Living in the Moment

One of the greatest lessons that I have been learning this year is the necessity of living in the moment. Upon inspection, it is apparent that living in the moment cannot be done just for the sake of the moment as so many people suggest by the choices they make. For example, you cannot claim to be living simply because you choose to fall through the air after having jumped from a perfectly good airplane with the hope that your parachute opens! The momentary feeling of weightlessness does not, in and of itself, constitute life. Indeed, living in the moment well comes from an understanding of what the moment is for!

I was forced to use myself as an example this morning as I was thinking about a recent visit to a convalescent home. I went to offer some of my time to an elderly woman I have gotten to know but found myself full of annoyance with the expectation that she was going to be paranoid and bitter. She was this for a time and I sat back and listened to her complain without realizing that the PURPOSE of my visit at that moment was to inject LIFE into her surroundings. I was visiting a friend on the verge of death and not doing my utmost to row her away from the doldrums and into the life giving breath of The Spirit. No, I simply fell asleep on her. I couldn't even read the bible to her without dozing off. And that's the third visit in a row that has happened!

What's humbling and revealed to me a heart of transparent duty as opposed to overflowing love, is that I gave my friend the dregs of my day. I had been in school for eight hours and was exhausted. Of course I was probably going to fall asleep and fail to have the energy to take the conversation to better terrain. Life comes when it is gifted as a first fruit offering from the abundance of the heart as opposed to a last
fruit offering from what is left over. I only wanted to offer the leftovers because that is what the drudgery of duty conjures up. My next visit, therefore, will be in the morning when we are both bright eyed and bushy tailed!