If there was one thing that has been my anchor over the years, it would be morning time routine. Through all the ups and downs of life, it has been my relationship with God that has helped me to weather the storms. The best way I have found to grow my relationship with God is through my morning time routine.
I really believe that if you learn to change your morning and create a morning time routine of praying, reading your Bible, and journaling, you can change your life. Matt and I are so passionate about it, we write books, journals, and devotionals for Manney Resources. We want to help others find the same hope and encouragement we get from spending time with God each day.
Getting Up Ahead of the Chaos
Mornings are hard. Complicated. Frustrating, Rushed. Frantic. I get it. That’s how our mornings used to be to, until we discovered that if we got up early enough to beat the chaos and spent some quiet time with God ahead of the craziness, it could and has changed our lives.
So every morning, long before the sun begins to rise for the day, you will find Matt and I at our dining room table with a candle lit, a cup of coffee (hot for him, iced for me), and our morning time baskets. Even on the darkest mornings, when I’m tired or discouraged, or feel like giving up, I know that if I can just get to the table and do my morning time routine, my spirit will change and so will my attitude.
30-to-THRIVE
Our morning time routine is so simple, yet it works every single day. Here’s what we do and now what we teach—we call it 30-to-THRIVE.
Spend ten minutes reading your Bible or a devotional.
Write in your journal for ten minutes. This includes writing down your prayer requests and anything you learned from your Bible reading or devotional for the day.
Read a book for ten minutes. I like to choose a Christian inspirational book that will further enhance my morning time experience.
That’s it. In just thirty minutes, you can find the hope and comfort you need and the strength to face your day. Will every day be something amazing, something that inspires you and lifts you up? Probably not. It’s like eating. Every meal you eat won’t be this amazing life-changing experience. In fact, you probably don’t remember what you had for dinner a week ago on Monday night. But that meal got you from where you were then until the next day and made it possible for you to get to today.
Start Today
That’s how your morning time routine is. It will help you to get through to the next day, and that’s what this blog is all about. Faithfully stepping one day at a time. I believe the best way you can do that is through a a morning time routine.
If you don’t have one, start one today. Start small. I have an easy course you can take for free with more details to help you get started, if you’re interested. Click the image below if you’re interested in that course.
Choose to just begin and meet with God every morning and watch how that changes the course of your day.
More Encouragement
If you’d like a free morning time guide, check out Manney Resources where you can get one for free to help you get started today.
Today is the release day for You Are Not Alone: Promises from Psalms, our newest 30-Day Devotional. As we started the new year, Matt and I made a plan for the projects we wanted to roll out this year. On our list were several devotionals, so we got to work on those. We actually didn’t have this one on the schedule for the year. We had a few others planned instead.
As we sat together on our date day one morning and talked about everything going on around us, we decided we needed a devotional that would comfort people’s hearts. So many people are hurting; our world is so charged right now. We wanted something that could minister to people who needed to be reminded that God was for them and they weren’t alone in their struggle.
Enter the You Are Not Alone Devotional. We really enjoyed creating this devotional. It’s our most favorite yet! We love it in that it can encourage anybody! It also makes a great gift to give to people when you don’t know what to say to help them. Sometimes it’s hard to know what to say to someone when they’re in the hospital, or when they’ve lost a loved one or heard bad news from the doctor. This devotional is the perfect thing to fill in the gaps when you don’t know what to say.
About This Devotional
Matt wrote this for the back of the book:
For the one who feels so lonely, abandoned even, God isever and always near. For the one whose heart breaks and feels hopeless, find hope in God’s presence and promises. God is ever and always by your side. You are not alone.
In this 30-day devotional, you will discover some of the greatest promises in all of the Bible in the collection of songs called Psalms. Learn about the six times in life we can know we are not alone. From the seasons of stess to family struggles, you will learn the promises for times of uncertainty even the promises for facing your final days on this earth.
