The present moment
An important difference existing between God and us is related to the peculiar entity referred to as ‘time’. When God met Moses He revealed Himself as the great I AM. And Jesus, resuming His relationship with history declares: “Before Abraham was, I am.” I think all of us will agree that finite beings cannot talk this way, but God can because for Him there is neither past nor future. Jesus could not have nailed it any better when He said: “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.” He is indeed both entities in perfect unity.
This single mode of experience makes God unique. It follows that all His attention is, and can only be, focused on the present moment. Obviously, this reality transcends our understanding and challenges our imagination, for we—finite beings—experience time on a trinary mode where the past and the future coexist with the present, and we often find ourselves switching from one to the other in a blink.
From the very outset this reality creates a problem for us; it generates the potential to diffuse our mind on three distinct sequences. Hence our attention is often divided. As a result, what we are doing in the present mode is often negatively affected.
The real misfortune resides in the fact that the ‘now’ sequence is the only episode we can influence and steer with lasting significance. Obviously there is nothing we can do about the past other than remember it; as for the future, it can only be shaped positively by focusing on the present.
The past
The difficulty we have in handling the here-and-now adequately resurges several times a day. We find ourselves traveling and dwelling in the past as if we would have little to do with the present. We return to our yesterdays; apprehend sweet or bitter memories (at times with regrets, other times with delight); vegetize on their ethereal shore for some time, then break from their gravity before reentering the present headlong. Ultimately we attempt to reconcentrate as quickly as duty requires before proceeding with the most important mode of existence referred to as ‘now’. Unfortunately, sooner than later, we inadvertently shift backward again, thus losing the upper hand on that most important sequence of reality. What is surprising is that we seem unaware that by so doing we are modeling an eventual ‘past’ of mediocrity that will disturb our hazy tomorrows.
The testimony of the apostle Paul
Happily, it doesn’t need to be so. The apostle Paul affirms that the past can be forgotten to such an extent that our faculties can be devoted solely and absolutely to the present moment. Listen to what he says: “Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13,14).
Paul was rooting all of his activities in a single course of action: “but one thing I do”. He knew that the success of his works would be undermined if this “one thing” was left undone.
He then proceeds by presenting the touchstone of this crucial singularity: “Forgetting those things which are behind”. Obviously, Paul was aware that the past had the potential to distract him from the present and that little good could grow in the soil of distraction. So he turned his back on the former days and anchored himself in the present moment.
Within such a mental framework he was determined to progress: “and reaching forward to those things which are ahead”. These words exhibit another great characteristic marking the life of the apostle. He was constantly advancing, captivated by new discoveries and thrilled by the unknown. “I press toward the goal, for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus”. His words mirror the focal point of the great “I AM’. They convey the sharpness needed to progress. There is no looking back; the hand is held on the plow as it furrows into the present. Only in such a soil can lasting success thrive.
The future
Now if the past can distract us from the present, the future is highly competitive as well. The One who knows all men and all that is in man doesn’t speak in vain when He says: “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble” (Matthew 6:34). These are the words of Someone who knows how vulnerable we are in this respect. We easily brood over negative prospects, get anxious about possible failures, and lose sleep as we envision the ghost of a fiasco.
Other times we postpone to some tomorrows what should be done today as if we would reign over the future; apparently unaware that we don’t even know what a day can bring forth (Prov. 27:1). Then when the tomorrow metamorphoses into an actual today we continue to procrastinate until we are caught in the web of time and force to do ‘now’ what should have been done ‘then’, thus neglecting what should be done ‘now’. Such trend is a sure formula to bring forth mediocrity. May God help us to recognize how valuable and meaningful the present is compared to a past we cannot alter, or a future we cannot touch.
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