What's Here Now?Sample

Rehearsing the future is another way we avoid being in the present moment as we borrow future possibilities and make them present realities. A few of the ways we will look at how we rehearse the future today is through worry, denial, and pretending.

Worry is like an unexpected windstorm of fear carving a path through your mind while knocking down every other thought you have. It can be about something that will happen in a matter of minutes, or something you fear will happen in ten years. Worry is simply living in a not yet that is worse than your now. A fictitious construct versus a factual reality. And the magical power of worry is that your mind blindly follows along its path. Worry interrupts our present with concerns about the future. Jesus regularly asked, What’s here now? He may not have used those exact words, but he desired to draw people out of their not-yet moments and into the now moment. Matt. 6:25–34 is an excellent example of Jesus addressing the impact of worry on our lives.It would be easy to think of Jesus as a Bob Marley superfan, singing about how “every little thing is gonna be alright.” (I can picture his music video, with the dancing birds and the flowers of the field.) But that’s not what Jesus is saying here. He calls out birds and flowers because the birds live higher, and the flowers live lower, rising above and below the circumstances in life. They know where they are supposed to be at every given moment. They don’t look around and wonder if there is something else they should be doing. In other words, the birds and the flowers don’t have a problem with worry, so neither should we.

Denial is yet another way we rehearse the future. Denial begins to appear in our lives when we are rehearsing too much future and not experiencing enough presence. When we live inside of all the things that could happen to keep from facing what is happening. When we deny the here and now, bury whatever unpleasant feeling is hanging around in our thoughts and hold off on dealing with what we convince ourselves is beyond us. Denial is a common practice for many of us; at the deepest and most intuitive parts of ourselves, we somehow just know that once we name something out loud, it will become true in a way it wasn’t before. But even though we wish and hope and act like it doesn’t exist, most of us know that when we don’t talk about something, it doesn’t go away or get less real—it only burrows deeper into our beings and grows scarier. Denying the truth will never erase the truth. I have come to understand that denial delays what we fear will define us and keeps us from the present moment with God, ourselves, and others.

It’s not just worry and denial that keep us from the present; pretending is one of the oldest tricks in the book when it comes to ways the enemy tries to convince us to stay out of the present moment. Pretending and hiding all the time is a terrible way to live. It keeps you from the present and living as your true, authentic self. Hiding keeps you as sick as your secrets—reluctant to admit your weakness or flaws to others. I imagine you’ve had many moments of wanting to let yourself be seen. Wanting to reveal your authentic self but feeling it was safer to pretend. To stay hiding. To play the part of someone. I’ve read countless books and studies on what people most desire in their relationships—and vulnerability shows up in the top five every single time. We all desire vulnerability, yet so many of us are terrified to offer it. Or maybe you have been vulnerable only to have it blow up a relationship, so you’ve decided to keep yourself safe and in hiding. Camouflaging your deepest desires advance your ability to please and play a part, but it keeps you from who God created you to be. When you disguise yourself, it’s often because you seek approval from everyone else instead of sourcing it from God and yourself. Pretending forces you to live life in the future, leaving you overwhelmed, empty, and disconnected from God, yourself, and others in the present.