Before My Feet Touch the Floor

Here is the actual sequence, and I want you to check it against your own morning rather than take my word for it.

The alarm goes. The hand moves to stop it. The hand is already holding the phone. And because the hand is already holding the phone, the eyes open onto whatever the phone has, and whatever the phone has was chosen by somebody who is not you and does not know you.

That is the first thing that happens to you every day.

Not the first thing you do. The first thing that happens to you, which is different, because you did not choose it and you were not awake enough to decline it.

And then you get up, and the day proceeds, and somewhere by about ten you notice you feel behind, and you assume it is the volume of work, and it is not always the volume of work. Sometimes it is that you began the day being arrived at rather than beginning it.

The order in the sentence

There is an instruction in Deuteronomy that most people know as a verse about teaching children, and I want to point at its shape rather than its subject.

And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. (Deuteronomy 6:7, King James Version)

Look at the four settings. Sitting in the house. Walking on the road. Lying down. Rising up.

That is not a devotional schedule. It is a description of the hinges of an ordinary day, and two of the four are the moments of transition: the last thing at night and the first thing in the morning.

Whoever wrote that understood something about people that we have mostly forgotten, which is that the edges of a day set its temperature. Deuteronomy 6:7 puts the word of God at the two hinges specifically rather than at a convenient point in the middle, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes an ancient instruction land on a phone charging beside a bed.

You are meant to meet Him at the hinge, and the first minutes of a day have never once been neutral. Deuteronomy 6:7 names rising up as one of the four places the word belongs, and the Holy Spirit is the one who turns a line about a household into a decision about a bedside table.

Why willpower will not do this

Now, why has knowing this not changed anything for you, given that Deuteronomy 6:7 is hardly hidden and the Holy Spirit has been perfectly clear about mornings for a long time.

Because you have tried to solve it with intention, and intention is not available at that hour. At the moment the alarm goes, you are not a person making decisions. You are a warm animal reaching for a noise.

Every resolution you have made about your mornings was made by the evening version of you, who is thoughtful and reflective and, crucially, not there when it counts. The morning version has no access to any of that. Deuteronomy 6:7 works on a household rather than on a character, and the Holy Spirit is not embarrassed to work that way either.

So the answer is not to want it more. The answer is a change of geography, made by the evening version, who is the one with the power.

You have a version of yourself with real power in this, and it was awake at nine last night. Deuteronomy 6:7 sets the word at the lying down as well as at the rising up, and the Holy Spirit is the one who works through a decision made hours before the moment it is needed.

Put the phone on the other side of the room. That is all. Now the morning version has to stand up before it can reach, and standing up is enough to get four minutes of an actual mind, and Deuteronomy 6:7 is content to work in ordinary domestic arrangements rather than in heroic ones, and the Holy Spirit meets people in geography constantly.

You are not short of willpower, and the fix has never once been more resolve. The written word puts its instruction into the furniture of a household rather than into somebody's determination, and the Spirit of God is the one who works through a plug socket in the corner of a room.

What to do with four minutes

Now, the four minutes, and I want to keep the bar on the floor, because Deuteronomy 6:7 never sets a length and the Holy Spirit has never once required one.

You are not being asked to pray for half an hour. You are not being asked to read anything. If either of those happens, wonderful, and neither is the assignment.

The assignment is that the first thing your mind meets is not a stranger's decision about what you should be concerned with today.

Say one sentence. Look out of the window. Say good morning to God the way you would say it to somebody in the kitchen. Any of that is enough, because the point is not the content of the four minutes, it is who the day begins with.

You are able to have a first four minutes that belong to you, and it has never once required more than a change of where a phone sleeps. Deuteronomy 6:7 sets the word at the rising up without prescribing a length, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is genuinely present in four ordinary minutes.