Jesus’ Way To Begin Your Day

The number one goal of the Christian’s spiritual life is to become like Jesus.
The Church Fathers deemed this to be the Imitatio Christi – The Imitation of Christ.
If we are serious about being holy and achieving glory, we not only want to imitate Christ, but also become one with Christ—to have Christ live in us—so that we can say with the holy apostle St. Paul, “It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me.” (Gal 2:20)

This is our north star. Anything less than this is not worthy of the Christian.
If you want this to be your singular primary purpose, read on.

Contemporary cultural self-help gurus proclaim, “Win the morning, win the day.””They did not come up with that idea—Christ did.

How did Jesus win the morning?
He did three things.

The Gospel of Mark tells us that Our Lord spent the lion’s share of the evening healing the villagers of Capharnaum:

And when it was evening, after sunset, they brought to him all that were ill and that were possessed with devils. And all the city was gathered together at the door. And he healed many that were troubled with diverse diseases; and he cast out many devils, and he suffered them not to speak, because they knew him. Mark 1:32-34

In other words, Jesus burned the midnight oil.
Jesus spent his evening serving “all the city” and “healing many.”
Our Lord slept very little that night.
It is almost certain that Jesus’ human nature was exhausted.

Nevertheless, Mark recounts:

“And rising very early, going out, [Jesus] went into a desert place: and there he prayed.” (Mark 1:35)

This concise, simple verse outlines how Jesus began His mornings, and why He was so productive, effective and successful at doing His Father’s Will.

First:

“He rose early”, “while it was still dark.”

In fact, the word Mark uses for dark actually means nightly or by night.
Jesus arose so early that it appeared to be night.
He didn’t sleep to the very last minute before he had to be at work.
He didn’t hit the snooze alarm repeatedly.

He was hungry for communion with His Father.
He knew that union with God His Father was the very lifeline for His public ministry.

Our Lord demonstrates that regardless how tired we may be, the key to establishing peace, order, and productivity throughout your day is to rise early.

We embrace the dark, morning silence.
We wait on the sun that rises in the east, as a sign of the Son of God who desires to rise in our hearts.
This living analogy of the sunrise conveys the eternal truth that light always overcomes the darkness; that every night has its dawn; that God prevails over evil.

By rising prior to the sunrise you are proclaiming that God will be victorious in and through you this day.

This is the first step: rise early, in the darkness of the morning, before anyone else in your home, intent on embracing the silence.
Without this first step, we are already falling behind and giving disorder and chaos power over us.

Second:

“He went to a desert place.”
Jesus set out on a mini-pilgrimage for the purpose of being alone with His Father.

The Greek word for desert, erēmon means “solitary” or “desolate.”
In other words, Our Lord set out to be by Himself, void of other persons, void of all consolations or distractions.

Our Lord demonstrates that the secret to having conversation with God is to “get away from it all.”

Put away the phone.
Even the app that you use to pray—put it away.
You don’t need an app to pray.
You don’t need to pray with a YouTuber.
The faithful have faired very well for the last 2000 years without apps, smartphones and videos.

Often while using our phones to pray, we will receive a notification or a nudge from an app.
We can’t help ourselves. We click on the notification, which leads us to a post, a video, which leads us to another post, another video, which leads us to…

Not God.

God wants you, just you, all to Himself; without any technology, without any false consolations or distractions.
He wants to speak to you.
And He wants you to reveal your heart to Him.

One way to create this “desert” place is by establishing a “prayer room” in your house, or a “side chapel” in a room.
Every time you enter that chapel, this action will constitute a mini-pilgrimage where you “go there” to find Jesus “in here”—in you, in your heart, your soul.

Third:

“He prayed.”

What is prayer?

St. Teresa of Avila says, ” Mental prayer in my opinion is nothing else than an intimate sharing between friends; it means taking time frequently to be alone with Him who we know loves us”.

There is a super-abundant amount of written and rote prayers available.
Some officially sanctioned by the Catholic Church and others for personal devotion.
These are necessary.

They are like crutches that help a man walk.
Eventually, the crutches are needed less and he can walk on his own.
We pray with these prayers and eventually we learn to pray on our own.

Even amidst a morning prayer session, we may “warm-up” with these pre-written prayers and then inspired by them, proceed to speaking to God from the heart.

Prayer is praising God, thanking God, petitioning God, expressing contrition of our sins, failings and faults to God…but most importantly, prayer is conversation with God.

We express those deep, most intimate, secret, most sacred and sometimes most deplorable sentiments to our Father who desires to hear us express our hearts with spiritual nakedness and bold, audacious trust that He can accomplish the impossible in and through us.

Our Father also wants us to learn how to listen and discern His still, small voice…as though we are chasing after it, pursuing it until we find it.
To hear His still, small voice presupposes that we arise in darkness, embrace the silence, set out to that desolate place and wait upon Him.

Do you want to be a saint?
Do you want to have order and peace?
Do you want to be like Jesus?
Do you want to know Jesus and His Father?
Do these three things daily and all of these will be yours.