A New Year With Ancient Wisdom
We are less than one week away from the beginning of a brand new year, and many of us have new hopes and new habits that we are ready to implement.
Start going to the gym.
Stop drinking soft drinks.
Simplify our stuff and schedules.
Stop spending so much time on social media.
Start eating organic, free-range everything.
Whatever your goals may be, we all know that there are things in our lives that we need to alter or do better, and the New Year offers us the ceremonial fresh start that motivates us to actually start implementing these things into our daily routines and weekly rhythms.
That being said, since most of us are feeling motivated right now, I would like to take this opportunity to add one more thing to your list of New Year’s resolutions. I’d like to invite you to join me in a habit that has literally changed my life over the last couple of years. Here you go…
To start every morning meditating on ancient wisdom.
What do I mean?
I mean to get up early while it is still dark and to take 10-15 minutes reading and thinking deeply about the ancient Jewish Scriptures we call the Bible.
Nothing has shaped the way that I live my life and the way that I interact with the people around me more than this daily practice.
There’s something about this practice that prepares my soul to enter into each day with more peace, patience and compassion. There’s a sweet slowness to the quiet and calm of the early morning. There’s a sacredness to these moments of silence, solitude and Scripture. I’m convinced the Spirit of God dwells there.
If you want to experience more of God’s presence in your life, start every morning reading and meditating on his Scriptures.
To help you get started, here’s what this practice looks like for me…
Wake up at 5:30 AM
Make a cup of coffee. Taking the time to make a single-cup pour-over allows the slumber to slowly fade away (10 min.)
Go sit in my chair with my coffee and my Bible
Enjoy a few deep breaths and a short prayer of gratitude (1-2 min.)
Read my daily reading from the Gospels and Psalms (5 min.)
Meditate - think deeply about the implications of what I read (5 min.)
Pray (5-10 min.)
Take a moment to sit quietly and listen (2-3 min.)
And then I enter into this new day that lies before me - which usually begins by making breakfast for the family and getting the kids off to school.
That’s a snapshot of what this practice typically looks like for me. There are obviously variations and alterations as to how much time I spend on each depending on how the morning unfolds, but this is the basic outline of my early morning routine. It has become something I’m excited about each night before I go to bed and something that is a felt absence in my life on the days I happen to miss. It’s a practice that has taken some time and perseverance to make stick, but one that has changed my life and my relationship with God.
This is, of course, nothing new.
The ancient psalmist declared that the man who is truly happy in this life is the man who meditates on the ancient Scriptures daily. And Jesus himself would often wake up early in the morning while it was still dark to spend time in prayer.
This is an ancient practice, but one that we probably need more than ever in our modern fast-paced digital world.
And so, as we enter into this New Year with a fresh start and motivation to change, I encourage you to implement your goals and establish your new routines. Join that gym, start that diet, tackle that iPhone addiction and then more than anything else… start every morning meditating on the ancient wisdom found in God’s Scriptures.
