Looking to the Now

   So much lately, God has been teaching me about the importance of "the now." By this, I mean the present circumstances. It is great to optimistically be looking to the future or back on the past (as I have written about in my previous two blog posts), but you can never overlook what is right before you. Hebrews 3:13 says, "But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called today, so that none of you may be "hardened by sin's deceitfulness."

   If you think that this is just a theological abstraction from someone in distant memory, think again. I am a witness to the truthfulness of this warning. I have learned Scripture's lesson the hard way. I am very much a dreamer. This is a really good thing, and a blessing from the Creator. But often it gets in the way of my vision of "the now." I dream of what could be or what should be, or I mope about what isn't here. And so often, I lose focus of what God is doing right now in my life, in the people around me, and in my relationships with them. And when I begin to long for things that are not, or that will never be, I begin to take my eyes off Jesus and put them on the things desired. In so doing, I become "hardened by sin's deceitfulness," and I lose my desire for Jesus.

   Are you seeing what God is doing in your life right now? Or are you, like I was, longing for what could be and mourning what is not? I encourage you to long for Jesus, and put everything else behind him. Live in 'the now." That's where Jesus is.