Live in the Moment

All the popular catchphrases such as “live in the moment,” “be present,” “live intentionally”; do they leave you feeling slightly confused and a little frustrated? They sound warm and fuzzy, but how do you put them into practice?

Instead of being present in the moment, we often find ourselves dwelling on the past in fond remembrance or worrying about the future in knotted anxiety.

Ann Voskamp, in her devotional “One thousand gifts; Reflections on Finding everyday graces,” says, “the mind would rather fret about the future or pine over the past- so the mind can cling to its own illusion of control. But the current moment? It cannot be controlled. And what a mind can’t control, it tends to discount. Brush past… over.”

Does it all come down to our desire for control?

The past tends to crystallize in our minds in a golden hue of near perfection. We select the good memories and discard or make less of the ones we would rather forget. In this way, we try to control our memory of the past.  

Take, for example, a vacation that you have taken. Why does it seem that the memory of that time seems almost sweeter than the actual event?

And then there’s the future. Does our brain think that if we worry about what’s to come that we can somehow control what will happen?

We call it planning, but more often than not, it’s worrying.

Again, it is our way of trying to control the outcomes.

This present moment is fluid. It slips through our fingers like water, and there is no way our minds can control it. All we can do is feel the blessing of it, of being eternally held by the God who gives us all the moments. In trust and thankfulness, we can know that what is uncontrollable to us is in complete control by the One who has put us where we are right now. 

When we are consumed with memories of yesterday or the worries of tomorrow, it is impossible to see the beauty of today.

The secret to truly living in the present may be in the release of our desire for control.

It’s like doing a back float in the water of God’s grace, relaxed in the knowledge that His loving control is all I need.