I had a glitch on my Facebook timeline earlier this week.  It wasn’t really a problem that truly affected anything, but I noticed that every post that was more than 24 hours old registered as having happened “Just Now”.  Anything past the boundary of today (the previous 24 hours) showed up like it just happened. Of course, that got me thinking...another epiphany…

How many times have I set my attention on things that were outside of the “just now”?  I know that too often I look back at what was, even though doing so doesn’t change that it happened, how it happened or that it’s over now.  Even more so, I find myself doing the “great countdown” until life’s next big event comes – like school being out in 2 weeks or this project must be done in 4 weeks or the next wedding we’re attending is in 2 months or vacation is…you get the picture.  The whole countdown thing goes hand-in-hand with procrastinating.  Now’s just not the right time to do that, maybe later…yes, that’s me WAY too often.  I’m either counting down to the good stuff or putting off having to do the ‘not-so-good’ stuff.  But thanks to the loving-kindness and grace and purpose of God, that’s changing (for the good).

I believe that God gives us the ability to recall memories and plan for the future for a reason, but I’m pretty sure it’s not so that we can escape the “just now”.  Escape seems like a pretty harsh word for rehearsing the past or daydreaming about the future but that’s really what it is.  Maybe the “just now” isn’t what we wish it would be.  Maybe we’re trying to figure out what we could’ve done different that would have changed its current results or maybe we’re just looking back with fondness over what was then but isn’t now.  Maybe the “just now” just isn’t as exciting or happy or perfect as we are hoping someday will be or maybe we’re just flat out anxious over all that has to be done in a limited amount of time. 

This is one of the most deceitful and effective tricks of the enemy – getting us to focus on what we don’t have, whether it’s the past or the future.  If we are constantly setting our attention on everything besides now, we’ll never accomplish God’s purposes for us.  The past and the future can both be thieves if we let them.  They’ll steal our joy, our peace, our rest, our strength.  They even have the ability to make themselves appear larger that what they really are.  The past can seem better or worse than it really was, depending on how we view it. The future is no different; it can seem more perfect or scary than it’s truly going to be.  Besides, if we never truly learn to embrace the “just now” we won’t know how to walk in it when the future arrives and someday becomes now.

What we really, truly have is “just now”.   We have no reason to let that bother us.  We don’t have to fret that we have no control over any of it – you know, the “past is gone and tomorrow may never come” mentality.  We can rest knowing that God has our past and our future hidden in Christ.  Here’s the thing:  we view everything in chronological time like a timeline – past, present, future.  But God is eternal and eternity is always now.  He’s described in Revelation 1:4 as He “who is and who was and who is to come” (NKJV), not He who was and is and is to come (as many songs errantly say).   The Great I AM dwells in us…not the Great I WAS or Great I WILL BE.  By understanding the names and therefore the nature of God, we can begin to comprehend how He so desires us to be who He’s created us to be and therefore do what He’s created us to do, here and NOW. 

So how do we do that?  We change our mind and we change our ways.  Make it practical.  Use the fine china that you’ve been saving for some special dinner party (that you’ll probably never have) for supper with your family some evening.  Put or throw away the memorabilia of a relationship gone bad.  Turn off the TV (or Facebook) and go play a game with your kid or take your grandson out for ice cream.  Me?  First in the natural, then the spiritual.  I’ve washed my windows this week…the windows haven’t been fully washed inside and out since we moved into our house (and I will NOT tell you how many years ago that was—no more living in the past!).  I stopped putting it off and I did it.  The other thing I did was write this blog.  I should’ve been writing it months ago but I didn’t and I can’t change that.  I can only change my now, and I am.  I am embracing all He is for me, all He has for me and all He is in me…NOW!