Sunday Lesson – Jesus’s Morning Success Routine

Yes, that’s sarcasm above. My wife chews me out daily for my West-coast humor. We’re from Seattle and live in the deepish South now. It’s a different world.

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I wrote this a couple of years ago and post it again, in the first days of the new year, for anyone searching for ways to follow Jesus more closely. Enjoy! Comment freely and I would love to hear about your daily routine to meet with G.

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Most Sundays, I post a vignette from the life of Jesus and consider how it relates to me and to us. I don’t preach. My goal here is to explain what the writer wrote and what the hearers heard. I leave the what it really means to others, smarter than me. It’s impossible for me to do this without some bias. Indeed, any word from Jesus is wrapped in 2,000 years of bias and interpretation. I know that I do this, too, and when I recognize it, I address it. I eschew most theological positions except love: I read and enjoy almost anything from the Big Three of Roman Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant theology. I don’t trust my puny little human brain to parse the depths of the transcendent G and believe by faith, not logic.

I post these on 1:30 Sunday afternoons, my time, after New Yorkers arrive home from church. Sign up anywhere on the site to be alerted to these new posts.

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Go to any website or podcast spouting off about making you the best version of yourself, and you’ll find advice about The Morning Routine. It’s a sacrosanct theology among self-helpers, though I’ve never once read an analysis showing that following a successful person’s routine and habits will bring you the same successes.

This copy-catting is the basis for most of the sacred cows of the self-help world. And I see the point. If you want to be like someone else, acting like they do is a good place to start. I read recently that entrepreneur extraordinaire Elon Musk works 16 hours a day, seven days a week, a never takes vacations. I don’t know what job or career you want, but that’s got to be a model for some level of success. Or failure. You decide.

The same goes for habits, relationships, and your faith. Find people who excel in these areas and do what they do. But take care as a Christian: Partly because I’m a contrarian, and partly because I don’t think Christianity is defined as being best buds with Jesus while you watch the Notre Dame football game, I keep toying with starting a podcast called Broken and Humble just because it’s so silly that every Christian thing has to be upbeat, successful, and guaranteed to get you that tri-story waterfront home on a beach in Florida. In the name of Jesus. Hallelujah! Who wants to move to Florida, anyway?

Truth be told, I have a morning routine myself. I can’t say with certainty that it makes my day better, but at least I look it forces me to look at my calendar – and my wife’s calendar – so I don’t miss anything important. (Yet I still miss things.) Without running through my morning routine, I feel like I’m constantly a step behind, playing catch-up all day.

I see in the Gospels that Jesus had a daily routine, too. For me – for any Christian – this has to have as much weight as the routine of Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk or Paul Crouch, right? Jesus’s routine is simple:

That evening, after the sun was down, they brought sick and evil-afflicted people to him, the whole city lined up at his door! He cured their sick bodies and tormented spirits. Because the demons knew his true identity, he didn’t let them say a word. While it was still night, way before dawn, he got up and went out to a secluded spot and prayed. Simon and those with him went looking for him.

They found him and said, “Everybody’s looking for you.”

Jesus said, “Let’s go to the rest of the villages so I can preach there also. This is why I’ve come.”

As we do, let’s pull a couple nuggets out of this brief passage.

• Jesus was beat. Fighting crowds all day, feeding people, and casting out devils takes it out of a guy. Even Jesus. The passage implies a block-long line out the front door.
• He left the house. Crowds followed Jesus everywhere He stayed, and there was no other way to be alone. So he got away to a lonely place. A favorite theme of mine in the life of Jesus. A lonely place. Note that it’s not lonely there – Jesus had plenty of company – but it was a place where He could be alone with the Father.
• In the morning, long before dawn… We see Jesus awake and engaged with the Father and with his day and purpose. This isn’t hoping out of bed ten minutes early to read your devotional before charging off to work, latte and protein doughnut in hand. It’s time spend orienting your day and relationship. I have every impression that this was primary for Jesus.
• He found a lonely place. He escapes the eyes and needs of followers, the crowds, and even his disciples. One commentator says, rightly I think, that a man can give nothing unless he first receives it. Here is Jesus, going off early to a lonely place to receive what He would later give away. How different from today’s celebrities or Christian writers? We post our doings on Instagram and weigh in on every conceivable controversy on Twitter. We run from lonely places and, instead, influenced by the world, seek places where we are most visible. We want to be influencers.
• He prayed there. Why does the Lord of Hosts, the Very G of Very G, the Light of Light, need to pray? Whatever your answer, can we agree that if the Master rises early to start his day with prayer, shouldn’t that be the lowest bar for frail and broken humanity?
• I haven’t noticed it before, but Peter goads him to return. “Everybody is looking for you.’ Isn’t this the clarion call for every one of us? We run like a sprinter when we’re told that, ‘they really need you!’ Peter says the same thing to Jesus, who, after early morning prayer, has other ideas. “Let us go elsewhere,” He says.

What was Jesus’ morning routine then? To rise before starting His day and to rest in the Father’s presence and receive direction.

Selah

Thanks and blessings!