Laura J. Davis

When you get up in the morning, what is the first thing you think about? The first thing I think about is that I want to sleep some more. Then I think about having a shower, getting dressed, feeding the cats, taking my pills so that I can walk with minimal discomfort, driving my husband to work and stopping at Timmy's* on the way back for a coffee. At this point I'm still half asleep, because I am NOT a morning person. My brain has yet to kick in to actual thinking. So far, everything I've done has been by rote. It's my morning routine, which begins at 6:00 am everyday (way too early for someone who isn't fully functional until after 11:00 am).  I am like the walking dead - not quite dead, yet not fully alive either.

By the time I get back to the house after dropping my husband off at work, I'm ready for breakfast. I still haven't a thought in my head - again everything is by rote and I'm not fully awake. The coffee helps - a little - and my head begins to clear of the sleep induced fog it has been in since early morning. It is now 8:30 am and I'm starting to come around, so I check my emails. I should be praying and having a bible study, but I'm afraid to, because I worry that I'll fall back to sleep. God deserves better than that. So, I try more caffeine and by 10:00 am I'm starting to think - thoughts are actually forming in my mind. It is time for prayer and bible study.

Surely, this is not how God intended my days to begin - as a comatose, middle-aged woman who can't put two thoughts together until the morning is half over? Whatever happened to jumping out of bed in the morning and singing, "Good morning, good morning!" (a la Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds and Donald O'Connor). Oh wait - that has never happened in my life! I have ALWAYS been a night owl. But, somehow I thought that once I became a Christian my grumpy (I wish I were still sleeping) morning attitude would go away and be replaced with a more "Christlike" attitude. One that immediately thought of God and rejoiced that I'd been given a new day in which to praise Him.

It bothers me that I don't even think about God until AFTER I've had a shot of caffeine. This can't be right. Each day God has given me is a gift and I want to live it to it's fullest, praising Him and serving Him. Yet, somehow it never turns out that way. Oh, I do have my prayer and bible study times and I do have wonderful moments of worship, but it never seems enough. I could always fall back on the old "God made me this way" excuse and leave it at that. But I can't. God deserves more from me. He deserves all of me. He gives me the gift of life and I really need to be awake to offer it back to Him or my life is worth nothing. 

So today, I want to honour God the best way I know how - by staying awake. You may think - "That's awful! Your only gift to God each day is to stay awake?"  Yes, it is, because even now at 10:30 am as I write this, I am overwhelmed by the desire to fall asleep. It is so intense, this need to sleep, that I get dizzy trying to fight it off. I could easily crawl back into bed and not wake up again until 1:00 pm. I confess this is something I do all too frequently. But no more.

How can I take a day God has gifted me with and sleep it away? How can I not live it to its fullest? Even though most of my work gets done in the evenings, when I come alive, God still deserves more from me and I must not waste this day.

What about you? How are you spending your days? Maybe you are a morning person and you do jump out of bed shouting "Good morning!" But what happens after that? How much of your day do you give back to God? All of it, or only a teeny bit? Do other things get in your way like your job, shopping, children, the gym or TV? How much time do you devote to God each day? 15 minutes? An hour? God cannot be relegated to our agenda for the day, to where He'll "fit" in. Each day is a gift from God that we can open like a present on Christmas morning with excitement at the prospect of what it will bring. For some, this day may even be your last. So, ask yourself, how are you going to live your life today? Like the walking dead who go through the motions? Or are you going to use it to bring glory to God and be a gift to others? 

*Timmy's is Tim Horton's here in Canada. The best coffee Canada has to offer.