http://darlingmagazine.org/category/the-dreamer/page/2/).
Renewal comes from taking time to rest and be still and quiet. God modeled to us the spiritual discipline of rest. When he created the world, he rested on the seventh day. Not because he needed rest, but because he knew we would. We need rest to be spiritually, emotionally, mentally, and physically well. Jesus took time away from the crowds and his disciples to rest. He slept, prayed, and spent quiet alone time. This was his necessary renewal and refreshment to continue on in his ministry at his best.
If Jesus needed to rest, don't you think we do to? Sometimes we let life get the better of us. We never stop moving or doing, until we are too exhausted to do anything but collapse. But when we operate in this way, no one is getting us at our best-- God, family members, friends, co-workers. Rest, quiet, and stillness should be much more valued and prioritized in our daily lives. We tend to forget the beauty of these "quiet times." But the beauty and renewal are there in great abundance, if only we would grasp them.
When we take time to be alone and quiet with God in the mornings, we gain that desired renewal and make the most of our new beginning at the start of each day. Our God is a God who loves re-birth and renewal and fresh starts. That's his whole business of redemption. We get to pull out a fresh piece of paper and write something new with no trace of anything previous and no hint of what is to come. It is a beautiful thing to engage our mornings, claiming that fresh start that God has waiting for us each dawn.
I have slipped out of the habit of morning quiet times and relegated it to the times that I think best suit, but if I'm honest with myself, stopping in the middle of the day to close out life and be with God is so much more difficult than giving him the first untouched part of my day. Having quiet time in the morning before the busyness, expectations, demands, and stresses of the day tug on you seems much more beneficial. And there is an almost magical feeling to the early morning, as if the world is only yours and you can do with it what you like. You feel infinitely large and small at the same time, and it is absolutely marvelous and lovely and altogether wonderful.
I have been inspired to start rising early in the mornings and start each day in the early hours, claiming them as mine and God's alone. I want to start each day with the Lord, refreshing my heart, mind, and soul; meditating on scripture, reading, journaling thoughts and revelations, and sparking creative inspiration. I think there is more beauty and contentment to be found and captured for my life in that morning quiet time, and I want to grab it with both hands and let it flow into my life and permeate all that is there.
So, I now ask you, just as the article asks, "How do you wake up in the morning? Where does your renewal come from?"
"Morning is an important time of day, because how you spend your morning can often tell you what kind of day you are going to have."
-Lemony Snicket, The Blank Book
"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-then make that day count!"
-Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free
"Outside the open window the morning air is all awash with angels"
-Richard Wilbur, Collected Poems, 1943-2004
