(Heb 11:1) Now faith . . .
Are you living life in the present-tense? Are you enjoying what’s going on right now around you? Are you taking in all the sights and sounds of your environment in a single frame mode? Or are you constantly distracted and easily set off focus by worries and cares and stresses that blow in like tumbleweeds and clutter up your life?
It seems the devils’ trick is to get us out of the present tense. He does this in two ways. First, he gets us past tense by having us look back. We wish life could have gone another way so our present wouldn’t be so complicated and depressing. We have regrets. We fantasize about “if only.” We live in guilt and remorse. The problem with looking in the rearview mirror while you’re driving though is you just might crash in your present!
If the devil can’t get you looking back, then he’ll try getting you to look ahead. This is the future tense mode. It’s an approach to life that is always worried about the “what-ifs.” What if this happens. What if that occurs? What would I do? The effect is gourmet anxiety. It’s a plate full of worries and woes that we can’t help but consume and we just worry ourselves sick. Pedal to the metal. Always speeding in life. Watch out because you’ll get pulled over and get a citation that you’ll be sorry for.
The Bible says to not look behind: (Phil 3:13) 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,
The Bible says to not focus on the future: (Mat 6:34) "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
What we have to do is to stay in the now. Don’t let life slip by while you worry about the past or be anxious about the future. Claim each day for the Lord: (Psa 118:24) This is the day the LORD has made; We will rejoice and be glad in it. And then stay within that moment of the day: (Isa 27:3) I, the LORD, keep it, I water it every moment; Lest any hurt it, I keep it night and day. Ask yourself throughout the day . . . “am I keeping in the now?”
I know we all live an extremely busy life but let’s stay present tense so we won’t be so tense! Make sense? Help us Lord!
(Phil 2:5) Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus,
Louie