make your mornings sacramental

small wins, the snowball effect, and not being mary poppins

You wake up. Quiet your alarm. You taste the sleep on your lips and rub it from your eyes. Still horizontal, you yawn and stretch, roll over and reach… for your phone.

It’s screen flicks on and you drift on a dopamine hit into today’s news or the morning’s emails or whatever social feed has caught your fancy. Eventually, you feel less unhappy to be awake and you slowly emerge from bed to begin the day.

first thing in the morning?

Be honest: How closely does this sound like your typical morning?

If distraction is an important reason we neglect and forget God—and smartphones are ticking time bombs of mobile diversion—then the simple and incredibly common wake-up-and-reach-for-the-phone is a recipe for avoiding and ignoring our Heavenly Father. You could argue that early morning smartphone use is functional atheism. Probably not what most Christians want before their morning coffee!

Lest you think I’m speaking from Mt. Sinai, proclaiming to all the unwashed masses how we do it up here On High, let me alleviate your fears. The first thing I did this morning was roll over, reach for the phone, and read the latest coverage on what’s happening in the world of AI.

I’m not writing as the Mary Poppins of Christian spirituality over here, perfectly sacramental in every way. I belong with all the Jane and Michaels of the world. Maybe you do too.

sorry to disappoint

I’m in the midst of trying to build a different habit to begin my day. I’d like to welcome you along for the ride with me!

what does sacramental mean again?

In a previous post, I explained that we treat a thing as sacramental when we receive it as a gift from God. Everything we have—everything we are—is a gift from the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

God’s gift of created things to us—including our very being—is an invitation to participation in His love, life, joy, and peace. Sin and selfishness break that connection. Christ reestablishes it in His incarnation, death, resurrection and ascension…. Now everything can become sacramental for the Christian, because we can receive everything as a gift from the hand of our loving Heavenly Father.

James 1:17 says, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” As I remember verses like this and practically apply them to my life, I take my rightful place in Christ as a part of His kingdom of priests, His holy nation (1 Peter. 2:9). If these verses are true, then my gratitude to God for the gifts He gives becomes a sacramental act (see Eph. 5:20).

A life of gratitude is a Eucharistic life; the Greek eucharistia means gratitude! A sacramental life is a life of gratitude to God, remembering that any and every good thing I have is His gift.

making a eucharistic morning

If you’re like me and grew up in evangelicalism, you may be worried I am about to tell you to get up early and have a Quiet Time™. Don’t worry. That’s not the message here. (Though it never hurt anyone to spend a little time in Scripture!)

Building a eucharistic morning doesn’t have to involve lengthy times of study, reading or practice. Rather, I’m looking for a small win. In his book, The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg writes, “Small wins fuel transformative changes by leveraging tiny advantages into patterns that convince people that bigger achievements are within reach.”¹

A small win helps build a snowball effect—it gets the ball rolling from something simple to something more until it becomes potentially transformative.

snowball effect

To begin, I want to suggest three things:

1. keep it simple

It’s ok to be gentle with yourself to start. The goal is not to do everything. The goal is to do something. Starting small is not only ok; it’s the path to creating a sustained practice.

2. start with reality

Where are you right now? Do you have a 30 minute devotion in the morning? Do you struggle to get any time in prayer each day? The question isn’t what you “should” be doing (as the voice of judgment in your head would define it). The question is, where are you right now?

3. embrace god in that reality

Let God know where you are (He already knows!). Ask the Spirit to draw near. He will! “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you” (James 4:8).

my (embarrassingly simple) practice

As I try to break my first thing in the morning, wake-up-and-reach-for-the-phone habit, I am doing something embarrassingly simple. Before I sit up, turn on a light, put on my slippers or anything, I pray the “Collect for Grace” from the Book of Common Prayer:

O Lord, our Heavenly Father, almighty and everlasting God, you have brought us safely to the beginning of this day: Defend us by your mighty power, that we may not fall into sin nor run into any danger; and that, guided by your Spirit, we may do what is righteous in your sight; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.²

there’s some good stuff in there

If I’m too groggy to note anything I’m saying the first (or second or third) time, I pray it again until something registers and it feels like I’m actually saying it to God. Even if the magnitude of the prayer doesn’t land with me at 6:13am, taking the words into my heart and offering them to the Lord each day helps to shape me into someone who believes these words and participates in their eternal truth.

i remember who god is.

He is the Lord, the King, in charge. He is my Heavenly Father, because of what Christ has done. He is almighty, able to do abundantly more than I ask or imagine. From everlasting to everlasting, He is God.

i remember what he has done.

He gave me another day of life. Each day is a gift. I am not owed a single breath, let alone another 24 hours of them. The fact that I blinked my eyes open this morning is a testimony to the generosity of my God. This prayer lets me treat each new day as a gift. I can approach it eucharistically. It helps make my mornings sacramental.

i remember who i am.

I am weak, broken, and in need of mercy. I can’t do what is righteous without the grace of God. I need God to defend me, keep me from sin, and guide me by the Spirit.

i remember who my savior is.

The prayer closes “through Jesus Christ our Lord.” He is the one who reestablished communion between earth and heaven, making peace by the blood of His cross (Col. 1:20). My prayer will make its way before the Father on account of the Son.

This may not be the path to sainthood or the heroic mortification of the flesh. But it is a small win. And maybe, just maybe, that small win can snow ball into a deeper joy in knowing that our gracious God draws near when we seek Him.

What about you? Is the first thing in the morning smartphone habit a hindrance to your life with God? Have you found ways to break that habit? Or will you try to change your habit going forward? I’d love to hear from you!

1. Charles Duhugg, The Power of Habit, pg. 112.

2. Book of Common Prayer, 2019, pg. 23.