The Right Here Right Now

Unto this very moment, unto the right here right now, unto the particular intersection of time and place in which you presently have your being, unto this you have been called by God. There is no other now like quite it. There will never be another. It is yours. God, in his great generosity, gives you one now after the other, and no one else can live them but you.

Perhaps you don't find your here and now particularly satisfying. Perhaps you dream of another, a more spacious one, more blooming with opportunity. If you are an American, you were born into a culture that feeds on this dissatisfaction, and stirs it up incessantly. Ours is an economy that is essentially an engine fueled by human aspiration to a life, a here and now, other than the one we have actually been given. And so the American Siren-song is something like this: change your life by changing your wardrobe, your hair, your car, your medication. Anything is possible. Dreams can come true. Go West, young man!

I am not immune. I am a small-scale Oddyseus, always dreaming of the next horizon. Thus the moment, the right here right now, takes on a character of deadly ordinariness, while all others we can imagine for ourselves seem to glow and pulse with possibility. The present is truly the most undesired, the most under-appreciated, and therefore the most un-experienced gift that God has given us.

And yet, I repeat, into this this very here and now, this intersection of place and time, you have been called by God for His own kingdom purposes. You are called to be right where you are in the name of Jesus Christ. I am called to be right where I am in the name of Jesus Christ. If I am not being there in His name, I am not redeeming the time, making the most of it, living it to the fullest, keeping in step with the Spirit all the way, nor fulfilling the commission that Christ issued before he left the earth.

Don't let petty dissatisfactions rob you of your here and now. Forgive us, Father, for overlooking your great gift of the right here right now. May we live each one to You.