As we are going through this Easter season, and I contemplate on the days leading up to the brutal crucifixion and glorious resurrection of the Savior, one quality of Christ has stood out in my thinking. It is one that I have been prayerfully trying to copy... one moment successfully, and the next not always as successful. What has stood out to me is the ability Christ had to live in the moment.
It occurs to me that most of us spend each moment either reliving the past, or imagining the future. Christ did not allow that to happen in his life. He pulled everything there was out of each moment he walked on this planet. We tend to live in the, "What might-have-been,"and, "What's going to be." Christ lived in the now. He didn't dwell on the past. And, apart from striving to reach the goal of Calvary, he didn't waste a second worrying about the future. His energy went into into the moment....into the now.
As one reads the gospel, one gets a real sense of the calm, peaceful pace of Christ's life. He had so much to accomplish during His short stay walking among us, and yet Jesus never seems rushed. He was continually surrounded by people needing his touch, people needing his teaching and people needing his love, but the Lord ministered to each of them in a pace that seemed anything but frenzied.
That characteristic was evident whether Christ was walking quietly with his disciples explaining to them what was to come, or on a mountain proclaiming the Kingdom of God to thousands. It was there as he sat by the well with the really messed up Samaritan woman and whispering to her, "I am the Messiah." Or, as he knelt on the ground, writing in the dirt. The woman caught in adultery standing before him. The victorious glare of the Pharisee's as they stared at him, waiting for an answer they could pounce on. "Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her." Moment by moment, a perfectly paced life.
That pace is particularly amazingly evident in the days before his death. Christ knew what was coming. The beatings. The scourging. The mockery. The cross. And the most difficult for him to face....His separation from the Father. With all of that before him, his focus was still on the moment. The certain agony ahead did not distract him from the now. It was, indeed, the perfect example of walking in the peace that surpasses all understanding. It was a life lived in perfect peace moment by moment.... even when the spikes were being driven into his hands and feet.
"You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. (Isaiah 26:3)
I would suggest that Christ lived those words of the Prophet to perfection. Christ lived each moment in that perfect peace because he trusted his Father for the next one.
So, it's a discipline I'm working on. Completely trusting God for the coming moment so that I can enjoy the present one to the fullest. But then, just as importantly, it includes trusting the sufficiency of Christ's sacrifice to cover every moment of my past that has fallen short of God's glory, so the weight of guilt doesn't distract from the joy that's available in the present. I have determined to, as much as is within me, live in the now. To love the moment. To not allow the pendulum to swing to the, "What might-have-been" or the anxieties of the, "What's going to be."
Admittedly, it is beautiful in it's simplicity, but more difficult in practice. But the beautiful reality is that God says, "Trust me with your past. Trust me with your future. And, allow me to carry you through the moment."
Friends, it's the enemy's most productive weapon. He will remind us of past failures, or he will cause us to dread what might be in the future. He whispers the lie that God's grace isn't sufficient for the past, or that his mercy doesn't guard our future. It drains joy. It destroys peace. And it allows Satan to rob the life God desires for us, one moment at a time.
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