At the beginning of every calendar and academic year, my church will typically teach on Spiritual Disciplines. Some of us prefer the phrase Spiritual Practices, as it tends to sound more inviting than the discipline idea (LOL).

The invitation is always to become more like Jesus as we disciple together in community. This always calls for a chance to examine our own personal rhythms that will set us up for spiritual transformation.

That’s the fancy way of saying – what are you doing every day to grow in your walk with Jesus?

I love my bible. I read it regularly and frequently. I am an avid fan of bible reading plans and can’t cope when I’ve missed days. The daily discipline was there, but the rhythm was all over the place.

So I challenged myself in January as a growth exercise, to develop a healthy practice of starting my day with scripture. Hear me – that rhythm was already there in a sense, but morning’s in our house are a bit all over the place. Work mornings are inconsistent (when you work part time), and the morning can definitely look different on the weeks I’m flying solo and Aaron is away. So mornings included, snoozing the alarm, coffee, phone checks, kids up, dog sorted, lunches, medicine, school run, worship music, bible and in any random order depending on the day.

Bible was always in the morning rhythm.

But since January I embraced the challenge of reading scripture immediately upon wakening. This phrase Scripture before scrolling – is my cute little mantra. At the beginning – it really was this intentional new habit that I had to think about. Lift phone, turn off alarm (that I labelled Scripture before Scrolling at the start), hit do not disturb, open bible app.

It is now second nature. YAY – habits are great when they’re good ones.

Honestly – it has really changed my day and my thoughts when I get up in the morning.

Facebook/instagram/texts/emails are not the initial things informing me. The WORD is – and it’s shaping my entire outlook and perspective, as it informs me before anything else

But I’m firing this out to you as an idea for you to try. Trust me – you will see a gradual shift as you make a small realignment and change to your routine.

Let His word wake you up before the world invites you into it’s chaos