It appears that the parent of a young child is always tired and exhausted. It’s difficult and at times exasperating work being a parent. You do your dead-level best to train and discipline and at the most inconvenient of times your children decide this would be the best time to test your patience and perhaps even your sanity. It has happened more times to me than I care to recall. At times it can very much feel like nothing I’m doing is entering into their head. (If only they didn’t take after their father!) At times there is a proclivity in believing that this is just a phase and “things will get better when…” To a certain extent that may be true. If you’ve ever had a kid who decided it was best for him not to sleep at night or wake up at 3 AM forgetting that wake-up time wasn’t until 6 AM, then certainly that may be true–it’s just a phase. Hopefully, they’ll figure out in a rapid order that those 3 AM wake up calls really don’t benefit anyone, regardless of how insistent they may be in their efficacy. Outside of physiological responses, we have to guard against the temptation to always excuse ourselves with “This is just a phase”. We begin to believe “If I can just make it until ________ then everything will be fine.” I’ve been there. I’ve certainly thought that.
The issue with this is that life is not made up of a certain goal. There is no “it” in life that once I achieve that all my issues will be resolved. It’s easy to succumb to the allure of always looking for the next thing. “If I could just get a better job…” “If I could just change this relationship…” But that never happens. Relegating a certain part of my life as a mere stage is not healthy. It’s missing the beauty and joy of this moment called now. That is not so easy to distinguish when your 2-year-old is throwing a fit in a rather inconvenient time. That is not simple to recall when you have a mountain of bills and your income does not readily meet the challenge. It’s easy to resent decisions in the past and even perhaps who you were in the past. The cliché is still true: you can’t change the past. Yet, when we cling to the hope that things will just get better with time and with minimal sacrifice in the present we completely forfeit the wondrous moment we have right now. Perhaps things are not as they should be. Perhaps you could have done better in the past to ameliorate your present circumstances. Perhaps… But you’ll not be able to know. All you can do is do your dead-level best here and now. That’s not to say that we like the circumstances in which we find ourselves. Far too often we are unable to change the present circumstances to the extent or in the manner that we would prefer. It is then that looking ahead becomes an enticing game. The goal always seems to be just out of reach. There’s always a barrier just in the way, whether an internal inhibition or an external obstacle. The intangible object to remedy now is always just out of grasp. We keep looking just ahead to find the solace or resolution and we always seem to be coming up short in our quest. We can ponderously examine the past and wistfully hope for the future and all the while we are completely failing to capture the now.
The awful truth is that our adversary the devil desires to keep us sentimental for the past or discontent for the future. He never wants us to focus on the here and now. That’s not to say that the here and now are the most important, far from it. This life is a mere shadow of the true life that we already have in Christ Jesus. We are already seated together with Him in heavenly places. Our eyes must always be looking to the eternal weight of glory. That does not in any way detract from the immensity of the here and now. When we are sullenly looking to the past with guilt or resentment or when we turn our envious gaze to the future with discontent we fall into the ready trap laid by the father of all lies. The lie that things could have been or could be better or different. That’s overtly true. But, things are the way they are. Joyous acceptance is the first step to content. Even acceptance of the consequences of our actions (or inactions) is to understand that here and now I have an opportunity to make a difference. It’s in the habitual seeking for the enrichment of tomorrow that we miss the chance to impact today. I’ve observed this often in the family. The father is working so hard to secure a future for himself and his family that he misses the riches of the small child and the elation that comes from seeing the world through his eyes. This joy is further spurned when the child is not what we had imagined that he would be or does not act the way that we would desire. So we wait for him to grow up and mature and change and all the while we are squandering the beauty of now until we are aroused out of our conceit only to rue the day that we decided to sacrifice everything for tomorrow and in turn missed everything that was wonderful about today. Perhaps this difficult moment is a stage. Perhaps things will improve. Perhaps the now is horrendous and of your own making. Decide to rejoice in this moment. You’ll never have the now again. This now that we have is what life is made up of and we are never guaranteed tomorrow. Certainly, we cannot be ignorant of the future; however, always living for what could be is simply myopic at best and blind at worst to the blessing that God has given us here and now.