No Time for Prayer? Wake Up a Bit Earlier!

"I want to,
but I can't...."

Lately I've been finding myself so busy that it seems I don't have enough time to pray (let alone blog like I want to). In fact, daily prayer is typically one of the first things to get jettisoned when the day is booked from 7 AM through 10 PM, like it has been here recently.
Between the day job, lawn care, housework, freelance projects, child & animal care, quality time with Wife, visitors, etc., etc., I am spent.
Worse still, I just cannot carve out time during the day to fit in prayer.

The solution?

Get my lazy tucchus outta bed a bit earlier.

I've been "snoozing" later and later to the point of rolling out of bed 5 minutes before work starts, throwing together a pot of coffee, and waking up whilst I log in to the remote system. This does not provide for a smooth start to the day, as y'all might imagine.
So this week, I have started getting up early and getting my prayer done FIRST.

It has made a huge difference already.

Like a priest told me recently, "You can't give what you don't already have. And what you have to give, you get from God."
This is so very true on a daily level, I have found.
Starting off with a solid 20-30 minutes of conversational prayer has been great. Today, in fact, I was inspired to just flip the Bible open and digest whatever happened to be there. Many times I've done this, and happened upon genealogies, Leviticus, and other things that have helped me understand and learn Scripture, but not really develop spiritually in the way I needed at the moment (or so it seemed).

But staring back at me this morning, ever so fittingly in only the way the Holy Spirit can do, was the Stations of the Cross.

It was at the end of a section that contained extra prayers, set right in the middle of the Gospels in my Bible.
So I prayed the stations.
It was amazing.
The boost, the lift, the energy developed through this new-found morning prayer going into the day is great. I don't feel overwhelmed, I don't dread what's coming up in the afternoon, I don't stumble out reluctantly into a day that's already passing me by.
With God's help, I get ahead of things.
Granted, this has only gone on for a few days. But they have been good days.
I do plan to continue this practice indefinitely.
I also highly recommend it.
No time for prayer?
Get up earlier!