DSD unpacked

Began a new book this morning which my Godly thought will come out of Darkest England & the way back in by Gary Bishop. Again my third book this year on incarnational living but this one written from a Salvo perspective.

a Jesus thought...
For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. (Luke 14:11)

a Godly thought...
It is all too easy to make the gospel what we'd like it to be and to make God into a god that looks a lot like us by misrepresenting scripture and by effectively removing the bits that we find difficult. (p41 Bishop)

a leading thought...
The definitive measure of a spiritual leaders success is not whether their popularity increases or even that their church grows, but that they moved their people from where they were to where God wanted them to be. (p111 Blackaby)

a Dave thought...
I have had quite a few enquiries about DSD. (Aug 3 blog) So I thought I'd fill you in...
The reason I began DSD was that I found my days were often in reactive mode rather than proactive. I came to the conclusion I always had better days when I got up before the rest of the house and prayed, read & exercised before facing the family, ministry or work for the day. I then had to ask why I then didn't do this every day and the only reason I came up with is that I slept till the children woke me (about 7am). I then after my first 28 day trial at 6.30am discovered even though I was tired on the days I had a late night the night before they were still better days. I was more in tune with God, and I was better physically and had fed my mind. So in short I would rather be tired and growing, and hearing from God than be rested and frustrated.

Here a few safegaurds I have put in place to make sure my mornings go to plan...

1. Regularity is the key to training your body. Don't have a morning off, past experience tells me that if you had Saturday or Sunday off then Monday becomes hard work, so make it part of your lifestyle every morning.
2. Have rewards after the essentials not before. Don't eat breakfast until you have spent time with God.
3. Persist for the month with the new routine before making a decision if it works for you. All change is hard but if you see the benefits of hard work in hindsight you will often decide to stick with it. It gets easier.
4. When you have a late night don't tell yourself it will be hard in the morning but see it as a challenge to test your personal discipline.
5. Keep pushing your body 15 minutes early every month till you can fit in all elements without too much rush. Remember Booth slept 3 hours per night - 1-4am!

Consider trying it for one month what have you got to lose, just sleep. I can't rercall anyone on their deathbed saying if I was to live life over again I think I would sleep more.

Just a thought.