Psalm 119:147 I rise before dawn and cry for help;
I have put my hope in your word.

Our priorities and values are demonstrated in our actions. When we run into difficulties, what do we do first? When we can do anything we would like, what do we do? As someone has said, character is what we are like when no one is watching. The writer of Psalm 119 was obviously someone with an intense devotion to God and His Word. It is clear that he had enemies, and that life was not always easy for him. However, obedience to God was his first priority. Here, his desire for God has gotten him out of bed before dawn, so he waits expectantly for what God would say to him. There’s nothing particu­larly admirable about losing sleep over problems, but valuing fellow­ship with God over sleep is hardly a bad way to be.

I didn’t expect to read such an intensely personal verse this morning, but this has turned out to be exactly that. Getting up early to have time with God is a long-standing practice of mine, to the point that a couple of years ago I wrote a song about it that starts out, “5 O’clock in the Morning.” This morning I woke up at 4:30, after two rather intense dreams. One was that I had gone to a church conference elsewhere in Japan. The attendees were milling around talking in the lobby area of the hotel where it was being held, when an announce-ment was made about the evening meal that would start the confer-ence. We were told to get our meal pass out of the material we had been sent before the conference, but when I went to look for mine, I discovered I not only didn’t have my envelope of material, I didn’t even have a change of underwear in my bag! Distraught, I went off to a corner and called my wife on my cell phone, ready to get back on a train and head home, but she encouraged me to stay regardless, because I would miss whatever God had in mind for me at the conference. That dream then morphed into my going to the Tohoku (Northeast) area of Japan and street preaching, along the lines of, “This guy from Kyushu has come to give you a message of hope and love.” I am quite literally a “guy from Kyushu,” since I was born and raised in Fukuoka, but since I am Caucasian, that’s a pretty attention-getting statement for me to make. There was the clear feeling that if I got a good, strong, response of people coming to the Lord, that was a sign from God that I was to relocate to Tohoku. I have invested the past 31 years in this Kyushu town of Omura, and we have deep roots now. This is not a casual matter! I am not to dismiss it, but neither am I to rush off half-cocked. Leaving where I am known and loved is not a small thing, but obedience to God must be my first priority. I am to seek God indeed, crying out to Him as the Psalmist did, waiting expectantly for Him to make His will clear to me, so that I my be obedient.

Father, this was totally unexpected, but I submit it to You. I don’t know if it is directive, or simply testing my heart. Thank You that by Your grace I will come through Your tests, whether that means staying, going, or anything in between. Help me, like the Psalmist, put obedience to You, fellowship with You, ahead of everything else, so that all of Your purposes for me may be accomplished on Your schedule for Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!