I started keeping a small notebook by my coffee mug about a year ago. Nothing elaborate: a verse, a couple of lines about what it means for the day I'm about to have, done before the coffee's even finished brewing. I didn't call it a devotional practice at the time. I just knew I needed somewhere to put my attention before the news or the inbox got to it first.
It's turned into the steadiest habit of this whole season. Here's a little of what it's looked like, in case starting your own is something you've been circling too.
"Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day."
2 Corinthians 4:16
That's the verse the whole habit is built on, if I'm honest. The body doesn't need my permission to slow down. It's going to do that regardless of how I feel about it. But "inwardly renewed day by day" is a promise about something the mirror can't see, and I wanted a daily practice that actually paid attention to that part instead of only the part I can see in the mirror.
Three Mornings From the Notebook
The first is a morning for starting over.
"Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness."
Lamentations 3:22-23
Some mornings I wake up still carrying yesterday, whatever went wrong in it. This is the one I read on those mornings, because it says plainly that God's mercy resets on its own schedule, not on mine. I don't have to earn a clean morning. It just is one.
The second is a morning for gratitude that doesn't come naturally.
"This is the day the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it."
Psalm 118:24
I'll be honest, this one doesn't always land right away. Some days rejoicing feels like a stretch before I've even had breakfast. I read it anyway, on purpose, because I've noticed the feeling tends to catch up with the decision more often than the other way around.
The third is a morning for the plans I can't see yet.
"Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight."
Proverbs 3:5-6
This is the one I read on the mornings the day ahead feels genuinely uncertain, which happens more in this season than I expected it to. I don't always know what the path looks like anymore. I'm trying to trust that He does.
What This Isn't, Yet
I want to be honest about something. This isn't a thirty-day plan or an app with a streak counter, not yet anyway. It's three mornings out of a lot of them, offered honestly rather than dressed up as more than it is. If it turns into something bigger, a real daily rhythm you can follow along with here, I'll say so plainly when it does. For now, it's just what actually happened at my kitchen table, in case it's useful at yours.
God bless, Paul
God bless,
Paul