The Past, The Now and The Future

We spend so little time in the present because it is so short, so fleeting.  It is the now, a moment, a minute an hour.  It is gone before we know it and it is constantly changing.  There is nothing to hold onto and yet it is the most important time we have.

The past is vast and comfortable to us.  We have been there, we know how it feels; like our favorite shoes it just fits.  Both the good and bad of our past is like a reference book, a search engine. It is the Google of our mind and we can search and can come and go at will from our past without restriction or fear of the unrevealed.  It is our own personal History Channel, it is the known Vs. the unknown and we can hopefully learn from it.

The future is unlimited in our minds, a vast wilderness to be explored, mostly full of hope often full of fear.  It is our quest for manifesting new memories to add to our library of the past or a way to get out of and on with the present.

We don’t usually think of the future in moments or hours but in dreams and anticipation for something new and refreshing.  But the future will never be real because by the time you get there it is the present then past.

So what are we supposed to do with and about these three dimensions?  How are we to learn to manage them and place them in the proper perspective so they become useful to us in the best possible way?

As with resolving most things that are part of this human experience we should seek what the bible has to say and find comfort in what our Lord instructs us to do.  As hard as it may be at times we need to trust that we will be taken care of in the present, learn from the past and cope with the future.  Matthew 6: 25-34 gives us a road-map to traverse these rocky paths of the past, present and future;

²⁵“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? ²⁶Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? ²⁷Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

²⁸“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. ²⁹Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. ³⁰If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? ³¹So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ ³²For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. ³³But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. ³⁴Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Putting our trust fully in God is hard for us as humans.  We are so broken and determined to be independent that we have often lost the ability to truly put our lives and our will in God’s hands.  It takes practice, prayer and a posture of faith to achieve this but it can be done and when one can reach this point the past, the now and the future will no longer take on a life of their own but will be melded in harmony with God’s plan for our lives.