After everything God has taught me last week, about my identity in him and me need to worship Him with intentionality, I am convinced that my next challenge is to reclaim my mornings.
Summer brings glorious travel opportunities that I love and treasure, and that wreak havoc on maintaining a daily schedule. The days between trips, when our family is home, the priority is to rest and recuperate… and do lots of laundry!
Summer adventures are unique, and worthy of a scrambling in our schedule. However, I am ready to reclaim my mornings before launching into the next season.
But I will sing of Your strength and will joyfully proclaim Your faithful love in the morning. For You have been a stronghold for me, a refuge in my day of trouble. To You, my strength, I sing praises, because God is my stronghold— my faithful God.
Psalm 59: 16-17
It is a privilege to join this psalmist in worshipping God in the morning. I have been training my thoughts to jump straight to praise when I first wake up. It isn’t easy. On good days, I usually spend my first AM thoughts migrating toward checking Facebook, the weather, or my calendar. On bad days, my first thoughts are to grumble, loudly. All of these remind me that I have a worship problem, not just a tiredness problem.
Here are my simple steps to reclaim my mornings:
- Praise the Lord with my very first thoughts. (see Proverbs 3:9 for more)
- Strive to be present. With my 1 year-old twins, nothing can replace the giggles and cuddles we bond over when I join them to wrestle on the floor as they smear cracker-slime on my legs. I am also striving to be present with God. The idea of a sacred-sit-down has been preoccupying my mind lately. I am striving to make my quiet-time a greater priority.
- Utilize a putter-free to-do list. I tend to employ a version of ADHD that I have yet to be diagnosed with into my tasks. But NO MORE! To reclaim my mornings, I need to have singular focus, especially when the babies take their nap. Instead of meandering through my chores, washing a dish here, folding a sock there (checking Instagram in between)— I choose to focus, conquer, and move on! There are life giving activities that await my day. I need to recognize the importance of the small tasks that keep our family flourishing. However, I don’t need to let those tasks preoccupy my entire day.
How about you? What would reclaiming your morning look like?
- Redefining, or increasing, the time between the alarm and the drive to work?
- Cutting 15 minutes out of your vigorous work-out for a sacred-sit-down with God?
- Exploring your culinary skills with healthy breakfast options?
- Banishing AM screen time?
Heavenly Father,
You have created mornings. In Lamentations 3, you promise your mercies will be new with every sunrise. I praise you, for you are worthy! “Satisfy us in the morning with Your faithful love so that we may shout with joy and be glad all our days.” (Psalm 90:14)
Jesus, thank you for providing redemption through the cross. You set our example to rise early in the morning to meet with the Father. And your rising again gives us the power to rise each morning, with our eyes set on you.
Holy Spirit, help us not to waste our first moments with our families or roommates. Give us grace to choose our first words wisely. Provide wisdom with what we first focus our eyes upon in the mornings.
Be the center of our focus, Lord.
Amen
Week 2 Challenge:
- Monday, Aug. 17: Set your alarm to rise earlier tomorrow. Make a list of 5 ways you can honor God and start your day right in the morning.
- Tuesday, Aug 18: Wake up and embrace the day! Check back Tuesday afternoon for more instructions for the 5 Week Refocus Challenge.
Wishing you a Good Morning,
Check In:
How you are reclaiming your first hours of the day?
P.S. I want to see your morning pics! Share your progress in this week’s challenge on Instagram and Twitter with #reclaimingmornings and #5weekrefocuschallenge . We can celebrate together through the week, and at the end, I might even feature your progress to inspire others!
Need more ways to improve your sunrise hour? Check out my series 10 Habits for a Purely Fantastic Morning Routine.
What a wonderful message this series brings. I do have trouble in the morning doing the necessary things- such as prayer, stretching and waking slowly. I jump out of bed and run to my desk to ‘log in’ for the day. I will be working on waking earlier, and going to be earlier to make that attainable.
writing down my list of things to do really seem to be helping me 😀
Yes! Yes! Yes! I too feel the sadness that summer is put to rest but also the excitement that our schedule is once again manageable. Love your advice of praise first thought in the morning. This is an excellent series!