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Embrace the Moment

Staying on Track

I think I may have gone to the wrong college. I mean, not that there was ever one preordained college that I was supposed to attend. But there was a distinct lack of try in my initial pursuit of higher education. I didn't shop around — I only applied to two or three schools — and I didn't fight very hard for scholarships and loans. My school was more or less the default: close to home, enough financial aid, nothing else worked out. Done.

The thing is, when I was looking at schools, I happened to be doing the depression thing pretty hardcore. I don't know that there's any need for details here. Let's just say I had a hard time wanting to do anything but sleep, and my days were largely characterized by watching the same movie over and over¹ and the general avoidance of things like talking to people and going outside.

It was in this mindset that I both chose a college and started attending that college. Yeah, it didn't go very well. I wasn't exactly prepared for the social, emotional and intellectual dust storm that is the freshman year. And I can't say I ever quite recovered.

I didn't even want to go to college, honestly. I just went because I thought it was what I had to do in order to avoid screwing up my life.

Just don't lose any time, people seemed to say. Stay on track. You have to have a degree, and if you don't go to college now, you won't go. So I trundled off to school, even though I clearly had things to deal with.

And maybe those people were right — maybe pushing through and finishing my degree was the right thing to do. But I have to wonder how things would be different if I had devoted some attention to my immediate spiritual needs, rather than simply dragging myself to the next step in life. And I've decided I was operating on a too future-oriented view, or at least a view future-oriented in a shallow way.

I've decided there are times when the moment trumps the future. Or maybe it's not even that: Maybe only by living in the moment and seeking God in the moment, will we walk into a future worth having.

Follow the Money

Is it me, or does it seem like every time someone talks about preparing for the future, they're at least indirectly referring to money? Most of our "future" talk seems to center on things like college and jobs and savings, with lots of ant vs. grasshopper overtones. (You remember: The ant works hard all summer while the grasshopper goofs off, and then when winter comes, the grasshopper is cold and hungry while the ant is all warm and comfy. And then whoever's telling the story is like, "I bet you want to be more like the ant now," and whoever's listening is like, "Yeah, I sure do.")

I know fiscal responsibility is a good thing to have. But should work and money really be the top items on our list when we think about the future?

Jesus and James both talk to us about accepting God's provision each day. Specifically, Jesus says:

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. … But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. (Matthew 6:25, 33–34, NIV)

James is harsher:

Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money." Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that." (James 4:13–15)

So what are they saying here? I think they're telling us that only by pulling ourselves out of the scramble to survive will we be able to pay attention to what God is doing — in our hearts as well as in the world around us. (And I think James is mostly confronting us with an uncomfortable reality we might as well get used to: Sooner or later, we will all encounter something beyond our control.) When we devote all our attention to how we're going to procure food and housing and iPods now and 20 years from now, we're missing out.

OK, by way of disclaimer: Of course it's wise to prepare for the future. The ability to delay gratification is foundational to adulthood. We can't predict or control certain aspects of the future, but our actions do have future consequences, and we have a responsibility to use our money and time and gifts with an eye toward the future, not toward instant fun.

But the opposite of instant-fun thinking is a preoccupation with self-sufficiency. And living exclusively for the future hurts our ability to fully interact with right now, and right now is exactly when God is at work.

Slow Down

Living for the future isn't always about money, of course. Sometimes it's about escape. We're addicted to the mental exercise of envisioning a better reality than the one we have now. We don't want to pause to grieve the things we need to grieve, so we just bury ourselves in preparing for the future because it makes us look smart and feel better.

The tragedy there is that when we close part of ourselves off to reality, we lose not only the present, but the future — our problems are only going to follow us, and if we can't really meet the present moment and find contentment where we are, we won't be able to do so five or 10 years from now either.

I think maintaining a healthy view of the past, present and future is a challenge for all of us. We know intellectually that life doesn't start when we graduate or lose 15 pounds or get engaged. But sometimes we pick certain life events and fixate on them because we think they'll make everything OK, or because we've made them symbols of success. And that throws off our priorities.

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In what ways do you try to embrace the moment?

Join the discussion!

I'm pretty sure the main component of our life story is God redeeming us. And if we're going to let that happen, sometimes we have to let the future give way to the moment, let God work on our hearts and trust Him for the outcome. Doing so might take us somewhere we didn't plan or expect. But the future that awaits us is better than anything we could have come up with ourselves.