Someone once asked me if I was a lark or an owl. In other words, are you a morning person or do you come alive at 10 pm? Well, it’s morning for me. That’s when I do my best thinking. It was pointed out to me by one of my University tutors that ‘burning the midnight oil’ was ‘unnatural.’ The thing to do is get a good night’s sleep, up early and into the work. And that has been my general pattern throughout my ministry. My best hours for prayer, reflection, preparation for preaching have always been in the morning.
That’s not for everyone of course. As a friend of mine used to say: ‘We are all beautifully different.’ Many people who heard Martyn Lloyd-Jones have said it was the finest preaching they ever experienced, yet he repeatedly said that morning was not his best time for prayer and reflection. He was just not made that way.
I think the message is that we should not get too hung up about the when and where of prayer and reflection. It’s just that I am better suited physically and mentally for the morning hours and it is helpful to me to think of myself laying a spiritual foundation for the day whatever it may bring.
The problem with routine is that if anything happens to knock it off you can feel disorientated and ill-fitted for the day ahead. Since March routine has been difficult for me not least with the side-effects of various drugs. I just don’t know how I am going to be feeling from day to day. And even on a ‘good day’ things can get off to a shaky start. Like the other morning. I couldn’t find my coffee. Somebody had tidied it away and I need my Santos and Java first thing. My rocket-fuel! Looking for it the door came off a kitchen cabinet. These things are not meant to happen in a carefully ordered life! As if I didn’t have enough to contend with! You know how it goes . . .
Let’s just leave these two catastrophes for the moment. What came home to me - again - was how fragile is our inner equilibrium, how easily we can be knocked off balance. Scripture tells us that we are ‘dust’ and it’s good to be reminded of that from time to time, so easily disturbed by the wind of circumstance. We like to think of ourselves as strong, at least to be able to ride the waves of lost coffee and dodgy doors, but in the end can we depend on ourselves for the strength that is needed day to day and hour to hour even for the small irritations? The Psalmist wrote: ‘God is our refuge and our strength.’
I’ve often said: ‘Give me a crisis and I’ll cope. It’s the wee things that get me down.’ All the more reason to to be aware that God is in the ‘wee things’ as well as the crises. I’m reading the reflections of Fr. Daniel O’Leary, a Roman Catholic priest, penned during his cancer experience. Time and again he focusses on the Incarnation, the wonderful and mysterious truth that God became man in Jesus. One of the implications of this is that God is involved in every aspect of life. Not just the Big Stuff but also the small, niggly things that knock you off balance. If the Small Stuff is bringing you down then you need to remember that God is in amongst it!
Did Jesus always have a perfect start to the day? Were His tools always ready to hand? Was there never an irascible customer to deal with? Did He never bash His shin on His work-bench or thump His thumb with a hammer? There is a romantic school of thought that would have Him floating through life never touched by the things that exacerbate us. But it doesn’t make sense. Perfect in His humanity he may have been but He was not always entirely in control of the world around Him. Mind you, is that not what it means to be human?
Have you heard of that book called Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff? I haven’t read it but I think it’s one of those pop-psychology, self-help books that seem to be so popular. The title has something going for it though. The Small Stuff can make us sweat. It’s where the darkness can get in to make us feel less than what we aspire to be in Christ. I need to remember that when coffee can’t be found and doors are in need of a Master carpenter.
