Monday Morning Manna: Ere You Left Your Room Christmas Morning

I often wake up with a hymn or chorus on my mind. I awoke Christmas morning with the words of an old hymn, “Ere you left your room this morning, did you think to pray?” It may have been motivated by a cartoon by my friend Joe McKeever, in which Mary and Joseph are around the manger with Mary holding the baby Jesus, and Joseph exclaiming, “Let’s stop, Honey, and thank God for Jesus.” It caused me to wonder if anyone prayed at the manger. After the shepherd’s had seen Jesus, they returned, “praising God” (Luke 2:20). According to Matthew 2:11, the wise men “fell down and worshipped” Jesus when they saw Him. While these could have been references to prayer, there is no specific reference to prayer as such, nor is there other biblical reference to anyone praying at the birth of Jesus. That thought caused me to paraphrase the 1876 hymn to, “Ere you left the manger this morning, did you think to pray?” Then my mind shifted into the present and I asked myself, what I had included in my Christmas morning prayer that specifically related to the birth of Jesus. So on this day after Christmas, I turn the question to you. On Christmas Day, did you think to pray _to “thank God for Jesus”?

Dr. Dan Crawford, Senior Professor at Southwestern Baptist Seminary, is the WestCoast Baptist Association’s Spiritual Life & Leadership Mentor. Follow Dan on Twitter @DrDanRC and Facebook www.facebook.com/dan.crawford.