On Mornings & Beginnings

I’m writing this first post as the sun has barely risen.

To be honest, I don’t do too well with metaphors or poetry. Yet as I gaze out of the window wondering how I should begin my first post, it struck me just how mornings seem like a fitting metaphor for this new beginning of a newsletter.

So as elusive as metaphors are to me, here’s my attempt at being a little poetic. (Bear with me.)

I find mornings fantastically beautiful. At least when I have the time to take it all in.

Imagine with me: The sun peaks over the horizon, slowly casting that warm orange glow on the sides of buildings. The air feels just a little different—maybe it’s the dewy smell. If you’re in Singapore, you’d hear the iconic call of the Koel bird that would stir even the heaviest sleepers awake. Maybe you’re drinking your favourite beverage with a simple breakfast in the other hand.

It’s a new day; a new beginning to savour.

Fleetingly Ordinary.

Most of us find this sight hard to grasp. Mainly because we spend our mornings rushing through the commute to get to where we need to be—me included. Put on the noise cancelling headphones, blast some music or listen to a podcast. Try to wake up before we hit the office. Get it over with.

I suppose that the ordinary is just something we so often encounter that it becomes all noise to us. It fades to the background. Our routines are just that—routine. And we hurry through some of the most ordinary things in life seeing how they are the very things that do not need or even catch our attention. Thinking about how we skim past moments that seem ordinary, it dawned upon me just how similar this is to the way Jesus was treated as accounted in the Bible. In the book of Isaiah, Jesus is described to be someone with no beauty—someone completely ordinary. And we too see how in the Gospels only a handful of people understood and realised who He really was. Yet, we now know (at least, those who do know Him) that He is the very reflection of God, the most splendid human being who ever lived (and still lives!).

We simply pass-by the most boring things too quickly.

Whilst we mostly overlook and rush past our mornings, they do matter. A good number of places in the Bible bring to light mornings as an important time of day (Lam 3:22-23; Ps 5:3; Isa 50:4; and many more I cannot bring to mind right this moment). Even non-religious self-help books emphasise this over and over again (one quick easy read I recently enjoyed is “What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast” by Laura Vanderkam). Mornings seem to be this elusively good thing that we must embrace.

But how do mornings (& beginnings) really matter?

Personally, it’s been a journey of rediscovering how mornings matter practically and—more importantly—theologically. Two themes come to mind that I hope can help bring some insight into your mornings. Through some of these reflections, I hope too to be able to share how I have considered and am still pondering how these relate back to my new beginning with Questionably Quotidian.

1. Don’t rush for that coffee.

Here’s a confession: I often find it way too easy to open up Instagram for a quick scroll after I hit snooze on my phone alarm. Sometimes I would thumb through my Instagram feed hurriedly just to feel that dopamine rush through my brain—just enough to wake me up for a shower. Before long I am back to desperately fumbling about for caffeine to sustain my next few waking moments.

I don’t know about you, but I often feel my weakest just as I am waking up. My body is sometimes so weak I can’t even muster enough energy to open my eyes. Even if I do, I am struggling to move myself off the bed, hardly grasping at reality. More often than I would admit, I end up falling back into sleep.

Many of my morning habits are my attempt at kicking my body into its normal gear. But I have realised how utterly foolish I am to do so.

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. - 2 Corinthians 12:9

Weakness is a good thing. Limits are God-given for us to be utterly dependent on Him. However, rather than leaning fully on Christ, we often rely on ourselves to get out of our weak moments. We don’t like to feel the full weight and magnitude of our frail humanity. We forget that we are but dust with the merciful breath of God in our lungs. He sustains and strengthens us. We are nothing without Him. In her book “Liturgy of the Ordinary”, Tish Harrison Warren in fact encourages the experiencing of our weakness every morning as a liturgical moment in coming to awareness of our humanity and utter dependence on Christ. We need this.

As I have my paradigms shifted, I am also learning to embrace my weakness at the beginning of every day. No more thumbing through Insta for that dopamine hit. The slow groggy process in the morning is okay. Rather than rush to get my coffee, I find myself weakly whispering prayers of “I… need… You… God.” Oh, how beautiful it would be if we all took the time to wake up and have our hearts met with the King of Kings at our most vulnerable.

We don’t like to feel the full weight and magnitude of our frail humanity. We forget that we are but dust with the merciful breath of God in our lungs. He sustains and strengthens us.

So how does this apply to this newsletter? As I fumble (and honestly sort of struggle) about in the birth of this new project, I am learning not to try doing too many things that would plaster on a sense of quality or put-together-ness. I hope this article is already a glimpse into the attempt at being weak and authentic. Of course, just as alluring as coffee in the morning is, so is the temptation of forming something professional or well-done. So keep me in check, dear reader.

2. The bathtub of hope?

Hope is quite an alluring, yet fleeting thing.

It’s rare to find anyone quite hopeful for a new day, especially as they’re just coming into their consciousness after that strong mug of coffee. I often also find myself groaning and complaining about the work I have to do, the clients I have to attend to, the project deadlines I have to change after. Not a lot of hope. In fact, it’s “I hope the day would end quickly”.

(Wow, this first newsletter is really full of confessions, huh. I guess it’s also my wish that as I share these things openly and authentically, I am also trying my utmost to commit to turning away from these things. I guess I’m preaching to myself too.)

You see, how we can even talk about weakness being a good thing (see above) is not because weakness in and of itself is good. Rather, weakness is good because of the strength of God and our dependence on Him this weakness can produce. Many people would groan and whine about how tired they feel, busy they are, how tough life is (read: weaknesses), but there’s nothing spectacular or beautiful about that. Instead, we embrace weakness as Christians because it is in weakness we can cling onto the beautiful Gospel hope that one day we will never be weak again.

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedThe steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.

- Lamentations 3:22-23

Hear me clearly: Mornings don’t just tell a story of weakness and despair.

Every morning, we have the privilege and the hope of tasting the new mercies of God. We can savour and enjoy His grace, His forgiveness, His lavish love on us. We don’t just feel weak, but in the midst of our barely-conscious, we can feel deep in our hearts that Jesus loves us, and His mercies are new.

We embrace weakness as Christians because it is in weakness we can cling onto the beautiful Gospel hope that one day we will never be weak again.

I am bad at metaphors, so I don’t quite know how to further describe this. But I can imagine our daily waking up sort of like us entering into a warm bath. Maybe we are feeling cold, weak, tense. But as we step into the warm lavish love of Jesus, as we take a step in, slowly sinking into the bathtub, we are engulfed and overwhelmed by the warmth. The tension fades, the coldness subsides, and we slowly but surely feel our strength return—not our own, but of the Holy Spirit. A… bathtub of hope. Hmm.

So how would this even begin to apply to this newsletter? I don’t think it’s about having a hope that my newsletter will do fantastic and everything will be good. In fact, I am quite confident this won’t do particularly well (at the start at least). Instead, hope looks like this: I have full assurance and confidence to completely mess this newsletter up, because my identity is not found here, it’s found in a Person. I don’t need to feel the need to push through to ensure this succeeds, because I know it’s more about learning how to be a human-being, more about figuring things out, and just being present with my writing.

Some Final Thoughts

So here’s how I’m starting this newsletter (and this morning!), with a lot of weakness and a lot of hope. Here’s trusting that God has His beautiful plans as I commit more time to improving my writing craft, and sharing some of the things He has been weighing deep on my heart.

Let’s explore life together and let’s find out how questionably quotidian it all truly is.