{"id":25082,"date":"2020-07-07T07:47:04","date_gmt":"2020-07-07T11:47:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/?p=25082"},"modified":"2020-07-27T11:36:33","modified_gmt":"2020-07-27T15:36:33","slug":"pastors-ponderings-the-rudder-of-the-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/?p=25082","title":{"rendered":"Pastors Ponderings: The Rudder of the Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

How do you start your day???\u00a0 Pastor Jim started Tuesday 7\/7\/20 by emailing this devotional…<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

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“The first hour of the morning is the rudder of the day.”<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Greetings Friends;<\/span><\/em><\/h3>\n

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PLEASE READ:\u00a0<\/em><\/span><\/h3>\n

Psalms 92:1-2<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>“It is good to praise the LORD and make music to your name, O Most High, to proclaim your love in the morning and your faithfulness at night, \u201d<\/p>\n

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Psalms 5:1-3\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/strong>“Give ear to my words, O LORD, consider my sighing. Listen to my cry for help, my King and my God, for to you I pray. In the morning, O LORD, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation.”<\/p>\n

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Psalms 88:13<\/span><\/strong> \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 “But I cry to you for help, O LORD; in the morning my prayer comes before you.”<\/p>\n

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Psalms 55:17\u00a0<\/span><\/strong> \u00a0\u00a0 “Evening, morning and noon I cry out in distress, and he hears my voice.”<\/p>\n

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\nEric Liddell<\/span><\/h3>\n

It almost goes without saying that when we think of the modern Olympics and Christians in the same sentence, we think of Eric Liddell. Eric was born in 1902 in China where his parents were missionaries for the London Mission Society. He attended Edinburgh University where he was hailed as one of their best track and field runners ever. He ran the 100 yards and the 220 yards for the University.\"\"<\/p>\n

Olympian…<\/span><\/h4>\n

Liddell represented England in the 1924 Olympics held in Paris. The story is told that when he learned the races were to be run on Sunday, he declared that he could not run on Sundays as it would violate his convictions regarding the Sabbath. He switched to the 400 meter competition which was held on a weekday where he won a gold medal. You may recall how his story has been made famous in the movie “Chariots of Fire.”<\/p>\n

Missionary…<\/span><\/h4>\n

What some may not know is that after the Olympics, he followed in his parents\u2019 footsteps as a missionary to China returning their in 1925. It was there during World War II around 1943 that he was interned in the Weishien Concentration Camp. Liddell died in February of 1945 having served the Lord Jesus Christ faithfully.<\/p>\n

Morning Glow…\u00a0 <\/span><\/h4>\n

Sally Magnusson, having written about Liddell, explained the secret of\u00a0Eric Liddell’s\u00a0radiant life: Every morning about 6 a.m., with curtains tightly drawn to keep in the shining of the peanut-oil lamp\u2026 he used to climb out of his top bunk, past his sleeping dormitory mates. Then, at the small…. table, (he would sit with a friend) with the light just enough to illumine the Bibles and notebooks. Silently they read, prayed, and thought about the day’s duties, noted what should be done. In short, “Eric was a man of prayer…”<\/p>\n

Radiant Life…<\/span><\/h4>\n

That was his great “secret.” He knew how to devote his mornings to meeting and spending time with God. There are many lessons that can be drawn from Eric Liddell\u2019s life, but chief among them is this: Champions for God, growing disciples of Jesus Christ, often devote time in the morning to spending time with God. As Eric Liddell knew, when we begin the morning with God, we can enjoy\u00a0God’s presence all day long.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nHenry Ward Beecher said, “The first hour of the morning is the rudder of the day.”<\/p>\n

\nShalom,<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Pastor Jim<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

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For today’s devotional articles, visit our Daily Devotionals Page:<\/span><\/p>\nDaily Devotionals<\/span><\/a><\/div><\/div>\n

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For more Pastor’s Ponderings articles, click this button:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Pastor’s Ponderings<\/span><\/a> \u00a0<\/p>\n

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“The first hour of the morning is the rudder of the day.” Olympian Eric Liddell began each day by grounding himself in the Bible and in prayer. In this “Ponderings” article, Pastor Jim encourages us to do the same thing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4039,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[131],"tags":[107],"class_list":["post-25082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pastors-ponderings","tag-prayer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25082"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25082\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25093,"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25082\/revisions\/25093"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}