Entering the Day as a Co-Creator: The Morning & Spiritual Formation

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."

-- Genesis 1:1

A New Creation

I was inspired recently to rethink my morning routine, and I want to share about the underlying insight that moved me to change.

MORNING HACKS

Most adults have a morning routine or at least a desire to start the day well. I expect that most of us are inconsistent in accomplishing this. Since I'm not selling something here, I'm not going to tell you that you can have the perfect morning every morning if you just do ABC... That's nonsense. We get sick and have hormones and don't sleep well sometimes and have all kinds of reasons for starting the day poorly. The point is not to "Win the day!" or pick your slogan but to be with Jesus, be faithful, and keep showing up.

Personally, I get up early each weekday morning and don't have much trouble getting out of bed even though I'm tired. This wasn't always the case, but it is now, and I don't say it to boast but rather to set the context. Some days I'm excited because of what is coming and some days I just think, "What's the point of life? My back aches, and I'm tired, and am I going to do anything today that matters?" Regardless, I get up and do my thing.

1.    This post isn't about hacks, but I will share the best advice I heard on this topic: Have everything ready when you get up. For me, this means my workout clothes are sitting on the shelf waiting on me, so I just get up, get dressed, and get going. No thinking involved.

2.    The second thing I do, when I remember, is I put my hand on my heart and say, "Jesus loves me. I love Jesus. I love me." That last phrase may sound strange, and I feel quite vulnerable admitting it, but someone recommended it, and I find it helpful. [Note: I recommend Anthony T. Flood's The Metaphysical Foundations of Love: Aquinas on Participation, Unity, and Union for a deeper understanding of a healthy love of self.]

3.    The last thing is I leave my phone charging in the kitchen when I go to bed. This means I get up and do quite a few things before looking at my phone. This also means I have an alarm that isn't my phone.

None of those three things are secrets to everything going great, but they do help me, so I figured I'd mention them. [Note: This may be heretical, but I wait to have my intentional time with Jesus until after I work out.]

A NEW MINDSET - CO-CREATORS

But like I said, that's not the point here. Each of us has our things that help us. Some overlap, and some are unique. Find yours and enjoy. My practice wasn't where I needed help; my mindset was the problem. I didn't know it was the problem until I was inspired with a solution that spoke to my heart. [Note: I owe the kernel of this inspiration to a talk I heard Dr. Jordan Peterson give on Genesis 1.]

To set this up we need to look at the first morning in Genesis 1:1-3,

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness covered the surface of the watery depths, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light."

First, let's consider this passage from a mythological perspective. By this I refer to myth as C.S. Lewis described it. He wrote in his essay "Myth Became Fact" in God in the Dock,

"By becoming fact, it does not cease to be myth: that is the miracle. I suspect that men have sometimes derived more spiritual sustenance from myths they did not believe than from the religion they professed. To be truly Christian we must both assent to the historical fact and also receive the myth (fact though it has become) with the same imaginative embrace which we accord to all myths. The one is hardly more necessary than the other…"

I want us to read Genesis 1 from this perspective. Thus, when the text says, "In the beginning..." let's think about it as not just that beginning but as capturing the idea of all beginnings. Every time something new is created, it is a new beginning. Thus, in Genesis 1 we have the beginning of beginnings.

What do we see at this beginning? Darkness and the watery depths which represent chaos, a lack of order. The Hebrew word translated "watery depths" here is "tehom". It could also be translated as "the deep" or "the abyss", and it often is scary. For example, it is from whence the waters of the flood come in Genesis 7, and the waters that cover the Egyptians in Exodus 15.

The Spirit is hovering over this abyss preparing to create. I'm no Hebrew scholar but a little study showed that the word connotes fluttering, brooding, shaking, but relaxed. The idea seems to be that the Spirit was active. Then BOOM! God suddenly speaks, light appears, and everything changes. Chaos moves towards order.

The two pictures that come to mind for me here are birth and the morning. I could say much about birth, but I'm focusing on the morning.

Think about it. Darkness. We are sleeping, dreaming. Then our eyes open, light appears, a new day, a new creation has begun!

Each morning God is calling each of us into co-creation. Can you feel the energy in that? When we wake up in the morning, we are experiencing a new creation, something that has never happened before and yet has happened millions of times. Just like in Genesis 1 what follows the light is a new creation in which God invites us to join Him, a chance to move from chaos to order.

And this is only enhanced and confirmed when Jesus rises from the dead. On the third day at sunrise everything is made new, another beginning. We join Jesus as we figuratively resurrect each new day celebrating life with God.

TRY THIS - IMAGINE

So, let's join Him. When you go to bed tonight remind yourself that you will be waking up to a new creation. Have an imaginative conversation with God about this idea. Picture the morning as a new creation with you and God stepping into it together. Picture the Spirit of God hovering over you as you sleep ready for the new creation. Can you see God saying, "Let there be light!", as the sun rises? He calls you into partnership, giving you the agency to act. You are His ambassador acting on His behalf (2 Corinthians 5:20). He has created good works especially for you. (Ephesians 2:10).

Put something by your bed to remind you of this when you wake up. Then, when you get up, have another conversation with God. What is He saying to you? Experience His embrace and invitation.

CONCLUSION

As I said at the beginning, I assume you have a morning routine. This isn't about changing what you do but perhaps how you do it. If you need vision to enter the day as if it is the first day, as if it is a new creation full of potential, then this can help.

Feel free to comment on what helps you in the morning.

“When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive - to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.”

– Marcus Aurelius