Now or Never: Unleashing the Power of the Present Moment
The prophet Isaiah said,
Don’t remember the former things, and don’t consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing. It springs out now. Don’t you know it? (Isaiah 43:18-19)
When we dwell on the past, we don’t see what God is doing right now. Isaiah tells the Israelites not to get bogged down in nostalgia or reminiscing about “good old days.” But why?
Because when we dwell on the past, we don’t remember it as it was. We have formed our own mental picture of how it was and mistaken it for reality. We have created a mental concept, an idol, and we think it’s the truth. However, it’s not. The past is often different from how we remember it.
It’s best not to dwell on it too much. Surprisingly, Jesus says something similar about the future,
Therefore I tell you, don’t be anxious for your life: what you will eat, or what you will drink; nor yet for your body, what you will wear. Isn’t life more than food, and the body more than clothing? See the birds of the sky, that they don’t sow, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns. Your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren’t you of much more value than they? (Matthew 6:25-26)
When we worry about the future, we rarely see God in it. Our minds simply cannot imagine a future with God in it. Usually, we create a mental picture of the future without God and fret about it. Jesus says, “Don’t.” It means if we find our minds drawing a mental picture of the future, we should stop and shift our gaze to the present moment.
What will we find in the present moment?
We can see birds that chirp cheerfully as they find their food all around them without worrying or toiling. We can appreciate lilies of the field that do not fret about what to wear and yet are dressed by the Father better than Solomon in all his glory.
We will see God working in the present moment and doing His “new thing.” We think we know what God is like because we saw Him in the past. Yet, Isaiah says, “Don’t dwell on the things of old. This time everything will be different. God is doing something new.”
That’s why God gave us the 2nd commandment,
You shall not make for yourselves an idol, nor any image of anything that is in the heavens above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: you shall not bow yourself down to them, nor serve them, for I, Yahweh your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and on the fourth generation of those who hate me, and showing loving kindness to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. (Exodus 20:4-6)
God told us through Moses that we must not make any image of what is above or below because it would quickly become our idol and replace God in our minds.
We would eventually mistake this image for reality. We will start worshiping this man-made image of reality, thinking it is the truth. But it’s not. God is always larger than everything we can think about Him. He breaks out of all man-made mental molds.
That’s why we must be aware of what’s going on in our minds at all times. Jesus warned his disciples,
“Watch and pray, that you don’t enter into temptation.”(Matthew 26:41)
Do we dwell on the past or worry about the future at this very moment? Do we recognize that our mind is weaving a picture, an image of reality, and wants us to get fixated on it?
What happens if we accept the present moment as it is? We fulfill the 2nd commandment, and by doing so, we reject all mental images of the past and future. We will not get fixated on them, but let them go. According to Isaiah, we will then start perceiving God as He is.
Behold, I will do a new thing. It springs out now.
The present is a gift waiting to be embraced. Its richness becomes apparent when we fully engage with it.
Giving up on the present to gain something in the future means we forfeit our ultimate reward – God Himself. Ultimately, it boils down to releasing control. As we release our preconceived notions about the future, the true value of the present becomes evident.
The moment we cease craving, we realize what we already possess, and further abundance unfolds. This echoes the wisdom articulated by Jesus, emphasizing the profound truth that letting go paves the way for receiving.
“For whoever has, to him will be given, and he will have abundance; but whoever doesn’t have, from him will be taken away even that which he has.” (Matthew 13:12)
Gratitude as a Doorway Into the Present Moment
The key to accepting the present moment is gratitude. Gratitude is our ability to see God’s gifts in the now. Just as the psalmist said,
This is the day that Yahweh has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it! (Psalm 118:24)
This day is a gift from the Lord, regardless of what is happening. G.K. Chesterton once sprained his foot so badly that he had to sit in his chair for several weeks in a row. While recovering, he wrote an ode to his other leg. His conclusion was,
“An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.”
The ability to see God’s gifts in every situation is true abundance. If I accept the present moment as a gift from God and as my highest reward, it turns into a celebration.
Surprisingly, when we find something to celebrate, our eyes open, and we see more things to enjoy:
- A bright star hanging over your window in the silver glow of the full moon
- An audiobook you are listening to
- An interesting project you are involved in
- Your child telling you this morning: “I am so glad to see you!”
- Someone on Facebook thanking you for an answer you shared
When we start celebrating the present moment, we realize there’s more to celebrate.
“When you are grateful, fear disappears and abundance appears.” Tony Robbins
But what if we can’t find anything to celebrate? Sometimes, it’s hard to accept the present moment as it is because it feels like there’s nothing good about it. Sometimes, it is emotionally impossible to accept the present moment without resisting it.
Yet, what we resist persists. Jesus said in the Garden of Gethsemane,
My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass away from me; nevertheless, not what I desire, but what you desire. (Matthew 26:39)
Jesus asked the Father to take away this bitter cup if possible but embraced God’s will entirely. He knew it was time for Him to let go of control and trust the Father’s care. By doing so, He reversed the sin of the first Adam, who grasped for control in the Garden of Eden and didn’t entrust Himself in God’s care.
