Whoever Books the First Minutes Keeps Them

Let me tell you what has actually been happening, because I do not think anybody has said it to you plainly.

Your first minutes are not free. They are booked. They were booked between eleven at night and six in the morning by everything that came in while you were asleep, and by the time you are conscious the appointment is already made and you are simply attending it.

That is not a small thing. That is the front of your day, the only part that is genuinely unspent, and it is handed over every single morning to whatever happened to arrive in the dark.

And here is what I want you to notice, because it changes the whole question.

Nobody took it from you. There was no theft. Something got there first, and first is the only thing that matters with the front of a day, because the front only has room for one thing.

So this is not about restraint. It is about arriving earlier than the other thing.

He got up before the room did

Mark 1 records one of the busiest evenings in the Gospels. The whole city is at the door. He heals many and casts out many, and it goes late.

And then this.

And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed. (Mark 1:35)

A great while before day.

I want you to feel the weight of that phrase, because Mark could have written early and did not. A great while before day means before there was any reason to be awake. Not first thing. Before first thing.

And the reason becomes obvious two verses later, when Simon and the others come looking for Him and say all men seek for thee. The day had a claim on Him and the claim was legitimate. Sick people. Real need. The very work He came for.

He did not fight that claim. He got in front of it.

You are not required to fight for your morning, and it was only ever a question of who arrives first. Mark 1:35 has Him rise a great while before day rather than defend a slot after it, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that read as strategy instead of as extremism.

Now, I know what is coming, because I have heard it every time I have preached this.

You are not going to get up at four in the morning. Neither am I, most days. That is not the transferable part and I am not going to pretend it is.

You have something in that verse that survives the hour it happened at, and it was never the clock that carried the meaning. Mark 1:35 is about arriving before the claim rather than about a particular time on a particular morning. The Spirit of God is the one who can separate a principle from a practice without losing either.

Three minutes is enough to be first

Here is the transferable part.

First is not a duration. It is a position. And a position can be taken in three minutes as truly as in ninety.

If the first thing that happens in your day is three minutes with God, then God is first, in the only sense the word first has. If the first thing is the overnight pile and then, at eight, there are twenty good minutes with Him, then He is not first. He is second, and twenty is not more first than three.

I want to say that carefully, because it is not a rule about length and I refuse to make it one. Take the twenty minutes when they are there. But do not let the size of what you cannot do stop you taking the position that you can.

I love them that love me; and those that seek me early shall find me. (Proverbs 8:17)

Early is the word again. Not long. Early.

You have the front of a day within reach, and the position was never priced at a length you cannot pay. Proverbs 8:17 attaches the finding to seeking early rather than to seeking at length, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes three honest minutes carry the weight of a decision.

What to do with them

Do not make a program. A program is a thing you will fail at by Thursday.

Three minutes, and inside them one thing: say what the day looks like from where you actually stand, and then say that it is His.

That is not a formula. It is what a person does when they arrive somewhere before anybody else. They look around and they say what they see.

You may find that what comes out is a complaint. Let it be a complaint. Half the psalms are complaints delivered directly to God with no apology attached, and He did not edit them out before publishing.

You are permitted to bring the actual state of your morning, and He was never waiting for a better version of it. Mark 1:35 has Him go out to a solitary place with a city full of demands still waiting behind Him. The Spirit of God is the one who receives an honest morning without requiring it to be a tidy one.