MY MIRACLE MORNINGS

There is a popular book called "The Miracle Morning" by Hal Elrod contains practical steps that everyone can take to live the life of their dreams.  Let me start by saying that I have not read this book.   The author does not seem to be saying anything new here.  He asserts that today is the most single important day in your life and what you do with your morning determines whether or not your day will be successful in the pursuit of your dreams.  Your morning sets the context and mindset of the day.  So if you have an unfocused, unproductive, unpowerful morning ritual you will have an unfocused, unproductive, and unpowerful day. I am a personal witness to the truth of this statement.  This may not true for everyone but it is absolutely true for me.  From that book an international movement has taken form.  It is amazing to search the hashtag miraclemornings on Instagram and see all of the things that people are doing as part of their Miracle Morning.  I search that has hashtag throughout the day on various social media platforms to see what others are doing as part of their miracle morning process and it serves as an source of encouragement as I continue in this process.

This next paragraph is purely parenthetical and meant to be an aside:

(I love the steps of this miracle morning process. I have taken the process and used the steps to spend time with God each morning before I have contact with others.  It has become essential to my goal of increased prayer and devotion.  It appears as if this author is more of a "self-help" type guy and so you are not necessarily going to find any great biblical truth in the content of this plan other than the usual basic Christian tenants that are often recycled and remixed to be marketed as some revolutionary concept.  I did view a lecture where the author was giving his personal testimony as to how he arrived at this Miracle Morning concept, but I used this process simply as a template for a morning ritual by which I engage in devotion to God).

The morning is when I am at my absolute worst.  I just do not like having to wake up at a certain time and be somewhere. I am that person that hits the snooze button 4 or 5 times and procrastinates about getting out of the bed.  Having to be at work at 6:00am is a daunting task, and because I loathe mornings I unknowingly had been setting myself up for failure each day.  My days, while filled with productivity on my job, were lacking in personal productivity in the pursuit of my dreams.  My mornings, while I am admittedly still a little tired, have been transformed.

Living the life of my dreams on a daily basis includes the following: I want to glorify God, spread the good news of the Gospel, introduce someone to the person of Jesus Christ, and make a positive impact  in the life of someone else.  That is a dream day for me.  I would love to do this while having sufficient income to meet my needs that comes from owning and operating my own business and not having to go into a job each day for someone else.  The latter is a more recent element to my dream life.  When my children were little, I was perfectly content with going in to work every day, working my eight hours and collecting my pay check every two weeks.  There was a certain order to it, a flexible schedule of shift work that I could work to my advantage.  My focus was different then.  My goal was to make money to assist my husband in providing financially for the household, as we worked collectively to ensure that our children would have everything they needed.  What I learned from critically looking at that time when I was content going to work day in and day out was that I could have lived a much more impactful life had I adopted the practice of these miracle mornings back then. 

Breakdown of the process:

Silence 

Affirmations

Visualization

Exercise

Reading

Scribing

I am a Christian so I move through the Miracle Morning with my focus firmly on Jesus the Christ.  My Silence is filled with worship, recognizing God as omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent and sovereign; and giving thanks for His son, Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. My Affirmations are either scriptures or scripturally based.  My Visualization includes focusing on my Goal and Dream Board that I have created in my planner.  My Exercise consists of stretching and walking (I am working on getting up early enough to go for a swim before work - pray for me)!  My Reading consists of my daily devotion from the BBH Devotion and RZIM Apps (you can find them here and here).  My Scribing consists of writing out the focus scripture in the devotion, the key point(s), what God wants me to learn, how does the scripture apply to my life and how can I apply the lesson to make a change, and ends with scribing a prayer.

I realized that if I practiced these steps before I had contact with others my response to people as well as unforeseen, uncontrollable circumstances or adversity was in line with the God's will as opposed to my own.  It has allowed me to set the tone for the day.  My daily devotion and prayer did not always come in the morning because I was always rushing.  I am now deliberate and purposeful about completing this process each day and it has changed me.  I challenge each one of you to devote about an hour each morning to this process.  Use the time to draw closer to God.  It will change you and once we are changed and armed with the word of God, we can go out into the world and carry out the great commission with boldness, making a positive impact on those we come in contact with.

May God bless and keep you...