I’m a total night owl. I love staying up to the wee hours of the morning, enjoying the quiet and recharging in total solitude after a crazy day.
I hate early mornings. Even if I go to bed at 9pm, I’ll still resent the 6am alarm. One of my old room mates would be highly offended by my morning ‘grunt’ as part of the daily routine. My husband also resents the grumpy face and grunt that he has endured for 13.5 years. I’ve told him it’s not gonna change. Sometimes he would say ‘Sometimes I wake up Grumpy. Sometimes I let her sleep’ – but then he realized how ‘humor impaired’ I am in the mornings, so now he wisely keeps his thoughts to himself.
He came to this conclusion shortly after the birth of Samantha. We had to rise very early for a road trip. I was so sleep deprived that I didn’t want to get up. He came over, kindly said, “Anne, Wake up”, and gently touched my shoulder. Apparently I hit him (I have no recollection of this… I was asleep and everything within me obviously wanted to remain in that state). After that, he has not been brave enough to re-attempt waking me from my slumber.
As a Christian, all my life I’ve endured the guilt trip about sleeping in. David clearly says, ‘Early in the MORNING I will seek you…”. The Proverbs 31 Woman ‘rises while it is yet night’. The list goes on and on. Recently in church, the preacher went on and on about how in order to be truly spiritual, to really know God, to please Him, to walk with Him, to have victory in Him, you MUST get up early in the morning. His implication was that sleeping in was a sign of laziness and lack of spirituality. And only people who party and engage in debauchery stay up past 10pm. (Now that I think about it, he didn’t merely imply it, there was a point where he said it, and I actually laughed out loud in church… oops!)
Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!!! I’m in Deep Water.
Actually, I’m not.
Jesus regularly prayed in the evening: after a ministering to the 5000 (Mark 6:44-46; John 6:15-17; Matt 14:21-21), the night before he chose the Twelve (Luke 6:12), on the mount of Olives (Luke 21:37), and the night before His crucifixion (Luke 22:39-44). Paul and Silas prayed & worshipped in jail at midnight (Acts 16:25). Paul told us to pray continuously (1 Thess 5:16-18). And there’s countless references that tell us to pray night and day.
I watch ‘Morning People’ who want the rest of the world to be ‘chipper’ just like they are at 4am. I used to get so offended at their bright smiles and cheery, “Good morning! Praise God isn’t it a gorgeous day!” My answer, “Grunt. Are you for real? Leave me alone.” Now I’m just annoyed when they try to guilt trip me. There was a time when I took the guilt to heart and try to change the way God created me. But now I Grunt with Joy in the morning!
So, back when I was younger and allowed myself to be guilt tripped, I tried to change my personality and get up at 4 or 5am just to be with Jesus. I would fall back to sleep until someone knocked on my bedroom door to tell me I was running late for school or work. Then I’d be racked with guilt for the rest of the day for ‘failing’. But then in the evening, I’d have the awesomest time with Jesus, worshiping and reading His word. But because the Pharisees told me I had to get up early to be truely spiritual, I’d try it all over again. Fail.
Try.
Fail.
Try.
Fail.
It wasn’t about self discipline!!!!
It was about how I’m made. I just had to find the best time of day to meet with my God. It’s easy to meet Him everyday when I’m doing it at the optimum time FOR ME. Not the optimum time for pleasing the sickeningly cheery morning person.
Now as a mother, I am forced to wake early in the morning. Timothy wakes up at around 6:30am everyday. So I reluctantly crawl out of bed and begin the morning good mother/wife routine of changing diapers, making breakfast, straightening house and all that exciting stuff. And if you think that I’m gonna try to get up earlier than than to fit in a ‘quiet time’, you are very naive indeed.
I am still by no means a morning person. I can put on a smile for my cute kids, and some mornings my husband might even get a ‘good morning’ and a kiss, rather than the traditional snarl and grunt.
Oh how I love the night! After battling with Samantha for a couple of hours to get her to sleep, I need some time with Sean and then some time alone. So I usually get to bed around Midnight. Perhaps one day Samantha will figure out that the antidote to Tired is Sleep, and she’ll doze off with joy and ease. But for now, it takes about 2 hours to get her from ‘lights out’ to ‘sleep’. Our various strategies tend to “succeed” somewhere between 10 and Midnight. And sometimes I stay up even later, engaging in acts of debauchery, such as… worship, prayer, intercession.
For a night owl, the best time to hang out with Jesus is at night, or at some point during the day when you have a little time on your hands. Better still, get an mp3 bible on you player, and pump the scriptures through your head as the day goes by, chatting to Him about it as you work. When you don’t allow the the ‘quiet time’ police to guilt trip you about when you actually commune with Jesus, there is so much more freedom to be who He’s created you to be, and to truly abide in Him all day, everyday.
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