in the morning hours before the sun steals past the beauty of dawn. We need to join them there.

We need to fellowship with the Holy One - slowing down, sitting down, and coming down off our cram-packed agendas to seek Him on the floor.

On the floor.

Because that's where every person is going to end up, eventually. Either on purpose, prostrating oneself in worship, intentionally in the morning hours; or at night in a tearful puddle; or, and this is a frightening thought, they're going to find themselves on the ground like the discarded branch that's not bearing fruit - cut off and cast down.

Live in me, and I will live in you. A branch cannot produce any fruit by itself. It has to stay attached to the vine. In the same way, you cannot produce fruit unless you live in me. "I am the vine. You are the branches. Those who live in me while I live in them will produce a lot of fruit. But you can't produce anything without me. Whoever doesn't live in me is thrown away like a branch and dries up. Branches like this are gathered, thrown into a fire, and burned. (John 15:4-6)

Thrown away, cast aside, thrown down...

We're going to end up on the ground, on our knees, on our bellies, forehead indented by dusty carpet strands or pressed against cool linoleum floors. Prostrate.

Eventually.

And the choice of how we get there is what we call freewill.

Starting with Him each day, it's what we want. Seems to me it ought to be easier, but... life.

Life.

Somehow that word is always our excuse.

But a beautiful faith-filled, honey-dripping life is what we're after, and it is found at dawn.

When we rush past the quiet morning moments and into demanding days, we are not the only ones to suffer.

The precious people in our lives bear the stretch marks of our stretched out hectic days. Hollering isn't Holy. But what else can we expect if we're not abiding, remaining, living in Him? We throw retroactive prayers up after unholy mornings that whirl past us in a haze. "Lord, forgive me. Lord, don't let me screw this family up. Lord, transform me!

But we forget that transformation isn't a retroactive wave of a magic wand - transformation takes place preemptively and prostrate. First place and foremost. Transformation into a thing of beauty starts with this sort of proactive surrender. It takes humility, on our knees and on the floor and on the offense... daily before dawn.

Because life... life is full of fragile beauty, cased in the soft skin of relationships. Our love relationship with the vine, and our love relationship with our people. We need to prostrate ourselves in the hushed and hallowed hallways of our predawn homes, or we will end up flat on the floor in tearful confession for lacking beauty come nighttime.

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We try everything else first, don't we? Staying calm in our own strength. Arm-wrestling our way to patience and self-control. We are well-intentioned Christian Women. But the truth is simply this: Good intentions won't do a thing without Holy Spirit power backing them up. We can't push ourselves through to transformation unless we hit the floor and hit our knees first thing everyday.

Because we're going to end up there, don't you know it? On the floor. One way or another.

Don't you get tired of turning to God retroactively?

I don't want to confess my sins at the end of another long and losing mothering day. Not anymore! I'm tired of the sameness of defeat.

Shouldn't we rather start with Him? Confessing our need from the beginning, rather than ending with tear stained confessions?

You see how that works? Because either way we are going to confess Him! Either way we're Hitting the floor and either way we're confessing our need for Him. So which will it be? Proactively? Or retroactively, at the end of another defeated day?

Let's confess our need for His strength upfront, as to avoid confessing our need for forgiveness on the backside of each hard day.

I want to learn to worship God on the floor before the sunrise, before my sons rise. Because I'm going to hit the hardwood at some point today.

"...at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:10-11)

Bowed down, good and low, before the glory of God the Father.