My alarm goes off at 5:47. Not 5:45, not 5:50 — 5:47. I don't know why I picked that number. It just stuck. And every morning, there's this window between the alarm and the moment my feet hit the cold floor where nothing has gone wrong yet. No texts. No bad news. No cravings whispering from the back of my skull. Just quiet.
I didn't always notice that window. For years I slept through it, or I was already awake because I'd never gone to sleep, or I was too sick to care about anything as poetic as "morning stillness." But now? That window is the most important part of my day. And I guard it like my life depends on it. Because honestly, it kind of does.
Staying Is the Hard Part
David says he laid his requests before God and waited expectantly. I love that phrase, but I'll be real — most mornings I'm not waiting expectantly. I'm fighting the urge to check my phone. I'm thinking about whether I have milk for coffee. My brain is already running through the day's problems before I've said a single word to God.
But I stay anyway. That's the whole thing, really. Just staying. Not because it feels spiritual or because I've figured out some secret. I stay because the mornings I skip this, I can tell. I'm shorter with people. I'm more reactive. The old familiar itch shows up faster. There's a direct line between skipping the quiet and losing my grip on the day, and I've tested that theory enough times to know it's true.
Staying is harder than praying, honestly. Praying I can do — I've gotten good at rattling off requests. But sitting there after the prayer, in the silence, when my brain wants to sprint in fourteen directions? That's the discipline. That's where something actually happens.
What Actually Changes
I want to be careful here because I don't want to make this sound like a productivity hack. "Do quiet time and optimize your morning!" That's not what this is. I'm not trying to hack my schedule. I'm trying to stay alive and stay sober and stay connected to the only person who's never given up on me.
But I'll tell you what I've noticed. On mornings when I sit with God — even badly, even distractedly, even when I spend half the time thinking about groceries — something shifts. I don't fly off the handle in traffic the way I used to. I catch myself before I say the thing I can't take back. When the craving comes (and it still comes, don't let anyone tell you it doesn't), I've got something in the tank. Some reserve I didn't manufacture on my own.
I think that's what people mean when they talk about the peace that passes understanding. It doesn't make sense. My circumstances don't change because I sat on my couch for ten minutes with my eyes closed. But I change. Slightly. Just enough.
You Don't Have to Be Good at This
If you've tried the whole "quiet time" thing and felt like a fraud — welcome to the club. I've fallen asleep mid-prayer more times than I want to admit. I've sat there for five minutes, realized I was mentally replaying an argument from three days ago, and felt like the world's worst Christian.
But here's what I keep coming back to: God isn't grading this. He's not keeping score. He's just... there. The same way He was there when I was at my absolute worst and didn't even know His name was on my lips. He's been waiting in that quiet every single morning. I was just too loud to hear Him.
The storms are coming. They always are. But there's a difference between walking into a storm after you've been with God and walking into one running on fumes and willpower. I've done both. I'll take the first one every time.
Set your alarm for some weird time. Sit somewhere. Don't try to be impressive about it. Just show up. That's enough. It's always been enough.