My Practice
I repeatedly tell myself, “Wow, do I ever have a good life.” Or “I can hardly believe our good life.” I say the words out loud. Mostly I am telling myself, but if other people are within earshot, so much the better. This simple habit changes everything.
Benefit # 1
God is paying close attention. God really wants to bless people. Have you ever set everything up for the perfect day for your child, and then they totally love it? God is like that and gives us gifts all day long. However, when we get too many gifts, we risk taking them for granted, and things are imperfect. We are still between the ages. We are free, and we are still working out our freedom. Jesus is here, and He is returning to restore everything. Even so, a million and one good things are happening around us daily. The food we eat, the people in our life, the planet we live on, etc. God hopes we will enjoy life. Deuteronomy 28 is the chapter about God’s blessings which are unimaginably good, and the alternative curses, which are unimaginably bad.
God gives us an option, if we prefer not to serve Him in the way that pleases Him.
Since you did not serve the Lord your God with joy and a cheerful heart, in gratitude for the abundance of all things, you will serve your enemies whom the Lord will send against you, in hunger, thirst, nakedness, and devoid of all things; and He will put an iron yoke on your neck until He has destroyed you” (NASB, Dt. 28:47-48).
Benefit # 2
God created our brains to help us get the life we desire. Your brain will hunt for reasons to prove that your words are true. Our brain can find a limitless amount of awesomeness once it really starts looking. Every morning at 4 a.m., our dog hears me get up to make coffee. She gets up from wherever she is sleeping and comes to the door. I go outside, crouch down, and tell her, “Can you believe it? We have one more day to be alive. We’re on a rock spinning through space. God keeps everything spinning in perfect sync. Pretty soon, the world will light up and become colorful again. The grass is going to grow. The insects and birds are going to sing. The flowers will bloom. All this while we are spinning at an incredible speed through space . . . it is going to be awesome. Today God will feed all the birds so we can enjoy their sounds and diversion. Jesus told us that God feeds all the birds every day. . .” Our dog is encouraged by these powerful words and snuggles close to soak them in. The stream of ideas about how good we have it continually increases. No one can even come close to exploring the limits of the greatness of this training habitat God created for us.
“Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” (Matt. 6:26).
Benefit # 3
The more we learn to appreciate life the way God meant for us to appreciate it, the more attractive we are to a lost and dying world. Everyone is looking for what works. Sin has that deceptiveness that appears to lead to life, but it does not satisfy. Christians who learn to fully appreciate each moment often lose track of time. Think about when you lost track of time and the awesomeness of that experience. That is a taste of eternity. People pay big money for extreme sports experiences to focus and feel alive. What if you could live your life, so even your work was fully engaging? What if you could learn to look forward to stress and conflicts, because these are opportunities to grow and to help others get to a better place? This is possible for you if you learn how to have good days.
How I Train My Brain to Help Me Have a Good Day
Over four decades, I have discovered the high value of starting my day with God. God comes first before social media, email, or all the challenges in my world, because God is the ultimate reality. The rest of the stuff is shifting sand. First, I need to get grounded. Here is the rhythm that has worked for me for the past few years.
- I start with 30 minutes of Centering Prayer. This is when I sit quietly with God in His Kingdom. Maybe it is in a Garden, a Mountaintop, or some other place. I find the Calm App helps me learn to quiet my brain. My brain loves to race around, looking for ways to help me. I need to train it to be quiet with God. Sometimes, when we get traumatized or from this broken world, our brain develops familiar super-highways where when our thoughts drift, we immediately start thinking about how bad someone or something is. We need to retrain to get a thought super-highway about God’s great plans for us and our people. I spend 10 minutes learning to quiet my brain and 20 more quietly with God. I am a contented child, soaking in His goodness in that place where He is King.
- Before and/or after Centering Prayer, I spend time reading and studying the Bible. I read the Bible through every year to avoid getting stuck on favorite doctrines and missing the whole message. I also listen to Bible Project for 10-15 minutes.
- Finally, I pray through three lists. My first list is all the people in my life. I’ve been building it for years. I pray I will be the right person for God to use with the people He has placed in my life. Secondly, I pray through and remember God’s promises to me, unfulfilled prayer requests, and I systematically review my dreams and outstanding prophecies people have spoken over me. Thirdly I review the people to whom I am ministering and again ask God to shape me into a person He can use to do His will on earth.
Now that God is firmly on the throne in my life for another day, I am ready to open my email inbox, begin my tasks, and engage with the unpredictable chaos world. Stress is good, when you are in a strong place to engage with it.
Benefit # 4
Enough good days in a row will make a good year, and enough good years in a row will make a good life. We are prepared as well as possible for the age to come.
How do you set yourself up for the best day possible?
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