Let God do His work in you, and concentrate on living, without reservation, a selfless life in each and every moment as though each moment was the whole of eternity.
So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
~ 2 Corinthians 4:16-18
How in the world do we do the Christian life? Impossible. The past just keeps haunting and the future is simply too daunting. But what if there is a place where real life can happen? How about “now?”
Yeah, one of the best ways to handle the worries and stress of the world is to go to “right now.” I don’t mean this second. I mean “now;” right now, that really small place between the past and the future. You want to be in that place when everything hits the fan.
Right “now” is where you can talk to God and hear His answer. Right now is where there’s no worry about the past or fear about the future. Right now is where you can think the clearest. It is real quiet there… calm… simple. It doesn’t matter how loud or fast everything is going around you. When you are in the now, you can be going a million miles an hour with your hair on fire – but everything is A-OK.
Albert Einstein said that “time is an illusion.” I think in some ways that he was right. It is only that which is measured by a clock. And time mostly serves to distract us from the place where our relationship with G_d exists most vitally, i.e., now.
Take a moment to consider the possibility that “now” is a very special time.
Now… Right now. Now is a pretty strange, but very important, place. Every aspect of life collapses to a point. All the good – all the bad – and everything in between fuse into a singularity of the moment. The past is gone. The future does not yet exist. If I’m not mistaken, few of us humans ever really live “right now.” But…
Everything stops.
I am suddenly back in this place.
It is so very incredibly quiet.
Calm.
Simple.
Real.
It is Spartan – but far from incomplete – and the smell is subtly marked by the absence of any contaminants. I feel a most-comforting coolness; like walking in under the shade of a huge tree on a bright early summer’s day. I can see with uncanny clarity. It is as if I am (and I really am) lying still in my bed, but am experiencing everything in a different space. Suddenly it hits me. What is noticeably absent is the passage of time (weird… I can still hear my clock ticking, but its sound is oddly irrelevant).
He answers, “‘now’. You are quite simply in the moment between past and future. This is just the first occasion that you have come fully to this place. Right now, the past may not impinge and the future cannot overshadow. It is the synapse – an infinitesimal gap – between what was and what will be. There is no dimension here. It is, therefore, infinite.
I AM here.
This is: Is. Do you understand?”
Still, my mind is flooded with questions. Some of the questions are distracting and seem only to serve as catalysts to drive me away from this wonderful place.
However, it seems just as clear that others – if answered – promise to reveal deep insight into what this all means. Why is it so quiet and calm? Why am I not worried? How come I feel no pain? From where comes this unclouded thinking? Where are my doubts, my regrets… my shame?
I love you L_RD with all my heart, soul, mind and strength. How is this happening? Where does this incredible sense of power and well-being come from?
I think I’m getting it… (for the moment)
In Him we are prepared for overwhelming victory in the future. Ovid said it well: “The two of us, we form a multitude.” But God said it better in Romans 8:37, “Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.”
My prayer is that you may enjoy a big, giant, heaping portion of “now” from Him – even now.
