Three Sticks — Personal Development for Christians

Most of us accept that how we start our day will often determine how it ends. If we start the day off feeling rushed and stressed we often find that the rest of our day ends up feeling hurried and full of tension. Unfortunately, many of us have yet to discover a consistent way to start the day off right. I believe that the key to starting the day off right is to spend the first moments on the day focused on your spiritual self.

For many of us this is difficult, especially those who are experiencing moments in our lives where we feel very centered spiritually. We all know what this is like. When you are feeling stressed out you are torn between just wanting the day to over and avoiding everything that you have to get done. When you are feeling spiritually centered, you are anxious to get on with whatever you need to do whether it is work, volunteering, going to church etc. Many times we just bounce back and forth between these 2 extremes driving ourselves and others around us mad with our inconsistency.

Our focus needs to on our spiritual selves. Our spiritual selves need to be refreshed and reinforced everyday if we expect to overcome our worldly concerns, remain spiritually centered and to continue to grow. You can think of it like a checking account, during the day you make withdrawals just to accomplish normal everyday tasks, but the goal is to grow the account. In order to make it grow, you have to put in more than you withdrawal. And, like any investment it takes time and persistence to reap the big windfall. Of course, there are exceptions where you may experience epiphanies or other moments of enlightenment. While these experiences are wonderful and should be treasured their benefits are short-lived without the hard work of improving and developing our spiritual selves.

Strengthening your spiritual self is you making an investment in one of the most important parts of yourself. Many of us have experienced moments where we are spiritually weak. In those moments, we feel a deep ache that we cannot explain. Often we try to soothe this ache with some form of pleasurable distraction, whether its partying, watching TV or something much more destructive. However, more often than not the distraction is just a temporary relieve from the pain.

I have experienced this first hand. I am guilty of using my favorite video game, Civilization 4 as a distraction from my spiritual weakness. As a form of recreation it is fine, but when I use it to avoid addressing my own internal pain it becomes much more nefarious. Instead of falling into that trap, I recommend following the easy 4 step plan I outline below.

Here is the routine that I follow every morning:

1. Read the Bible - I usually do in this by reading a daily devotional from books such as, Daily Readings from Your Best Life Now: 90 Devotions for Living at Your Full Potential. First, I read the scripture cited in the devotional in a version of the bible like Life Application Study Bible: New International Version that explains the underlying principle and message. I also like to read a little more before and after the scripture mentioned in the devotional to make sure I’m understanding it in the proper context. After, I’ve read and made sure that I understand the point of the scripture I go back and finish reading the devotional. Reading the Word helps me to stay more in tune with what is truly important in life, which is easy to forget in the hustle and bustle of everyday activities.
2. Pray - I try to pray once in the morning and once at night. I like to spend most of my time in prayer thanking God for all of the good things in my life. This is especially important when I wake up and I don’t feel like things are right or I’m worried about the day. This helps put me in the proper mindset for the day. It helps me to focus more on what is good in my life than what is wrong with my life. It’s the law of attraction at work.
3. Visualization - There are 2 parts to this.
   1. In Part I, I visualize living my life as I want it to be. I don’t picture some grand future, instead I imagine living the life that I want as though it already come to fruition and understanding what is truly important to me in that moment.
   2. In Part II, I visualize what I’m going to do in the upcoming day using the priorities I discovered in part I as the basis for my decisions. For example if I decide in part I that writing is more important than say going out with friends then I’ll stay in an write. Obviously this has to be tempered by your responsibilities, if it’s April 14th and you haven’t done your taxes then you need to do your taxes even if doing your taxes is not important to the you from Part I. This helps me make sure that what I’m doing is in alignment with where I want to be. Of course you may discover that most of what you are doing is not consistent with who are and what you want to be then it is time to rethink everything and try to discover yourself and your purpose.
4. Start my daily routine - workout, eat, clean up and get to work.

I have found that when I start my day off this way that I have a really good day. I tend to be happier, more productive and more open to new and interesting things.

I know that we are all concerned about time, but this doesn’t have to take a lot of time. You can perform these exercises in a approx. 30 minutes. The benefits far outweigh the potential loss of sleep. I would recommend that you try it for a full 7 days and see how you feel at the end. I’m willing to bet that the majority of you will feel much better going to work on the following Monday.

2/23/07 Update - After reviewing my logs lastnight, I discovered that someone had found this site through a google search that included the search criteria, prayer to start your day off right. I realized that my plan implied that you need to run off and buy a devotional book to get started. So I decided to provide some links to a few free devotional sites so that you can get started right away.

Free Online Devotionals

• Today’s Word with Joel and Victoria, Joel Osteen Ministries
• Daily Bread
• Streaming Faith Daily Devotional

Trackback URL for this post.