Living in the radical present

There are four major unknowns in my future right now, though I will spare you the details. One thing is for sure: my life on Nov. 14, 2012, will look dramatically different than it does today (including the possibility, as my friend Jenny wryly pointed out when I shared this thought with her, that I may not be here at all).

Fear of the future is bad because it eats up the present. Its appetite for attention is voracious. Before you know it you are an old codger and you have lived in the future all your life and not one day in the present moment. What a terrifying awakening that must be (if indeed a person so long immersed in delusion will be able to see the truth even then).

Fear of the future is sin because it always leaves God out of the picture. Did you ever notice that whenever you project onto tomorrow, your scary scenarios never have God in them? We paint on that hypothetical canvas with every color we can imagine except the color of God's presence. When we worry that we will not be able to handle X, Y, or Z, we are imagining X, Y, and Z without God there to help us through them. That is therefore a pagan image and rank unbelief.

Though living in the future may be so ubiquitous as to be normal among Homo sapiens, it is not necessary for children of God. Jesus died not only to forgive sins but to set us free. How do we overcome? "He gives more grace" (James 4:6). We can become "transformed by the renewing of our minds," and become accustomed to the thought that when the future comes, whatever it holds, God will be there.

The proper place to live is in the radical present, using the present moment's grace for the present situation and decisions. And as Andrew Murray said, obedience in this present moment is the only way to be kept for the next moment.

As for the four major unknowns in my life (surely there are infinitely more than the four I laughably imagine), I will take one day at a time-one moment at a time-in His will, and let the Master's skillful hand conduct the symphony.