S5 E37 - Elf on the Shelf

Our kids recently started doing the Elf on the Shelf tradition with me, and it has completely changed their mornings. They don't think about anything else first except for that little mischevious elf. They can't wait to wake up and see what new thing he has gotten into. 

Their joy and excitement convicts me. What is my routine when I first wake up? Do I grab my phone? My coffee? Go back to sleep? Or are my first thoughts about God? Thanking him for this new day and asking him to direct me? Do I wake up joyful, reading to wake the dawn with praises? 

#SetYourMindAbovePodcast

Transcript

What if I told you that God could be seen in the most ordinary things every day? 

What if I told you that every day, ordinary events could teach us extraordinary eternal truths? Would you believe me? 

 Welcome back to season 5 of the Set Your Mind Above Podcast! My name is BJ Sipe, and I am a Christian, a preacher, a husband, and a father. And I’m excited to share a few moments together with you learning some important lessons from the simplest things. Let’s grow together! 

Welcome back after a short break for me and my family to enjoy the Thanksgiving holiday together. I have a tremendous amount to be grateful for, and I hope that this holiday season is as full of joy as mine has been and will continue to be. This year I have one thing in particular that has brought me quite a bit of joy, and it is something new that our family has never done before. We have finally gotten on the “Elf on the Shelf” bandwagon. Our kids are all old enough to enjoy it, and my ADHD imagination is having the best time with it! If you are unfamiliar with this relatively new Christmas tradition, the Elf on the shelf is a mischievous little elf that your kids are supposed to name and welcome into their home. We convinced our kids to name our little Elf “Belsnickel” – but they mostly call him Bells. Anyhow, every night while the children are asleep, the Elf finds himself getting into some kind of mischief or precarious predicament. Maybe he got caught inside of the cookie jar and can’t get out. Maybe he’s suspended by a shoelace and swinging around and around on the ceiling fan. I have been busy looking up any and every elf on the shelf idea that you can find online to add to my growing list of ideas. It’s an incredible amount of fun! To be honest, I’m gonna be sad when Christmas is over and I’ve got to stop planning his shenanigans. But in the meantime, I’ll keep having just as much fun with this as the kids are. 

The neat part is how it has changed the way that they wake up. Usually, their routine is pretty straight forward – one of the kids wakes up, followed quickly by the other two and the shuffles into our bedroom still half asleep. “Mom, Dad, when’s breakfast?” they will mumble under their breath. Sometimes it’s “Mom, Dad, can I color?” or “Can I watch a show?”. Then they sleepily make their way out to the living room and take a few more minutes to wake up. All that has changed, however, since Belsnickel has appeared at our house. The kids wake up and immediately bolt out their beds, wide eyed and full of excitement to see what the Elf has gotten himself into overnight. “Common, let’s go see,” I’ll hear them excitedly say to one another over the monitor. Then the running of little feet echoes through the hall, followed very shortly thereafter with our eldest’s loud proclamation, “OH MY GOODNESS! Dane, let’s go tell mom and dad, they won’t believe this!” It’s never an afterthought, it’s never something they think about after breakfast or during school, the elf is the very first thing on their mind the moment that they open their eyes. 

While I will continue to enjoy the magic of Christmas and childlike wonder in these early years of our children’s life, I’ve got to be honest…their excitement and joy has actually left me feeling quite convicted over the past few days. Let me explain how that is by asking you a little something about your habits: what is the very first thing you do or think about in the morning? I’m sure if you wrote in and gave me your answers I would get quite a plethora of things. Maybe the first thing you do is grab your phone and check your texts, emails, or notifications you’ve accumulated overnight. Maybe the first thing you do is a little Whinnie the Pooh stretch routine by the side of your bed before wandering in zombie like fashion toward to kitchen to put on a pot of coffee. Maybe you just lay there and continue to hit snooze again…and again…and again. Okay, I think we’ve all done that at some point. We all have our own routines, things we’ve grown accustomed to doing in order to start our days. 

That being said, I want to now ask you another question: when is the last time you woke up, and the very first thing you thought about was your Lord? When was the last time that you opened up your eyes, and thanked God for a restful night’s sleep and invited him to direct you through this new day? I have tried to make prayer the very first thing that I do in the morning, but I would be lying to you if I said that I consistently did in fact do that every day. Why don’t I? Why doesn’t it come natural to me sometimes? Is it possible that I’ve lost some of my joy? Some of my childlike faith that I once had, where I wake up every morning excited to see what new thing God will do today? 

When we open up the Psalms of David, they are full time and time again of praising God in the morning, seeking him at the dawn of the day, eagerly looking forward to what works God will display in this new day. While we don’t approach scripture like this normally on the podcast, what I would like to do is somewhat of a shotgun approach – and just read and great number of verses from the Psalms for us to get a well-rounded picture before we make some applicable comments. 
 
 Psalm 5:3 “In the morning, Lord, you hear my voice; in the morning I plead my case to you and watch expectantly.”

Psalm 30:4-5 “Sing to the LORD, you his faithful ones, and praise his holy name. For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor, a lifetime. Weeping may stay overnight, but there is joy in the morning.”

Psalm 57:7-11 “My heart is confident, God, my heart is confident. I will sing; I will sing praises. Wake up, my soul! Wake up, harp and lyre! I will wake up the dawn. I will praise you, Lord, among the peoples; I will sing praises to you among the nations. For your faithful love is as high as the heavens; your faithfulness reaches the clouds. God, be exalted above the heavens; let your glory be over the whole earth.”

Psalm 88:13 “But I call to you for help, LORD; in the morning my prayer meets you.”

Psalm 92:1-2 “It is good to give thanks to the LORD, to sing praise to your name, Most High, to declare your faithful love in the morning and your faithfulness at night.”

Psalm 143:8 “Let me experience your faithful love in the morning, for I trust in you. Reveal to me the way I should go because I appeal to you.” 

David, perhaps above so many others in Scripture, is one that I relate to the most when I read his words. I feel his emotion, his victories, his failures, and his faith. He is also one that is always teaching me in ways that I can grow to love and serve my God even better, and this is no exception. David loved God, and thoughts of him filled his mind and his heart from his very waking moment. From the time he arose from his sleep to the time that he laid back down to rest, the Lord was continuously on his mind because his heart was completely given to God. David never lost that joy, that excitement, that childlike wonder and faith when it came to his relationship with the true King of Israel, the one who sat on heaven’s throne. Every day David woke with a song in his heart for God, eager to praise him and eager to see in what way the Lord would lead him this day. I want to be more like David. I want to wake the dawn with praises. 

My challenge for each of you is to do this very thing until you make a habit of it. Before you check your phone, before you pour that first cup of coffee, before you hit that snooze button and drift back off to sleep, open up your eyes and your heart and give thanks, praise, and thought to your Creator and your Redeemer. Praise him for who he is. Thank him for the souls under your roof that will soon be waking up and starting their day. Ask him to direct your steps through this new day, and to keep your heart and your eyes open to see what new thing the Lord will do today. Wake the dawn with praises and experience his faithful love in the morning. 

Let us conclude with rare joyous words found in the book of Lamentations 3:22-23, “Because of the Lord’s faithful love we do not perish, for his mercies never end. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness!”

This has been the Set Your Mind Above Podcast, season 5 episode 37 – and I’m so thankful that we had this time to grow together! A new episode is dropped each Friday, so be sure to tune in next week.  Also, if you’re able to, go ahead and like and subscribe to the podcast, give us a good rating or most importantly share it with someone else – it would help to reach others that I never could alone.  And more than anything, always remember the following: know that I love you, that God loves you, and may we all each and every day set our minds above.