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!

Senator Boxer vs. Doctor Evil

In light of one of my embarrassing state representatives (Barbara Boxer) I can't imagine the President humiliating a general for calling him "sir." Come to think of it, while in the Marines, if I had called an officer by their rank (such as Captain) I would have been corrected because it's customary for an enlisted man (or even a junior ranking officer) to call the officer one is addressing as "sir" or "ma'am." "Sir" and "ma'am" are words of courtesy and respect where as "Senator" is simply a word connotative of one's position. You should enjoy this YouTube video regardless of whether or not you agree with me (there is more to read after the video).

If I may take the liberty of expounding upon this point as to how a true public servant should act we can look to our Christ. Consider Philippians 2:5-11 for a moment:

⁵Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
⁶Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
⁷but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
⁸And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
⁹Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
¹⁰that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
¹¹and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

So we have a God who humbled Himself by coming to enjoy our life in the flesh with us (by experiencing temptation, illness, injury, and ultimately death) so that He would have the pleasure of our fellowship through forgiveness which could ultimately be bought only by the shedding of His blood. How does He prove to us His desire for such fellowship? It is written in John 15:13-15:

¹³Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. ¹⁴You are my friends if you do what I command. ¹⁵I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.

God, who is of a much higher estate than "Senator" Barbara Boxer, allows us to call on Him as our friend and never rubs His power in our face by demanding obeisance. God humbled Himself before us in accordance with His His nature to prove that, "...everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."