Moments

There are times when it seems like I am rushing to get a group of chores done, or to get through a bit of work, so that I will emerge on the other side of these tasks into a better, more fun time. I catch myself doing this quite a bit during the work week actually, and it causes me to rush through the day if I’m not careful.

It’s during these times that I’m failing to live moment by moment. And, quite honestly, since life was designed to only live moment by moment, I like many others am making a big mistake.

Like the DNA in our bodies, which is put together and structured like a chain, life is a chain itself, a chain of moments, all flowing one after the other. These moments in sum eventually make up the days, weeks, months, and years of our lives. But, we all make a mistake when we try to live anything but one moment at a time.

So many times my mind is occupied either mulling something over that has already happened, or worrying about something that may, and far more often, may not happen in the future. When I allow my mind to do this, to occupy my head with thoughts about the past and the future, then I am failing to see the gift that God has built in to this wonderful tapestry He’s woven for us, that being the precious present.

We’re not really taught this way of thinking much, at least in the Western World, and it is a shame. If all of us could just focus our attention on just being here, in this very moment, our collective peace of mind would increase a thousand fold. I have a very real sense that God intended for us to live this way. Otherwise, why would He have structured life to flow moment by moment?

There are so many gifts we see when we are paying attention to the here and now, gifts that we didn’t see when our thoughts were racing through our past or to our unknown future. Today, I took a break, went outside the office, and walked two blocks down the street for no purpose other than to just breathe fresh air and see the sunshine. Each time a thought tried to enter my mind, I just saw it, and let it go. The only thing I wanted to focus upon was the wonderful fresh air I was breathing, and the sunshine shining down brightly upon me, on a mild winter’s day. The air and the sunshine were gifts, sent to us all to enjoy. For those brief minutes, I thoroughly enjoyed them.

Yet, how many of us really slow down and take the time to enjoy these free gifts? Sadly, many of us are preoccupied thinking about the past or the future, and fail to just allow ourselves to be here in the present moment. No wonder we feel out of sorts a lot. When we don’t live in the moment that is before us right now, we are going against the grain of how life is put together. Its as if we are trying to cram moments that don’t exist, namely the past and the future, into the only moment that does exist, which is the here and now.

When we just accept that right now is the only time we have, for it is the only time that “exists” for us in reality, we can start to slow down our racing thoughts, and flow more peacefully through the day.

Yesterday’s but a memory, and tomorrow is a great big unknown. Worrying about one, and trying to predict another, is kind of a fool’s game. God gave us one time really, and that time is NOW.

And just for this moment, I’m going to enjoy that time.

-The Minister