Getting up at the first alarm: giving the first minutes to God
The alarm rings. You turn it off. It rings again, ten minutes later. You turn it off again. Three times. Each of these fragmented bits of sleep is of poor quality, and you start the day behind yourself. This quest offers a simple discipline: getting up at the first alarm, and giving the first minutes to God.
What it looks like in your day
Prepare the night before. Choose a realistic wake-up time. Put the alarm out of reach (across the room, for example) so that you have to get up. Prepare your things.
Know why you are getting up. A specific “why” helps: “I'm getting up to spend fifteen minutes with God.” A positive reason is better than a constraint.
The morning gesture:
- At the first sound, put your feet on the floor. No negotiation. Count down if needed: three, two, one.
- Say a word to God before moving further. “Lord, thank you for this day.”
- Drink a glass of water, open the shutters, stretch.
- Devote the first minutes to God. A reading, a psalm, a prayer.
Don't judge the beginnings. The first few times are hard. You will want to go back to bed. Stay up.
Take stock. After a week: how do you feel? Is there a gain in time, calm, mood?
One tip: if you are getting up too early relative to your tiredness, move your bedtime up rather than forcing yourself. Morning discipline begins the night before.
If you are short on time, take five minutes for God before getting dressed. If you are shy, this challenge is entirely private. If your rhythm is irregular (night shifts, a baby), adapt: what matters is to get up without snoozing and to give a moment to God.
What the Bible says
The book of Proverbs is direct:
“Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise: Which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, Provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest. How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? when wilt thou arise out of thy sleep? Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep: So shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth, and thy want as an armed man.”
“How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard?”: the text compares the sluggard to the ant, which prepares its food with no chief or overseer. The text is severe, but its aim is awakening. The psalmist, for his part, wakes with joy:
“Awake up, my glory; awake, psaltery and harp: I myself will awake early.”
“I myself will awake early”: he doesn't endure the morning, he provokes it. And Jesus, early in the morning, withdraws to a lonely place to pray (Mark 1:35). The first minutes of the day are a moment when you choose what to give your first attention to.
Pitfalls to avoid
Forcing yourself to get up too early. Getting up at five without having slept enough is not a virtue. Respect your rhythm.
Feeling guilty about failures. A missed morning ruins nothing. Start again the next day.
Making the morning a performance. If you get up early to feel superior, you miss the goal. The aim is the encounter, not prestige.
Neglecting the evening. The quality of the morning depends on that of the night before: sleep, screens, meals.
Forgetting the meaning. Getting up without snoozing only has value if you devote this time to something other than your phone.
Tomorrow, get up at the first alarm, and give the first minutes to God.