The Joy Of Living In The Moment

 “Live in the moment.” “Be in the present.”

I’ve heard these phrases for decades, and thought I knew what they meant. I thought it meant to pay attention to the here and now. While that’s not totally the wrong track, it’s not exactly the right track, either. Not the way I was interpreting it.

Looking back over my life, until I realized what it truly meant to live in the moment, I can only pinpoint one incident where I was doing exactly that. I don’t know why it happened. Perhaps the serotonin levels in my brain were high enough for me to drop my worries for those few seconds, and I was enjoying myself enough to want to relish the moment.

I was a young college student, swimming in the pool on my college’s campus, treading water at the deep end. And suddenly, I was completely aware of the feel of the cool water against my skin, the view of the water undulating right in front of my eyes, the song blasting from the radio speakers from somewhere above. I can’t really explain how I felt, except that I found myself not only immersed in water, but completely immersed in the moment. The closest I can come is to say that I felt a peace I’d never known before, the peace that surpasses all understanding. Because, in that moment, there was neither a single worry niggling at the back of my mind, nor a single regret poking into the front of it.

It felt like a kind of waking trance, and I recall that for days, even weeks, afterward, I desperately tried to recreate that same feeling.

I never could, and eventually gave up.

And then, at the tender age of fifty-one, I discovered meditation.

RECORD SCREECH!! Christians aren’t supposed to meditate!

If you’re a believer in the One True God, you’ve likely heard some circles of Christians declare that meditation is a practice strictly belonging to those who practice New Age or eastern religions.

Wrong.

Awareness is the only way to completely eliminate stress, and the only way to learn awareness is through meditation.

There are different ways to go about it, and, yes, some of the ways come from religions that promise certain supernatural experiences for those who “arrive” at a certain level of meditative practice. But to say that Christians shouldn’t practice meditation because many non-Christians practice it is throwing the baby out with the bath water.

Regardless of who’s doing it, meditation has one basic goal: to be 100% aware. And awareness is being in tune with what’s going on inside of you and right around you…wait for it, wait for it…

…in this precise moment.

Worries and to-do lists have no place during meditation, because they have to do with the future. Regrets and remorse have no place during meditation, because they revolve around the past.

I’ll describe meditation for believers in another blog post; for now, suffice to say that meditation is a good practice for anyone, and that it is the tool that helped me to learn to live in the moment.

Which brings us to another question certain sects of Christianity bring up:

Should Christians live in the moment?

I’ve implied the answer to this question in the previous section. But the question bears a direct response because you might have heard a certain YouTuber (like I did) or blogger or even your favorite preacher say that “living in the moment” is a New Age/Eastern religious thing.

Let’s look at that logically, shall we? First, we need to study the claim in the light of what I’ve just said about meditation. If the general end of meditation is to learn to be aware, and awareness refers to keeping your mind completely in the present, with no thoughts of either the past or future, and meditation is a healthy practice for everyone, then it follows that living in the moment is a healthy goal for everyone, regardless of spiritual belief.

Second, we need to look at what the Bible says about regrets, and about worry. God has taken our sin from us as far as the east is from the west. What is regret, if not bringing our past mistakes and sins close to us? But God neither does that, nor wants us to do so. Meaning…

…we are in disobedience to God when we carry regrets.

God also commands us to forgive. Forgiveness is the only means by which we can find healing form past wounds so that we can walk into the calling God has on our lives. Therefore, we can conclude that thoughts that ruminate on past hurts and mistakes are contrary to God’s will for our lives.

Then, there’s worry. Worry is nothing more than fear of the future because we’re not completely trusting God to work it out for our good. Ever heard the saying, “God looks at your plans and laughs?” That’s because He’s already designed your future, making long-term plans a futile effort because you can’t control even how the next day will turn out.

No, I’m not saying making short-term goals and plans is a bad thing. More on that in a future post. But when you’re constantly creating long-term plans, what you’re doing is telling God you don’t trust Him, and you refuse to walk by faith because it’s scary.

Control freaks are scared to death of their future. Hmm. A great topic to delve into in a future post.

Of course, not all worries stem from godless plans. Most of the time, they revolve around situations we’re facing that we know could have a bad end. Worry is, in essence, assuming the worst will happen, and that when it does, our lives will go to ruin.

Yeshua directly addressed this when he told His disciples, as recorded in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter six and verse thirty-four, “So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

If Christians aren’t supposed to live in the past, and they’re not supposed to live in the future (an impossibility, at any rate), then there’s only one place for us to live: the present.

This. Very. Moment.

The only place where joy and peace abound.

God is love. That unconditional love that is His essence is the source of joy and real peace.

In order to find true joy (not to be confused with happiness) and real peace, we must be where God is. We must find His presence.

His presence is in the present.

Yes, God is eternal, has been, is, and ever will be. But the construct of time is purely human. God’s eternity is, in reality, in each moment as it passes. We can’t find Him in the past, nor in the future.

We can only find Him in this moment that we’re living.

How do we do that? By becoming aware. Learning to be aware. Keeping our minds off regrets, wounds, and worry and fear. Focusing on the here and now. Realizing that He’s with you right here, right now.

And when that revelation comes, joy and peace come right alongside.

I pray above all else that you get a hold of this truth, as I have. It’s the only way to become free indeed.

Peace to you, and may blessing abound in every area of your life.