A Morning Person

I'm not a night owl.  I used to be a morning person, but I'm not really one of those anymore either.  In eight hours, I'm going to roll out of bed.  I actually roll.  Sometimes my knees hit the floor before my feet do, and I pause and take a big breath, say a quick "Help me, Lord!" prayer and then fumble around for a pair of socks so I can walk unsteadily down the hall and boil water for my french-press coffee.

I came across this quote from Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, at the World Wide Developers Conference this past June: “The products we make combined with the apps that you create, can fundamentally change the world. Really, I can’t think of a better reason to get up in the morning.”

So this guy can't think of a better reason to get up in the morning, huh?

Tomorrow I'm going to get up, barely a few minutes before the kids do, and I'm going to grab for the little devotional book beside my bed.  I'll go through my little morning routine, and my day will start.  But you know what?  My day actually starts less than 2 hrs. from now, just after the clock strikes midnight.  Isn't it fitting than the Lord has us sleep at the beginning and end of each day?  I will wake up tomorrow, and my day will already be underway, and God will have been awake for all of it already.

Author and pastor, John Piper, says that God has ordained (by His wisdom and grace) that we should spend one third of our lives (8 out of every 24 hrs) asleep.  Ha!  What does that say?

I'm a doer, I'm type-A, I'm a multi-tasker, I'm still trying to recover from my people-pleasing performance-based tendancies...and here God thinks I should sleep more.

So, what gets me out of bed in the morning?  

A drive to accomplish more tasks?

A desire to "change the world"?

Tonight when I close my eyes and let my muscles relax, I'm going to ask God to help me to remember, as I get out of bed in the morning, that it's not about what I'm planning to "do"... it's about who I get to be with - and tomorrow, just like everyday, I get to be with God.

GOD.

Dang.

Now that sounds like a better reason to get out of bed in the morning.