Coffee, Chaos, and Jesus
Chimes and Vibrations against my nightstand from my phone’s alarm at 6am. Footsteps heard from upstairs. My bed, as cozy as ever, tells me just a few more minutes. The clock says otherwise. So does the rest of the family, as I can hear the start of commotion from the kids waking up and going full force from the beginning.
Robert, my husband, is the early bird between the two of us. He’s already been up and dressed for at least 30 minutes. When our kids were smaller, I was the one that opened their curtains and got the kids fully dressed for the day, because he used to have a job that had him out of the house and at work by 5am. In our current season of life, 6am is sleeping in for him…but it’s still early for me.
“Good morning my dears.” I say, with my hair a mess and my eyes just barely open as I walk up our split level staircase.
“I made you coffee, it’s in the fridge. Both boys are up, and dressed.” Robert reminds me, as he takes his packed lunch and heads out the front door.
My boys are 10 and 6 now, both very independent in dressing themselves and getting ready for the day. But they still get the daily reminder to “grab your glasses, put on deodorant, and brush your teeth” as part of a routine I set up with our smart home devices. We’ve had that routine set for the last two school years, so by now, they know once they have their water bottles in their book bags, and their shoes on after brushing their teeth, to not get comfortable because it’s minutes away from going outside to wait for the school bus.
As I sit in a recliner in our living room, drinking my coffee and watching my boys get on the bus, I’m reminded that mornings might not be my thing, but it can still be another time I get to know Jesus.
So in that moment, I start my day similar to how I ended the day before. At night, I’m typically doing my own personal study with my own annotations using my Bible resources, but in the morning I love to listen to the Bible Recap.
Dueteronomy 6:4-9 says:
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”
I used to use my quiet time as another checklist item, another thing to accomplish to “become a better Christian.”
But what if instead of allowing your time with Jesus to be task to complete, you looked at it as another form of breathing? What if the first thing we opened on our phone wasn’t social media, but scripture?
What would the rest of your day look like if you started and/or ended it with Jesus?