How we start the day will play a large role in determining the mood and focus of our day.
More often than not our mornings start with a loud, intrusive alarm, followed by a quick or not-so-quick scroll through social media. Meaning, before our feet hit the floor we have already been flooded with information, multiple images and soundbites that act as mini conversations engaging our mind and heart.
Our phones, have been programmed to set our habits for us. They speak the first words of the day through widgets and notifications. These messages shape the first desires of the morning and become the first conversation of the day. In a way, they are our first prayers. Think about that, most of us are are waking up to the prayers someone else wants us to pray.
Maybe, waking up with your phone is not a problem for you. But do you ever wake up and go straight in task mode, thinking about what you need to do that day? I know I often feel anxiety about the day to come. I worry. Worry is a form of prayer that makes the world about us. Just like that, my day is now centred around myself and not around Christ.
This will be our default unless we intentionally create new habits, a new morning liturgy, with prayers that make the world less about us and more about the love of God for us.
In the Psalms and in the life of Jesus we see an intentional morning routine, or liturgy. Rather than letting social media, a 24-hour news cycle, worry and anxiety have the first prayer, why not let your first conversation be with God? Let Him speak the first words over your day.
- As you wake in the morning
- Place both feet on the ground. Pause.
- Slowly breathe in. Hold. Slowly breathe out.
- Pray Psalm 143:8
“Let the morning bring me word
of Your unfailing love,
for I have put my trust in You.
Show me the way I should go,
for to You I entrust my life”
5. Pause. Listen.
6. Enter into Your day aware of His presence.
A simple morning liturgy like this means we frame the first words of the day in God’s love for us. This is a powerful and beautiful way to start our day, a re-enactment of our baptism in Christ that reminds us we are those who have been baptised in His love, washed by His grace.
