Whatever you read first in the morning tends to follow you around. If it’s a news alert or a message you didn’t want, that’s what your mind keeps turning over while you get dressed. If it’s a line of Scripture, there’s a fair chance that comes back instead, maybe at a red light.
Below are thirteen verses that mention the morning or suit it well, grouped loosely by theme. Each has a few notes on where it sits in the Bible, since a verse usually means more once you know who first said it and why. Pick one, read it slowly, and take it with you. If you’d like a simple pattern for praying in the morning as well, how to start your day with prayer walks through one.
Mercy that is new each morning
Because of the loving devotion of the LORD we are not consumed, for His mercies never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness!
Lamentations 3:22-23
These lines sit in the middle of Lamentations, a book of grief written after Babylon destroyed Jerusalem. The writer (tradition says Jeremiah) spends twenty verses describing his misery before he turns: “Yet I call this to mind, and therefore I have hope.” The city is still in ruins. He hopes because he chooses to remember what God is like, and that is something you can do on a morning when your circumstances look exactly as they did last night.
For His anger is fleeting, but His favor lasts a lifetime. Weeping may stay the night, but joy comes in the morning.
Psalm 30:5
David wrote Psalm 30 to thank God for pulling him back from the edge of death. “You healed me,” he says, and “You spared me from descending into the Pit.” So this is joy from a man who had spent his own nights in tears. He pictures weeping as a guest that stays the night and then has to move on. The psalm doesn’t say how long the night will be. If yesterday ended badly, it’s right to bring that to God this morning and ask Him for the joy David found.
Satisfy us in the morning with Your loving devotion, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.
Psalm 90:14
Psalm 90, the only psalm credited to Moses, dwells on how short a human life is and asks God to “teach us to number our days.” Then Moses asks for this. He wants to be filled with God’s love early, at the start of things, so the gladness can run through everything after. It makes a good prayer to say before you check anything else: Lord, fill me with Your love first.
Handing the day to God
In the morning, O LORD, You hear my voice; at daybreak I lay my plea before You and wait in expectation.
Psalm 5:3
David opens Psalm 5 asking God to “consider my groaning,” but he has a habit. At daybreak he lays his requests out before God, the way you might lay papers on a desk, and then he waits to see what God will do. Most of us are better at the first half of the verse than the second. We pray and then forget we prayed. David expected an answer and went into his day watching for it.
Early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up and went out to a solitary place to pray.
Mark 1:35
The evening before, in Capernaum, the whole town had gathered at the door while Jesus healed the sick. He got up in the dark anyway and went somewhere quiet. When Peter and the others found Him and said, “Everyone is looking for You!” He already knew what came next: on to the neighboring towns to preach. Mark sets those two things side by side, the hour alone with the Father and the clear sense of what to do. If Jesus made room for that, we can too, even if the time is short.
Let me hear Your loving devotion in the morning, for I have put my trust in You. Teach me the way I should walk, for to You I lift up my soul.
Psalm 143:8
One verse earlier David says, “my spirit fails.” He is at the end of himself, and he asks first to hear of God’s love and only then for directions. That order is worth copying. It is much easier to ask “What should I do today?” right after you’ve been reminded that you are loved.
Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.
Proverbs 3:5-6
Proverbs 3 is written as a father speaking to his son. The rest of Proverbs urges you over and over to think hard and get wisdom, so “lean not on your own understanding” can’t be a call to stop thinking. It warns against treating your own read on a situation as the last word. “In all your ways” includes the dull hours too. The last line is God’s part. He makes the paths straight, and you don’t have to see the whole route before you start walking it.
Joy and strength for what’s ahead
This is the day that the LORD has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.
Psalm 118:24
You’ve probably seen this on a mug. In Psalm 118 it means something more specific. The psalmist was surrounded by enemies that “swarmed around me like bees,” and God rescued him. “The day” is the day God did that, when “the stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.” Jesus applied those words to Himself in Matthew 21, and Christians have long heard Easter in this psalm. So when you say it over an ordinary weekday, you’re rejoicing because of what God has already done, which holds up better than a good mood.
But I will sing of Your strength and proclaim Your loving devotion in the morning. For You are my fortress, my refuge in times of trouble.
Psalm 59:16
The heading of Psalm 59 says David wrote it when Saul sent men to watch his house in order to kill him. Twice in the psalm David describes his enemies coming back in the evening, “snarling like dogs and prowling around the city.” Then the morning comes, and he sings. This is a verse for anyone who has made it through a frightening night and wants to thank God for being a safe place.
But those who wait upon the LORD will renew their strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not faint.
Isaiah 40:31
The people Isaiah addresses here felt forgotten. A few verses earlier they are saying, “My way is hidden from the LORD.” Isaiah answers that God never grows tired, and that He gives power to the faint. To “wait upon the LORD” is to look to Him and depend on Him, which you can do before any running starts. Look at the order at the end, too: flying, then running, then walking. Plenty of days call for walking more than flying, and the promise reaches that far.
Guidance for what you say and do
The Lord GOD has given Me the tongue of discipleship, to sustain the weary with a word. He awakens Me morning by morning; He awakens My ear to listen as a disciple.
Isaiah 50:4
The speaker is the Lord’s Servant, and two verses later He says, “I offered My back to those who struck Me.” Christians have long read these Servant passages as pointing to Jesus. Every morning God wakes the Servant to listen, and out of that listening comes a word that can hold up someone who is worn out. If you want to know what to say to a tired friend today, this verse suggests starting by hearing from God before anyone else gets a word in.
Teach me to do Your will, for You are my God. May Your good Spirit lead me on level ground.
Psalm 143:10
Further on in Psalm 143, David asks to be taught God’s will and then asks for level ground. On rough footing you spend the whole time looking down. David wants a path where he can lift his eyes. It’s a good prayer for a day when you don’t know what to do next.
May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in Your sight, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.
Psalm 19:14
David ends Psalm 19 with this prayer, after singing about the sky declaring God’s glory and about God’s law “reviving the soul.” It covers the words other people will hear from you today and the thoughts nobody hears at all. He calls God his Rock and his Redeemer, so he asks as someone who already feels safe with the One he’s asking. If you pray only one verse on your way out the door, make it this one.
A few suggestions
You don’t need a quiet house to use these. Write one on a card, or read it aloud before you pick up your phone. If the phone usually wins, putting down your phone to pray has some practical help. Saying “Amen” at the end is a way of agreeing with what you’ve read. For the other end of the day, see evening prayers before bed. And if your mornings tend to start with worry, you may find help in these Bible verses for anxiety and worry.
Amen Clock is an alarm that reads a Bible verse aloud each morning and turns off when you say “Amen.”
Scripture quotations are from the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), which is in the public domain.