LIVE IN THE MOMENT, FOR ETERNITY

There is a beautiful and comforting reality about walking with Jesus: every morning we wake to a fresh supply of God’s unfailing mercies. He who is Faithful and True is also our daily portion.

The very first thing to touch our day is eternity.

“Through the LORD’s mercies we are not consumed, Because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness. “The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, “Therefore I hope in Him!” ~ Lamentations 3:22-24

There is nothing like walking on an untouched beach as the tide is going out. The footprints, scuffles, sand sculptures, and activities of the day have been wiped clean by the surf. As the water recedes, a fresh beach has been prepared for the activities of a new day. I see God’s mercies like this.

I have spent so many years living each day in the future – dreaming and fantasizing about where I hope to be. It has resulted in days half-lived, disillusioned, disappointed, anxious, and discontented ambition. The future is often a thief of our today.

I have recently found myself practicing something different.

…every morning we wake to a fresh supply of God’s unfailing mercies.

I awaken each morning, take a deep breath, and acknowledge that today is what I have. The Lord is my portion for today. His mercies are enough for me – today. Yesterday’s mistakes, messes, and successes are past. Looking beyond the unknown future my eyes are set on eternity. God Himself is eternal. His values and kingdom are eternal. How can I live with my today being influenced by eternity? What if eternity touched my today? What if asking God, “How might I serve you today and fulfill your desires?” set my perspective on that which is eternal? What if such divine interaction positioned me to live out eternity today?  What if I could walk in His supernatural grace today? Faith today? Forgiveness today? Truth today? Justice today? Life today? Health today? Provision today? Just enough eternity to lay my head at night realizing that TODAY I blessed the heart of my Father walking in the fullness of His provision and His presence.

C.S. Lewis, in his Screwtape Letters, Number 15 eloquently addresses this:

[Note: The Screwtape Letters is a satirical novel in the form of letters written from one demon to another. The following entry is a conversation from the demon’s perspective]

“The enemy [God] wants people to attend chiefly to two things: eternity itself, and to that point of time which they call the Present. For the Present is the point at which time touches eternity. In the present moment alone freedom and actuality are offered them. The enemy [God]  would therefore have them continually concerned either with eternity (which means being concerned with him) or with the Present — either meditating on their eternal union with, or separation from, himself, or else obeying the present voice of conscience, bearing the present cross, receiving the present grace, giving thanks for the present pleasure. Our business is to get them away from the eternal, and from the Present. …It is far better to make them live in the future… Also, it is unknown to them, so that in making them think about it we make them think of unrealities. In a word, the future is, of all things, the thing least like eternity.”

There is much in the future to preoccupy our minds – to rob us of our present and to distract us from the eternal. Consider your step into the New Year. Will you choose to live in the fullness of a TODAY touched by eternity?

“…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