Getting Up Early

As a clinical psychologist, Dr. Juli Slattery has seen too many lives ruined by sexual brokenness and unfulfilled promises of love. But she’s also seen God’s incredible power to heal what’s broken, replace lies with truth, and redeem people’s pain. Following God’s call in 2012, she launched Authentic Intimacy and, later on, SexualDiscipleship.com to help Christians and church leaders reclaim God’s purpose for sexuality. She’s touched numerous lives with the 13 books she’s written and her weekly Java with Juli podcast.

* * *

Learning to abide in God began in a strange way for me back in 2007 with an exercise program called P90x. Because of a challenge, I woke up at 4 a.m. for 90 days (most days) to work on my body. About halfway through P90X, I noticed changes in my body. The Holy Spirit began repeating this thought in my mind, “If this is what an hour a day does to your body, why don’t you see what an hour a day would do to your faith.”

This invitation was so consistent that I continued to get up around 4 a.m. to spend an hour with God. Again, I wish I had more space to describe what happened as a result. I will just say that even though I had been a Christian since childhood and was in full-time Christian ministry, I had never experienced true intimacy with Jesus. I was faithful, obedient, and zealous for God but never entered into his personal love for me.

This season developed life-long rhythms of:

• Spending the first hour of my day with the Lord and lingering longer when he invites me. I try not to schedule anything in the mornings, so I have this time.
• Personal time of worship and prayer on my knees. It gets me out of my head.
• One to two prayers and fasting retreats a year.
• Regularly reading the “Dead Old Guys” like A.W. Tozer, Watchman Nee, and Andrew Murray. They awaken me to repentance and surrender, unlike many modern resources.

—Juli Slattery, clinical psychologist, as told to Rapt Interviews