Living in the Moment

Sometimes God requires some really sticky, itchy things of us. Like living in the moment. Living in the moment is essentially, I would say, willingness to lay it down and say "Ok God, I am not in control of today. I am not in control of the future. I am not even in control of the next five minutes." My therapist Deb often says that the only thing she can claim control of is her own bladder. Too much? Sorry.

During prayer last week, I heard Pastor Joel say something to the effect of "God gives us vision and I need to remember that even when He gives the vision it doesn't belong to me. It still belongs to Him and I need to be careful not to run away with it in." (my paraphrase).

This resonates with me because so often God gives me a passion and a vision and then I think it is up to me to work it out in my own way. Nothing could be further from the truth. Even more it is a call on me to rely on God and watch HIM put the pieces together. My call is to be 1) in prayer and 2) obedient so that when He asks me to do something, I am able to hear His voice and because I have been in prayer and willing to follow His voice.

Living in the present can be tricky because it is UNCOMFORTABLE. Pastor Dave is always talking about living in the tension. It is often easy to miss out on what God is doing in the present because we are so busy focusing on what happened to us in the past or fearing the future. Living in the tension means that we sit and take in that uncomfortable feeling - whether it be the tension of the unknown or the tension of the process "being in process" (the tension of transition) or the tension of not having answers other than the fact that God is God and that is enough. Tension can be good. Really good.

There is a lot of tension in my life right now. I think it was maybe three weeks ago that Pastor Mark talked about pain and discomfort and staying in it rather than running away from it because beautiful things are birthed from pain. I think this is true.

So here's to living in the moment. Cheers!