Apprentice

As you may know, I tried for a long time to get up extra early in order to pray. It worked for a while but I had my off-days where, even if I forced myself by sheer act of will to pray, I found myself drifting in and out of consciousness. Even when I was awake I really wasn’t at my mental best.

Long story short – I am not a morning person, I tried to be a morning person but that just doesn’t seem to be the way I’m wired. To be honest my tendency to stay up late and the frequent bouts of insomnia when I was younger kind of tipped me off anyway.

If anyone wants to talk with me it’s best to do it in the evening or at night. I just seem to liven up when the sun starts to go down. I’ll certainly be a better conversationalist late in the day, especially compared to my morning zombie state.

For some reason though, morning prayer just seems “holier” than evening prayer. The image of rising with the sun to praise your Maker is kind of romantic. But lets get this quite clear, the notion that morning prayer is better in itself than afternoon, evening, or night prayer is rubbish.

Maybe you’re a morning person and you’re in your best form at that time of day. In that case then your morning prayers are probably going to be your “best” prayers. I’m an evening/night person so it follows that my prayers said in the evening or night time would be my “best” prayers. By “best” prayers I mean those prayers where you can really unload your heart to God, praise Him, confess to Him, thank Him and bring your supplications to Him.

One of my teachers at the IBI said on Wednesday “if you’re not a morning person why would you give God you’re worst time of the day?”. This really struck me. If I wanted to talk to you, dear reader, I wouldn’t invite you around at seven in the morning for a chat, you’d only meet with Zombie John.

Zombie John no talk good.

I still pray in the morning when I wake up but it’s just a kind of “good morning” where I thank God for the day and ask for His blessings. I am really enjoying my prayer times more now that I’ve been reminded that it is an invitation to come before my Father and talk to Him not an obligation or opportunity to look as holy as I can.

I am constantly surprised at my ability to take some beautiful, free gift and turn it into work. The ever-present pride is at the bottom of this – I can’t accept gifts because I think I am good enough to earn them. This completely goes against the Gospel, a gift so great I could never earn it but a gift given to me by a loving Father nonetheless.