By relinquishing control and embracing the moment as it is, we follow Jesus’s example. We entrust ourselves to God entirely. We die with Him and resurrect with Him. The apostle Paul said,
…if indeed we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified with him. (Romans 8:17)
When we die with Jesus by letting go of this life, we resurrect with Him in glory.
To quote Thomas Keating,
“Divine love is infused in the seedbed of total submission and self-surrender and brings us through the night of spirit into the transforming union.”
What Did Elisha’s Servant See?
Remember the story of Elisha’s servant in 2 Kings 6?
There was war in Israel. One morning, Elisha’s servant got up and saw the city surrounded by an army of horses and chariots. He cried out to the prophet in fear,
“Oh, my lord, what shall we do?”
Elisha’s answer was strange,
“Don’t be afraid,” the prophet answered. “Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.”
Then, Elisha prayed, and the eyes of his servant opened. Lo and behold, he saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire.
What Elisha’s servant saw as lack turned out to be fullness when his eyes opened to his present reality. To accept the present moment as it is means to shift your focus from your immediate circumstances to God’s gifts in them. There is fullness where we saw only lack. Often, our cup looks empty, but it is full. We need eyes to see this fullness.
True abundance is not about how much we have but how we feel right here, right now. When we try to control the future, we lose sight of the present. We don’t see any presents at the moment. We become blind and don’t see the good days as they come.
We think that our reward is somewhere else, some other time, and not in what we are doing right now. This compulsion to control the future makes us ignore what’s already given. We feel lack not because there is lack but because we don’t notice the abundance.
However, the moment we let go of control, our eyes suddenly open. This is the magic of shifting your focus to the “now.”
How Do I Shift My Focus to the “Now”?
The apostle said,
Finally, brothers, whatever things are true, whatever things are honorable, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report: if there is any virtue and if there is any praise, think about these things… and the God of peace will be with you. (Philippians 4:8-9)
Are we aware of what we think about throughout the day? If we are honest enough, we will have to admit that 99% of our thoughts are repetitive and useless. We either dwell on the past or worry about the future. We are rarely in the present.
The apostle Paul gives us a recipe for shifting our focus to the present moment. We do it by choosing to think about lovely, true, honorable, and pure things each moment. In other words, the only way to break out of the prison of our minds is to continuously shift our attention to something good in the present moment.
What Was Martha’s Problem and How Could She Fix It?
But Martha was distracted with much serving, and she came up to him, and said, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister left me to serve alone? Ask her therefore to help me.” Jesus answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is needed. Mary has chosen the good part, which will not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10:40-42)
Was Martha doing something wrong in serving Jesus and the other guests? Not really. Many people served Jesus, but He didn’t rebuke them all for preparing food. Apparently, Martha was too distracted by serving. She became so anxious about the meal that she started criticizing her sister for doing nothing.
Her mind got distracted from the present moment. Her mind was in the future. She started worrying. Jesus was in their midst, revealing the Kingdom in His presence. However, she was thinking about something else. She wasn’t attending to the only thing that mattered – God revealing Himself in the now.
Mary chose what was better, something that would never be taken from her. She chose to seek God in the now.
When we attend to the present moment, we feel inner abundance, which spills over into the world in various acts of service. But if we are anxious about something, our minds are in the future, not “now.” We experience inner lack, and we can’t do anything worthwhile out of a sense of lack.
A Simple Process for Shifting Your Focus to the Present Moment
To shift your focus to the present moment:
- Take a minute or two to become alert to everything going on inside you and identify your thoughts and feelings.
- Recognize that these are not reality – just your thoughts and feelings.
- Don’t dwell on them when they come. Don’t latch on to them.
- Let them go into God’s hands.
- Say a short prayer: “Into Your hands, God.”
- Repeat the process several times by staying alert, observing what’s happening inside you, and letting it go into God’s hands.
Why does this process work?
Richard Rohr said,
“We do not think ourselves into new ways of living, we live ourselves into new ways of thinking.”
This process works because it is centered around the 2nd commandment, which is all about changing your thinking by choosing to act differently.
When we dwell on the past or worry about the future, we don’t deal with reality. We deal with our projections and pictures of reality, with mere images.
When we recognize that there’s an image in our mind that we mistake for the truth, we become free to refocus our attention on God at present.
Jesus is with us right here, right now. We can sit down at His feet and attend to His speeches. Or we can ignore Him and start worrying about the future. We will be anxious about many things, but only one thing is needed.
When we deal with our image of reality, we don’t truly know God as He is. We know Him as we are. We make Him into our own image, and the Bible calls this idolatry. God will never give His glory to another because He knows that there isn’t any other God.
Man-made gods are no more than projections of the human mind. That’s why the apostle Paul encourages us to continually shift our focus to what is good and lovely.
He know we need an encounter with the true God, who is always in the now. By turning our gaze to the present, we see God as He is, not as we are. And this true encounter with the true God makes us truly happy. The God of peace will be with us.
By redirecting our inner gaze on Jesus, we “lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily entangles us.”
Let’s run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith. (Hebrews 12:1-2)
