I have never known whether it is best to live in the present or the future. I knew I should learn from the past, but not live in it because of this scripture:
“I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me. No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead.” Philippians 3:12-13 (NLT)
I am in a bookclub this summer and we are doing C.S. Lewis’ book The Screwtape Letters. So, this week when I got to letter number 15, I learned a few things. We are to live in the “present with eternity in mind.” Screwtape (a seasoned demon) wrote this letter to his Nephew Wormwood (a demon in training). In it he was trying to show Wormwood how to use the European war to his advantage to mess up a man. The man’s anxiety had decreased because he had turned more fully to dependence on God’s grace. Screwtape was addressing the question… should we keep him worried?
Then Screwtape writes, “Tortured fear and stupid confidence are both desirable states of mind.” (p. 75)
Screwtape goes on to comment on what he feels God wants for humans. According to Screwtape, “He (God)…wants them to attend chiefly to two things, to eternity itself, and to that point of time which they call the Present. For the Present is the point at which time touches eternity.” (p.75)
I googled that last sentence for the meaning and this is what I got: “God Lives in the ‘Now’. Humans experience life as a sequence of events (past, present, and future), but the eternal God dwells entirely outside of time. To God, all of reality is an ‘eternal present.’ The current moment is the only part of human time that mirrors God’s experience of reality.” And, “…living fully in the present is how we spiritually connect with eternity.”
Screwtape continues, “He would therefore have them continually concerned either with eternity (which means being concerned with Him) or with the Present—either meditating on their eternal union with, or separation from, Himself, or else obeying the present voice of conscience, bearing the present cross, receiving the present grace, giving thanks for the present pleasure.” (pp. 75-76)
The letter continues, “Our business is to get them away from the eternal, and from the Present. With this in view, we sometimes tempt a human (say a widow or scholar) to live in the Past.” But Screwtape decides, “It is far better to make them live in the Future.” (p. 76)
Screwtape continues:
- “…the Future is, of all things, the thing least like eternity.”
- “It is the most completely temporal part of time—”
- “…nearly all vices are rooted in the future.” (p.76)
Screwtape determines that God wants men to think of the future as well but only because, “The duty of planning the morrow’s work is today’s duty; though its material is borrowed from the future, the duty, like all duties, is in the Present….He does not want men to give the Future their hearts, to place their treasure in it.” (p. 77)
Screwtape tells Wormwood that they want a man to be “haunted by visions of an imminent heaven or hell upon earth” or to be “in pursuit of the rainbow’s end, never honest, nor kind, nor happy now, …” (p. 77-78)
Screwtape says the human should be attacked if, “…he is aware that horrors may be in store for him and is praying for the virtues, wherewith to meet them, and meanwhile concerning himself with the Present because there, and there alone, all duty, all grace, all knowledge, and all pleasure dwell, his state is very undesirable…” (to the demonic realm) (pp. 78-79)
It was brought out in our bookclub handouts that we should:
- Obey the prompting of our conscience and the Holy Spirit.
- Bear our present cross. (We all have a cross to bear.)
- Receive the present grace.
- Give thanks for the present pleasure. Our leader placed this statement in our handouts: “…one of the greatest sins charged against mankind is that of being unthankful for all the blessings God bestows on us.”
The Bible warns us against being unthankful.
“Because that, when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful: but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.” Romans 1:21 (KJV)
And the Bible tells us to focus on today in the following verse:
“Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” Matthew 6:34 (NIV)
So… living in the present. I think some YouTubers call that “intentional living.” Doing one thing at a time. Enjoying the process. Being thankful for God’s grace and the health and strength He gives us to get through each day. It takes time to change yourself and accept each day, and what is in it, as God’s plan for us and to try to learn what He is teaching us that day. You have to slow down to enjoy the pleasures of—butterflies, flowers, blue skies, kittens, baby deer, trees swaying in the wind, rain, children, ect. And the pleasures of the work God gives us to do each day in our different life situations.
Do you find living in the present easy or hard?
Please comment below!
And, have a great week!