By Pastor Kristin Wenck
My voice You shall hear in the morning, O Lord; In the morning I will direct it to You, And I will look up. Psalm 5:3
Cause me to hear Your lovingkindness in the morning, For in You do I trust; Cause me to know the way in which I should walk, For I lift up my soul to You. Psalm 143:8
There are many success coaches who sing the praises of a morning routine. What exactly this entails can be a little more individual. Every Christian “success coach” will tell you that you need to start your day with the Lord, which the Bible also says in multiple verses.
Your morning routine sets the tone of your day. Waking up late and racing out into the world is a recipe for stress and disaster. Taking time to acknowledge God and spend time with Him, in both the Word and in prayer, sets a better mindset. In order to spend time with God, we have to get up earlier than normal and make it a priority, first thing. This probably will mean an earlier bedtime.
I don’t know anyone who has made the effort to do this who ever regretted the decision. Focusing on the Lord makes the day go smoother, it sets your attention on the Lord, and it can even bring an increase in productivity as you allow the Spirit to guide you through the day.
Morning routines are important at every age. Training a child to have a morning routine is as beneficial for them as for any adult. A calm morning leads to a calmer day. Yet, even as I practiced this for myself, I didn’t really think about it for my kids, and when I did, it just seemed impossible. So they went without for many years, until we saw some things happening in them that we didn’t like, and we realized that we had neglected to establish Bible time for them even while endeavoring to practice this ourselves. So we set out to change.
Change is always difficult. Even no morning routine is a routine of sorts. There were, of course, complaints about getting up earlier and grumbling about this new thing. We persevered, and now can say from experience that it is the one single thing we did that made the most difference in their mornings and their lives. Now, they are at the place where they miss it if they don’t get to participate for some reason. So, I end up reading the devotion, the old and new testament chapters out loud to this day, sometimes twice each morning to accommodate different breakfast schedules.
No matter our age, communing with God in the morning is important. I encourage you to make this a daily practice for yourself and for your children. The beginning of a new school year is an easier time to begin new routines for children, and this is an important part of life to train your children in while they are young.
