Living in the present when everything seems to be in the future

2023 is the year of the PRESENT for me. This has been a discovery of both the present, or now, and also gifts. This month I am struggling with the here and now and searching for gifts.

The last few months have been a push and then wait kind of time. I pushed through to complete the next Bible Study book and now I wait for editing. My family has pushed to purchase a vehicle and now we wait while it is shipped here. We moved in July, and hurried to pack up, but we continue to wait for our belongings to arrive. I work on marketing and getting the word out about these marvelous books (if I may say so myself), but it is a long-term activity and I wait for results. I don’t have a whining tone in my head, just so you know.

I think that lack of a whining tone has come from the previous 9 months of the year training me to live in the now. My brain every now and then projects into the future when these things will be in the next step (I have to review and edit the book, we have to get the license plate and insurance for the car, we have to find a place for all those things we thought we needed (I’m already wondering about some of them), marketing to drive miraculous sales, etc.). There are all these things that are not in the now and cannot take my time from today. These may steal time in my head, but they cannot, must not, steal time from my productivity today. So, I redirect my brain, and even that has gotten easier over these months. I am much more comfortable with the present and the incomplete things and activities of life.

I redirect my brain with the truth of God. I do not let the thorns steal away my present in Him (Matt. 13:7, 22). I do not let the worries of tomorrow drive me but leave it for tomorrow indeed (Matt. 6:34). Jesus carries the burden of what will come in the future, and leaves me with a light burden – the one for today alone (Matt. 11:28-30). God supplies all my needs (Phil. 4:19). When I am frustrated with the lack of progress that others are supposed to be making on my projects, I know that God will lead as he sees best (Prov. 16:9). Living in the present has fortified my trust in God. I am able to simply leave those undone things to Him. It is where he has called us to leave them, in his hands. I may finally be learning this lesson well enough to live it!

I am delighted to share a present that I received just last weekend- someone at my church invited me to join a Bible Study Group! This has been my prayer and has driven several of my choices since we moved. I felt called to one particular church, but there are few mid-week activities to help in our walk and call us to accountability. But now, God has presented this opportunity to me. He also opened doors for me to have already met several others in the group, and not show up to greet a room full of strangers. (Though I did this weekend, and that is when God blessed me with this gift!) I was trying ‘not giving up meeting together,’ as Heb. 10:24-15 exhorts us, but I admit I was losing hope.

Here I am, in the present and content to let the incomplete be incomplete. Content to focus on today and not the finished project or moving things to the next step. I am at a point where the worry for tomorrow is truly in the tomorrow. Where I know that God has his hand in the future, and I need not push or pull or beg. God’s got this, all of it.

How content are you in this undone life? Share any prayer points you may have below.