For today’s blog, I want to share a little early morning “pep talk” from an Orthodox Archbishop, Anthony Bloom (taken from “Beginning to Pray,” pp. 75-77). It will get you going!

“Awake in the morning and the first thing you do, thank God for it, even if you don’t feel particularly happy about the day which is to come. ‘This is the day which the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be grateful in it.’

Once you have done this, give yourself time to realize the truth of what you are saying and really mean it – perhaps on the level of deep conviction and not of what one might call exhilaration.

Then get up, wash, clean, do whatever else you have to do, and then come to God again. Come to God with two convictions. The one is that you are God’s own and the other is that this day is also God’s own.

(The day) is absolutely new, absolutely fresh. It has never existed before. To speak in Russian terms, it is like a vast expanse of unsoiled snow. No one has trodden on it yet. It is all virgin and pure in front of you.

 And now, what comes next? Ask God to bless this day, that everything in it should be blessed and ruled by Him. After that you must take it seriously, because very often one says, ‘O God, bless me,’ and having got the blessing we act like the prodigal son – we collect all our goods and go to a strange country to lead a riotous life.

 This day is blessed by God. It is God’s own and now let us go into it. You walk in this day as God’s own messenger. Whomever you meet, you meet in God’s own way. You are there to be the presence of the Lord God, the presence of Christ, the presence of the Spirit, the presence of the Gospel. This is your function on this particular day.

 As to the day, if you accept that this day was blessed of God, chosen by God with His own hand, then every person you meet is a gift of God, every circumstance you will meet is a gift of God, whether it is bitter or sweet, whether you like or dislike it. It is God’s own gift to you and if you take it that way, then you can face any situation.

 But you must face it with the readiness that anything may happen, whether you enjoy it or not. Then you can make prayer and life really like the two sides of one coin. You act and pray in one breath, as it were, because all the situations that follow one another require God’s blessing.”

This is mindset of a Whole Life Worshiper: every day a gift from God, every day lived in God, every day transformed by God, and every day being an extension of the blessing of God to others. So let’s go into the day with that mindset and see the wonders of God working in, around and through us!

Ready? …. Break!!