The Temptation of Tomorrow

“What is my most pressing temptation?” I asked myself as I was sitting in church on Sunday. We were reflecting on the Bible verse,

“..if you come forward to serve the Lord, prepare yourself for temptation. Set your heart right and be steadfast” (Sirach 2:1)

Almost as soon as I questioned what my temptation is, I knew the answer. My temptation is to dismiss the present moment. I’m only waiting for the next thing. Not caring about what’s here, but what’s around the next corner. My temptation is to live with my eyes locked on the future.

I forget that God has something for me in the here and now. This moment is important. This day was ordained for a reason. There is love and light and goodness here. No matter what.

Can you really blame me for this struggle? Third trimester. Feeling so chronically exhausted. So achy and tired. My thoughts are often consumed by the anticipation and excitement of when our son will be here. The wait is killer! The days long!

But… “Today matters.” I feel God whisper to my soul. Today there are lessons to be learned. People to be loved. Gifts to be given and received. Growth to be had. Life to be lived. Skipping today isn’t an option. Your options are to enter in and accept it, surrender and be present to today… or to miss it by wishing it away, wishing for tomorrow.

But today matters, He says.

In her book “Present over Perfect,” Shauna Niequist writes,

Present is living with your feet firmly grounded in reality, pale and uncertain as it may seem. Present is choosing to believe that your own life is worth investing deeply in, instead of waiting for some rare miracle or fairytale. Present means we understand that the here and now is sacred, sacramental, threaded through with divinity even in its plainness. Especially in its plainness.

Especially in it’s plainness… there is something divine and sacred. In the mundane, the daily struggles, the waiting, the grocery shopping, the bill paying, the coffee brewing for the thousandth morning in a row.

It matters.

So I pray for the grace to enter in.

I pray for you to enter in. To see the goodness of the present, the here and now.

I talk to dozens of people who while getting healthy are only thinking about the end goal - only wishing they could “arrive” there already. But it’s the whole road that is important! If you race to the finish line of your health goal you may feel a little lost once you get there because you haven’t truly changed. You haven’t learned enough. You have to soak up all the lessons along the way. Each stumble and fall is a teacher. Each bend in the road, the ups and downs of emotions, they can be valuable to you, or wasted.

And I don’t want to waste today. So as difficult as it is… as much as it stretches me, I will try to be here. Now. Present to the sacredness of today. Asking once again, “here I am Lord, what do you have for me today?”