Live Training
We did a live training recently where we discussed how to use this new devotional. You can watch that training on our YouTube page for Manney Resources here. As a part of that training, Matt created a free guide. You can download that guide here if you are interested. One of the pages Matt created was this page of where to find hope in the book of Psalms. I think it’s a great resource and wanted to share it with you.
Sometimes we want to encourage ourselves or encourage a friend, but we’re not sure which Psalm would be best to do that. This little cheat sheet helps with that.
Understanding the Psalms
The Psalms are such a rich book because they were written as songs. There are many times that just speaking doesn’t articulate what we’re trying to say or think. Yet, a song can do just that. How many times has a song caught your attention and hit home for you? Maybe it made you cry, or maybe it made you smile and remember something special. That’s the power of a song. That’s why when you read the Psalms, they just bring so much comfort and peace to our hearts.
My life verse comes from Psalms.
As for God, his way is perfect: the word of the Lord is tried: he is a buckler to all those that trust in him.
Psalm 18:30 KJV
Something to Look Forward To
We will be doing an online Bible study this summer using this devotional and the accompanying study guide, which will release this summer. We’d love for you to join us! So stay tuned! If you’re not signed up to be on my email list, be sure to sign up here so you don’t miss the announcement or anything else from Faithfully Stepping.
I absolutely love these new covers on these journals! I’m going to be honest. You all voted on your favorites, and the overwhelming favorite was the Rest in God’s Love Journal. Matt and I both were surprised as it wasn’t a favorite for either one of us. But I have to say…now that I have it in hand, I love it!
I’m so glad you all voted for this one and pushed us into doing this one. I think you’re going to love it as much as we do. We are really happy with how how the other two journals turned out as well. I picked the Morning by Morning Journal. That was my favorite cover. I will be using that one as soon as I’m done taking pictures of it.
The coffee and Jesus Journal was the second most voted for cover. Matt has already claimed that one to use for his morning time routine.
Here’s an inside look at the journals, in case you’re interested. Each journal is exactly the same inside. The Faithfully Stepping Journals are six-month journals.
Now is the Time!
If you have been wanting to get a morning time routine started, now is the best time! Grab one of these gorgeous journals and get started today! You can read my post, or you can watch the free video series I created on how to get a morning time routine started.
We teach the 30-to-THRIVE System for our morning time routine. You can read the post to learn how to do it, but here’s the simple formula.
Find These New Journals and More!
You can find everything you need to get a morning time routine started including a free morning time guide, as well as devotionals, journals, and books from Manney Resources.
If you get a morning time routine started, I would love to hear about it. Respond to this email or reach out to me on social media. Snap a picture of your morning time routine and let me know how it’s going!
If you have been around Faithfully Stepping for any amount of time, you probably know by now that Matt and I started Greater Philly Church ten years ago outside of Philadelphia, and that’s where we work and minister every week. What you may not know is that my husband and I started a business in 2020 called Manney Resources. After our paycheck got cut in half a few years ago, we started writing books and selling them on Amazon to try and offset the loss. Last year, we created a website to put all our resources together in one place—Manney Resources.
We create and sell books, journals, and devotionals to help people grow in their faith one morning at a time. Thank you so much to those of you who have bought our resources and helped to support our family!
We work hard during the year producing resources that we believe will help people change their lives. Well, we just released four resources this month; and I’m super excited to tell you about them!
I just released a book called, Finding Free: 5 Simple Steps to a More Peaceful, Content, and Happy You. Along with this book, we also released a study guide, a thirty-day devotional, and a thirty-day journal.
from left to right: Finding Free book, Finding Free Devotional, Finding Free Study Guide, and Finding Free Journal
I love all the products we release through Manney Resources, but this set right here might just be my favorite release yet!
So many women today are not living lives that are truly free. They are not living a life they love. More than that, they are miserable. Maybe they don’t know who they are or what they are supposed to do in life. They feel empty, like they are missing something. They feel like they are a mistake, or not good enough. They’re stuck working jobs they can’t stand, or are at home living a life that is empty and unfulfilling.
We want to experience more, crave finding what will truly make us happy and content. Yet, we are completely clueless on how to find it or even know what it is we are searching for.
