Living in the Moment (2017)

Living in the Moment

The three major temporal tenses are past, present, and future. The past has happened, the present is happening, and the future has yet to happen. Which of these is the most important? Is it the past, rife with lessons that we can learn from those who experienced those things the hard way? Is it the future, filled with promise and possibility?

Or is it the present, the happening, the now? What happens now will become the past, and whatever the future holds for you will become the present. Of the three tenses, it is the hub, the central tense, with influence over both. Can you change the past? No, but you can add new and better things to the new-past by your actions now. Can you change the future? Definitely. What you do now plays a big part in deciding what will come of you in the future.

The power of the present is that it cannot be affected by either the past or the future. What has happened has happened, but it is not now: “The past has no power over the present moment,” says Eckhart Tolle. Those events cannot act on you now...unless, of course, you focus on the past and let it poison your heart. It only has as much power as you allow. The past can be a useful tool, to be sure, but do not let it be your life.

And what of the future? Can you know with absolute certainty what will happen? No, you cannot. So why allow what has not occurred to overcome what is occurring now? Jesus told us to “never be anxious about the next day, for the next day will have its own anxieties.” Why? “Each day has enough of its own troubles.” (Matt. 6:34) Why tackle problems of the future when you’re already struggling and dealing with the problems of now?

Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift of God, which is why we call it the present. -Alice Morse Earle

Have a look at that quote there. Let’s break it down. Yesterday is history. The past is history. Everything we do becomes history. It happens, and then it is done. Closed. Finished. History is a chronicle of events, a narrative, a story. A story can be true, of course, but what you have to take in account is that it was only completely true when it was happening. It isn’t true or factual about the present moment, so why let it interfere with now?

Tomorrow is a mystery. The etymology of the word ‘mystery’ shows that it refers to secrecy. Secret rites, secret worship, ‘only those in the know’. Secrets are things that are shut up, that are closed off, from someone. This is true of the future. It is shut off from us, because we inhabit the present. And before you say “but if I sit here for a minute, I’ll be one minute into the future!”, let me tell you that that line of thinking is wrong. One minute has been added to the past, and you are still in the present moment. The future is closed off to us. Having hopes and dreams and promises of the future can help your mind in the present day, but you cannot make those things happen any faster, you cannot move towards them, nor can you decide that everything you hope for will happen with absolute certainty. Your actions now can decide some things yet to happen, but you will not know the outcome until those things come into the present. You can create the past and slightly affect the future, but you cannot escape the present.

The present, however, is nothing to be feared or to be looked down upon. Consider the rest of the quote: Today is a gift of God, which is why we call it the present. When you wake up in the morning, your eyelids fluttering open to see the sun shining in through your window, breath slowly filling and leaving your lungs, are you not happy to be alive? Are you not happy to be, to exist? Existence cannot escape the present. Being is the present tense. You are a human being, not a human been or a human will-be.

You exist, you are, you are a being, thanks to Jehovah. Life is a gift from God, and, aside from the ransom sacrifice of his son Jesus, it is the best and most wonderful gift he has given us. Ralph Marston said that “life does not owe you anything because life has already given you everything.” Being alive is enough. Inhabiting today is enough. Yesterday is done, and tomorrow has not yet begun. All that remains is today, is now. Yesterday was a today, and tomorrow will become a today. All there is is today. And that is everything.

I have loved you, I love you, and I will keep loving you. But the greatest of these is I love you, for the others owe their existence to it.