“Practice the present moment.” This is advice from holy men and women who teach us how to trust in divine providence and abandon ourselves to that providence. We must approach this wisdom by reminding ourselves that the future and past don’t actually exist. You might be saying … that’s obvious! Yet often, especially in times of anxiety or suffering or fear, that’s where we go. We are familiar with that place — we go back and remember something from the past that prevents us from handling what is happening now. Or we project forward because we think of bad things that could happen to us and potential suffering we might have to endure. But remember, the past doesn’t exist. It’s only in our minds. This is also true with the future. Next month, next week, tomorrow, doesn’t really exist even though our minds might be imagining that place.
So what does it matter?! It matters because God can’t give you and me grace for things that are not real. God cannot give you grace for any future, hypothetical possibility, or any past pain. The reason is because God doesn’t exist in the past or the future. God is outside of time, but you exist within time, at a certain moment on the spectrum of time. And God can only find you at that moment, which is the present. Therefore, God can only give you grace in the present moment. If you are looking for help in the future or you want healing in the past, God can’t go there because you’re not.
God is only found where you are, and so the grace that you need is in the here and now. Desire to master your thoughts, to master your mind, and to draw it back from wherever fear or anxiety or doubt is taking it. Without this discipline, you’ll never be able to put your trust in God in the present moment because you won’t be in the present moment. You’ll be in your imagination somewhere else, somewhere that doesn’t even exist and may never exist. Why should God give you grace for a hypothetical future that may never happen?
Here and now is where you can find the Lord. Here and now is where you can talk to the Lord and find the insight and the grace that you need for that present moment. That’s when the Lord can teach you to trust him, to abandon yourself to his providence in each and every moment. Without being in the present moment, you’ll miss out on His grace. So, keep it real, get grace.
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