Jesus never seemed to be in a hurry; He never seemed to be anxious about surrounding circumstances; He never seemed to worry about the future; He seemed content with His lot as a homeless itinerant preacher. Jesus lived in the present. He was intensely interested in the people around Him and what was happening right now. He was in constant communication with His Father via the Holy Spirit and much of His daily activities and even future events were revealed to Him. During the forty days in the wilderness He was in vision, and much of his life passed before Him. "He saw the breaking of Satan's power over fallen and tempted ones. He saw himself healing the sick, comforting the hopeless, cheering the desponding, and preaching the gospel to the poor, doing the work that God had outlined for Him" (5 BC 1080). He may have seen the faces of those He was to heal; He may have been shown the identity of His disciples; He may have even seen Zacchaeus in the sycamore tree. But He never allowed all of this foreknowledge to disturb His concentration on the importance of the present nor to distract Him from present responsibilities. Many of His statements indicate that we too are not to allow concerns about the past or future to distract us from how we meet present obligations.
Have you ever become impatient while waiting in line at the bank or post office or while sitting in your car waiting for the light to turn green? When you stop and think about it, isn't it because we are living in the future? Perhaps there is an appointment that we are rushing to meet, or perhaps we are hurrying to complete an errand. While we are stewing about the future we are squandering precious moments of the present. We should relax and look around us for some way or something or somebody to make those moments important. Start a conversation with the person in front or behind you in line, smell the roses, notice the fluffy clouds, admire the flaming sunset. In other words, be aware of the world around you for it may be the only one you will know.
We cannot change the past and only God knows the future, and He doesn't intend for us to be overly concerned about either. Oh, we may remember the past with either pleasure or regret, and we may dream of the future, but we really have no control over either one. The plan of salvation involves three factors: justification, which is available to everyone through the sacrifice of Christ, sanctification, and salvation. Justification has already been accomplished, salvation is ours only by faith not works, so the only one of the three that we can do anything about is sanctification, the daily moment by moment surrender to God's will. The present is all we have, so let us rejoice and be glad that we have been given a portion of today. May each one of us, like Jesus, determine to "be a now person."
