EXPOSE | On becoming a morning person
On becoming a morning person: “Feed yourself first. This puts you in the best position to help others. You get what you need and you’ll be able to provide what others will require of you. To this end, reserve the best, most productive time of the day for yourself.” – Scott Veigel
EXPLORE | Cultivating nourishment
Although it has been official for a couple of weeks now, I am once again an ‘early-morning-outside-on-the-porch-guy’. The combination of rising early, the sun coming up, and the burst of cool fresh air as I open the sliding glass door to go outside and think deep thoughts is like being transported into another world.
This wonderful world that presents itself annually, and in Illinois, only lasts just a few weeks typically (until the heat and humidity make it challenging to be outside, even in the early morning), has become my morning oasis for my holistic approach to leveraging the best part of the day.
I’ve talked previously about the importance of the time we have before we really get going each day, but now being able to add the perfect location to the mix makes it all the more pleasurable.
I was recently talking to my son Roman about having a “mind, body, soul” morning–that is, getting the most meat for the money from your morning.
In fact, it was that conversation that prompted me to make sure you are properly warned against enduring the consequences of a lop-sided morning. Because a lop-sided morning leads to a lop-sided day.
By lop-sided, I mean focusing only on one area of your life to the exclusion of others. My sense is that there is a tendency to elevate exercise over the time you need to spend thinking, or more importantly, feeding your soul. Mornings should be an “all of the above” proposition so that you benefit from nurturing your mind, body, and soul.
A meaty, meaningful morning consists of a routine that nourishes our mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being. Otherwise, as I mentioned, our morning is going to be lop-sided; and as the morning goes, so goes our day, and ultimately, our lives.
This is what I mean by referring to Wisdom In All Things as quickly understanding and applying wisdom in three areas: mind, body, and soul.
However, in order to have a meaty, meaningful morning I am not only insisting that it include these three areas, but that they need to be ordered most effectively. This is why, when putting this into practice, I would recommend reversing the order I normally refer to those areas.
EXECUTE | Creating a “mind, body, soul” morning
You may already have your morning routine. And that is a good thing. But is it well-rounded? Does it include the three crucial areas of your mind, body, and soul?
By ordering these three areas correctly, we start with ‘Soul.’ Our anchor for the day is having God’s perspective as we prepare to face whatever He chooses to allow into our lives.
What I would like to do is offer two things that could help you improve this area, or, if you’re needing to establish your “quiet time” with God, could serve as a starting point to build upon. I refer to it as ‘soul prep’. This precedes a more in-depth Bible study. It’s like a warm-up before you start exercising.
In Ephesians 1, Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians is a prescription for how we can prepare our hearts for more in-depth, rigorous study. In his prayer for the Ephesians, he starts by asking:
“…that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe…”
Ephesians 1:17-19 (emphasis mine)
These 6 highlighted lines could actually be a prayer to prepare your mind and heart for whatever you’ll be focusing on specifically in your Bible study. Ask the Lord to give you:
- The Spirit of wisdom – the ability to discern, understand, and remain biblically intentional
- The revelation in the knowledge of Him – that He would reveal Himself in our quest to know Him more
- A heart that is able to see – things aren’t always as they seem; allow God to give you the right heart to see things as He sees them
- A renewed understanding of the hope that He has called you to – the hope only He can provide is our confidence and inspiration; come what may, we always have every reason to be hopeful
- A reminder of the blessing that we are to Him – God delights in our delighting in Him; we have been purchased and we are His inheritance
- Confidence, knowing His immeasurable power is for you – with God, all things are possible; He is committed to transforming you into the image of His Son, demonstrating His immeasurable power as we walk through any valley and reach the highest mountain tops
One other idea I would offer as you establish or reevaluate this first area of ‘Soul’, is changing up or freshening your approach to “the revelation in the knowledge of Him” with one of these options. As with the other recommendations I’ll make, there are a number of different ways to go about this. And that is the point. It may be time to change things up to spark interest, renew motivation, and ignite passion. Change can be very good.
- Scripture memorization. I highly recommend the Topical Memory System from The Navigators. It is a complete Scripture memorization system, focusing on areas such as living our new life in Christ, proclaiming Christ, and relying on God’s resources, among others.
- Deep dive into a passage. A really good place to start learning more about the process of digging deeply into God’s Word is by spending some time at Desiring God and watching “Look at the Book” with John Piper. It’s like having a one-on-one masterclass as he dissects Scripture.
- Character study. We hear or read the stories in the Bible, but don’t always understand the full backstory of the characters. This short article from Insight for Living provides a really good overview of how you can focus on one character of the Bible to better understand them as a person, their backgrounds, and their motivations.
- Word study. This is similar to a character study, but you’re focusing on words. There are now quite a few free online Bible study tools that can help guide you through the study of the Bible. This article from The Gospel Coalition takes us through the process of a biblical word study.
Having started with ‘Soul’, we next move to ‘Body.’ I won’t spend much time in the area of physical exercise, except to say that I have found the compounding effects of just my regular routine to have yielded key benefits. Again, I’m not talking about a two-hour, full-body, daily, “no pain, no gain” regiment, just that you’re consistently doing right by your body with exercise and nutrition.
Part of starting with ‘Soul’ is that it necessarily focuses us on what is most crucial and foundational to our day–and lives. But it is also a peaceful way to wake up. In my experience, that soul-satisfaction provides a nice bridge into physical exercise which then allows us to best leverage the last area, ‘Mind.’ I am now ready to think.
The time spent on the ‘Mind’ should only be about work towards the end. It largely should consist of engaging in a fruitful process of reading, listening, and/or watching that fosters personal growth in the areas in your life where you want or need to improve.
Of course, some of this kind of thinking will be done in the area of ‘Soul’. However, if ‘Soul’ is focusing on what we are to ‘be’, ‘Mind’ is about focusing on what we are to ‘do’. Here, you’re nurturing interests, developing understanding, and furthering skills around how God has gifted you and what He has called you to do.
With all these areas, be sure to capture the understanding and insight in some form (on paper or electronically), in order to plan how you’ll intentionally use it. This is a crucial part of wisdom. We are to skillfully apply what we come to understand is right and good. And a good way to exercise that is with purposeful, ‘creative expression.’
For instance, with ‘Soul’, you could take what you’ve learned and develop it into a tool, a lesson, or a short article. ‘Body’ should be more than just exercise. Have you ever wanted to Box? Be better at jumping rope? Maintain your soccer skills? The same goes for ‘Mind.’ How is what you’re reading or watching positively influencing how you communicate or express yourself? What we take in, must have an outlet, so we want to be sure to do something specific with what we’re acquiring.
I had recently come across the idea of creating a ‘vision board’, where you map out visually where you are headed. It’s a little like the board game Candy Land. You can include images, pictures, hand drawings, or quotes, that map out the steps you’d to take to get to where you need to go. It seemed like an interesting new way of visualizing our journey–that is, plotting out where God is leading us through how He is equipping us in the areas of mind, body, and soul.
Creating a meaty, meaningful morning requires that we nurture the areas of our souls, bodies, and minds–in that order. There is a good deal of room for flexibility and creativity, but the investment in these areas will ensure that we’re well-rounded. By nourishing our mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being, we will not only live the right life, but we best position ourselves to ‘do our best, to be our best, to offer our best.’
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Further reading:
Look at the Book from Desiring God
How to study a Bible character
The Navigators Topical Memory System
How to memorize a book of the Bible
8 steps to meeting Gid in silence and solitude
Photo by Mario Dobelmann on Unsplash