LIVING IN THE HERE AND NOW NOT THE THERE AND THEN Part 1

How attentive are you at this very moment while reading this blog? How are you using this very moment? Are aware? Are you present? Do you believe that God is present with you right now? Are you attentive to what God wants to do, say, and is doing right now? In the truest sense, right here and right now is all we really have. Is it possible to be fully alive to the now? Is it possible to be fully present to His presence?

I have struggled much with distraction in the "here and now" by the "there and then",the 
past and the future. This week I want to talk about the "then", i.e. the past. Our past has considerable influence upon our present. For example, what if you had been born in a different place? Or raised in a different town? What would the outcome of your life be if you had made different decisions? I have often times asked myself "what if" questions. Unfortunately, my "what ifs" have not changed what my past really was. The fact is that I bear the imprints of my past as it is, not as it might have been.

It is in this sense that I feel so very powerless at times. I have often times spent my "present" moments reviewing, wishing, imagining, and scheming over my past and what might have been. The reality is that no matter how much time I have spent engaging and reflection on my past, I have had no ability to alter what has already happened in my life,good bad and ugly. My past is simply there, influencing all that I do. The best I can do, in fact, the only thing that I can do, is to remember the past, learn from it, be grateful for it, and respond to it.

Reflecting in the present on the past can be a great detriment from living in the present moment. This can happen in two ways. First, we can idealize the past so much that we want nothing more than to return to it. We remember the ideal marriage we had until something happened that changed it all. We remember the ideal family we had before the kids left or one of the kids became wayward. We remember the ideal job we had until we got laid off or fired. These memories we have may be entirely accurate and reasonable, still, what good is it if all my memories immobilize me rather than inspire me, if they awaken longing that leads to unfulfillment, or if they make us wish we could go backward rather than forward?

Memory can also distort the past in such a negative way that we spend our present living with deep regret and despair, wishing we could reverse it. Some pay daily homage to an event or a decision that had catastrophic consequences. Three years after my marriage ended I still at times torment myself over things I wished I would have done or not have done with my ex wife. I often rehash my decision to have given up the church I planted and pastored for 23 years. I think about friends who died and how I wished I would have spent more time with them and what a bad friend that I was. I will think about how I wish I had been closer with my children and paid more attention to them. Memory just keeps replaying the tape, rehashing the decision, and rehearsing the decision. I wish, oh how much I wish, that I had a chance to do it all over again.

But the past is completely, totally out of my reach. I can neither return to it nor reverse it. We let it hold power  over us because it is unchangeable and its consequences roll over us like waves, one consequence following another. The past creates the conditions of the present, whether we like it or not. But...if we are going to live in the present and in His presence we have to learn how to engage the present moment in a way that rather than limits us, tyrannizes us, and imprisons us, instead, frees and enables us to engage the present moment. I want to live in a way that makes me aware and alive to His presence. In this way we can be free to,live, truly live, right here, right now.

It starts with a God centered memory, which enables us to remember the past differently, not as an ideal to which I would like to return or as a regret I would like to reverse, but as a chapter in a larger story that I continue to live in the present moment. God is the "I AM"(Exodus 3:14; John 8:58) and the beginning and the end (Revelation 1:8). He was in our past good, bad, and ugly; He was ruling in the past, and promises to use the past, as it was and is, to work out His plans. Romans 8:28 is not a platitude but a wonderful declaration of how God works and rules, "And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.".

The scriptures repeatedly tell us that History,including our history, is really HIS STORY. God uses the past, including our past, to fulfill and advance His sovereign plans and purposes. God made a promise to Abraham and Sarah which was impossible to fulfill and Isaac was born. Joseph suffered in every way for years and ended up saving a nation from starvation. He was able to look back at His past from a God centered view and say to His brothers, "As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today"(Genesis 50:20).

Even the consequences of sin can be used by God for His good purposes. David committed adultery and murder, suffering a lifetime of consequences that cost him dearly. But the second child born out of that adulterous union with Bathsheba, Solomon, became David's successor to the throne and the link to the bloodline of Jesus Christ! Nothing is beyond the reach of God's grace and power. We can therefore trust that God will use the past to work good things in our lives, which frees us in the present to trust Him and obey Him in the present circumstances of our lives.

I believe that when we die, the redeemed will see like Joseph, the whole of our life in terms of redemption. Misery will become blessing, confusion will become clear, desert will become living water, darkness will turn to glorious light. All will be well and whole and wonderful. Even what appeared bad at the time will be opposite.

I am learning more and more how to get my eyes on this God who was present with me in the past and to trust in His working presence in this very moment. I have no power to return to or reverse my past, I only have NOW. I am confident that God is in the NOW, working on His plan and purposes. This frees me to accept my present circumstances, surrender my past, and concentrate my energies on what is immediately at hand. I trust in what Jesus said in John 5:17, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.”. I will neither glamorize my past to long to return to it instead of living in the present to it nor demonize my past and let it tyrannize me and cripple me in the present. I want to live in the "now" not the "then". I will live in the presence in the present.

To be contined next week...
Pastor Bill