too early…

Sometimes I find myself getting up early. Getting up at like 4am early. Most of the time I can roll back over and just drift back to sleep, but some mornings as soon as my eyes open I am flooded with thoughts. It might be a Monday morning but my brain is already into next month thinking about all the things I need to get done. What ends up happening is as my brain starts racing so does my heart and pretty soon I’m in full blown overload.

My early morning brain is great at quickly drawing together all the tasks that need to get done in the next week or two, but it’s terrible at processing the strategy and time line in which they need to get done. Everything is important and needs to be thought about and taken care of right now!

The truth is, I don’t need to make a phone call at 4:31am. That can wait. I don’t need to schedule a meeting with my team at 4:32am. That can wait. In fact the only things that needs to happen at 4:32am is sleep.

Because of this my wife and I have an understanding. First thing in the morning we talk about how we slept, what the weather was going to be like, or why you kicked me in the middle of the night. Questions like “so when are you planning that leaders meeting?” are important but first thing in the morning… not good.

So the other morning my wife said to me, “Chad I have something I want to say but I don’t want to overwhelm you.” Great way to start  =)

Much of what has been waking me up early has to do with what I’m passionate about. I really believe some of it is God drawing my attention to something. But my wife pointed out that I talk a lot about it but I never really take serious action. It’s not that I don’t want them to happen its just that I allow other areas of my life to pre-occupy my mind so those dreams get pushed to the back burner until 4:00am rolls around then they are free to play.

She reminded me that things shouldn’t pre-occupy us. If that happens you end up just doing what needs to get done now. We need to allow God to occupy us. Let the Spirit occupy us and let us dream of who God created us to be. If we allow God to occupy us we will be the best he created us to be. We can be free to dream about the future. (She had recently read a sample chapter for John Ortberg’s new book “The Me I want to Be.”)

But if we allow things to pre-occupy us we won’t reach that mark and we’ll struggle for meaning and purpose. It made sense. It’s really easy to let life and busy stuff take the reins. But that’s not how we were meant to live. My life was created to be focused on God.

The next night and every night since I’ve slept like a baby.

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