"Now" Time

   There is only one time period I can actually live in. I can't dwell in the past, no matter how pleasant or how rough, and I can't reside in the future, because I can't even know what it is. I can only live in the present, and, while that sounds simple enough, it is definitely not.

   My mind wants to remember those good times in the past, and to revisit them. Part of life is to think along these lines and feel good about what has happened. Even where I can see God working there, I can't just stay there. Present time slips unnoticed into the past as I spend my time in this way. God does tell us to remember, but those are but foundations to build on. I can't dwell there. The house is not complete.

   My mind also wants to project itself into the future. What I will do when such and such happens, how I will do this and that, how I will be looked on by others when something happens, how I will be able to serve when God does this or that. When I read the Scripture in Mark 9 this morning, I see Jesus talking to His disciples, trying to prepare them for what was to come, and I understand that. I believe that God brings things into my life, and people into my life, to prepare me for what is to happen. Hopefully, I will take them in for what they are, and not spend all my time in imagining what is to come.

   I picture an hourglass, with the sand running down into the bottom section. Not one of us can know how much of that sand is left in the top whether we are 25, 50, 75 or more in age. In my case I can pretty well know that there is much more sand in the bottom than in the top. I can't slow down the sand, I can only live in its moment, as it passes from the top to the bottom.

   My prayer this morning is that I will have eyes to see and ears to hear what it is that I am to realize in this particular moment of my life, and, realizing, will use that to live this day, not putting my focus on either pile of sand in the hourglass, but concentrating on the grains moving through from one to the other.

   David says in Psalm 31, "My times are in Your hands", and so it is.