In Finding Free, I share my story of spinning in circles trying to find what I was missing, what I was supposed to do with my life, and trying to figure out why i wasn’t more fulfilled. I knew God had more for her life, but I didn’t know how to find it.
Finding Free is a journey in discovering five steps to a more peaceful, content, and happy you.
Understand Your Personality and how God wants to use uniquely you.
Discover the Purpose God has for your life.
Create a Life You Love.
Allow God to Redirect You into the future He has for you.
Release the Shame that’s holding you back from living a life of freedom.
Discover the five simple steps to a more peaceful, happy, and content life by living free. In this 30-Day Devotional Study you will learn to understand your personality, discover your purpose, create a life you love, allow God to redirect you, and release your shame.
Find Your Way
Stories: So many people struggle to find freedom in Jesus. Stories help to bring truth to light in the revealing timeless truths in a practical, everyday way. Each devotional contains an engaging story.
Focus Your Thoughts
Scriptures: How do you learn to take the steps to Finding Free? Discover specific Scripture readings each day to direct your thoughts and fill your heart with encouragement and answers to help you take each step toward Finding Free.
Fuel Your Hope
Solutions: God’s word is the way forward. Without hope and direction from God, our way is lost. Each devotional concludes with a series of questions for reflection and discussion on the Scripture reading to stimulate your thoughts and forge a way forward.
The Finding Free Devotional is perfect for personal use, a book club, or small group study.
One of the greatest challenges we face at women is getting caught in the hustle, bustle, and hurry of the everyday life. We spend a lot of time and energy, but all we have to show for it is tired eyes and weary hearts. The Finding Free Journal is a guide to help you keep Christ the center focus each day and discover how to become a more peaceful, content, and happy you.
The Finding Free Journal is a guided 30-day experience. Each day features a section for journaling your prayer time and a section for journaling any insights or encouragement you gained from reading your Bible or a devotional. After that, you will have a journaling prompt, an affirmation, an excerpt from Amanda’s book Finding Free, a prayer, or a life hack to implement the principles from her book.
If you are not familiar with journaling, the Finding Free Journal is a great place to start. If you have been around church for a while and know the prayer and Bible reading routine but need something new and different to try, welcome to the next level of spiritual growth. Using the journal each morning will help take the guilt and guess-work out of growing your faith so you can gain spiritual momentum and growth your faith so you can change your life.
For too long, you have sought to do the right thing, but you found you were doing it the wrong way. Discover the key to Finding Free!
You are about to discover what it means to FIND FREE. In this six session study guide, you will uncover the five simple steps to a more peaceful, content, and happy you. The “you” God created before your life began. You will discover not just “who” you are but “whose” you are on this journey to a life Jesus described as the “abundant life” in John 10:10.
No matter where you are on your spiritual journey, if you have followed Jesus for most of your life, you just started to follow Jesus, or you are searching for what it means to have a relationship with Jesus, you will discover why you were created by God and how to unlock His purpose in your life.
Through discussion-based questions, reflections, group and personal exercises, you will learn the process to stop trying harder and lean into the life Jesus intended for you to live. This study is perfect for any setting for those looking to do a study without a video-based teaching. Whethey you are walking this path alone for personal growth or with a small group, you are just a page turn away from the start of a whole new way of living without the guilt and guess-work. Welcome to Finding Free!
Putting it All Together
Matt and I have a system we use every morning during our morning time routine called 30-to-THRIVE. Simply put, here’s how it works:
10 minutes reading a devotional or Bible⠀⠀⠀
10 minutes journaling ⠀⠀⠀
10 minutes reading a book ⠀⠀
You spend ten minutes reading your Bible or a devotional. Then you spend ten minutes journaling—this includes prayer time. Lastly, you spend ten minutes reading a book that inspires you to grow your faith or teaches you something new. Just thirty minutes a day can revolutionize your morning and change your life!
Be sure to check out all of these resources by clicking any of the links or by going to Manney Resources. I hope they are a help and encouragement to you! Let me know if you have any questions about any of the products!
