I am not a early morning person. I am not a morning person at all really.

Consistent daily patterns basically start when I arrive at work. Before that, I have never been good about doing the same thing every day. (That is why I have a beard.)

That said, I wanted to write down what I am trying to do most mornings right now. I say most mornings, because I am not beating myself up when this doesn’t happen on a particular day. I am, however, evaluating every week or so, to make sure it is happening consistently and hopefully becoming more regular. If not, it is normally an issue with the night before and so I will try a change in the evenings.

Setup

I want to wake up on my own without an alarm. If I do and it is between 6:00 and 6:30 then I get up.

I make my cup of coffee and sit down with my reading Bible and my page of texts.

Here is the pattern I am trying for the moment. Thanks to Matthew Everhard for the idea for this.

LP

Recite the Lord’s Prayer.

CS

More extended confession. This is either reading a prayer from the Book of Common Prayer or extemporaneous if there is a particular sin I know needs to be confessed or if I recently heard a sermon that calls for specific confession.

Bible

I have been using the Horner Reading plan for my daily readings.

This is a plan that has 10 chapters a day from 10 places in the Bible. I should write about this sometime separately. For now it is sufficient to say that it normally takes 45 - 50 minutes and includes readings from the gospels, pentateuch, history, wisdom, psalms, epistles, and Acts.

This is just what I have found helpful to get a sense of the flow and breadth of the scriptures. It could just be a chapter from Old and New Testement.

AC

Recite a creed. I pick one or both of the Apostle’s and Nicene Creed.

DX

Sing a doxology. Either Gloria Patri or Doxology. I may expand this to other doxologies as I come across them in my Bible reading, but I have these two memorized and I find them reorienting.

Summary

That’s it. I assume there are other times for prayer and Bible study that will take place in the rest of the day depending on what is going on. Am I preparing for a sermon or reflection, or am I meeting with a friend, etc.

This time is meant to be a foundation, not the whole of my time spent in scripture.

For the last year or so, I had just been doing the reading plan, which continues to be the bulk of the time spent each morning. But, I’ve found that including other means of grace (the prayers, confession, creeds) before and after have helped me with mental orientation.