Finding Myself in the Imperfect Present

I’ve always been a future-oriented type of person. But really, that’s just the nice way of saying I’ve always been a head-in-the-clouds type of person. To me, the future has always seemed like a perfect and beautiful place. Chalk it up to my idealism, that tendency in me to romanticize what might come, that causes me to be fascinated with possibility. The present, on the other hand, has always felt more like a transition. Sure, in moments it can feel beautiful and perfect. But most of the time it’s just what I’m stuck with, what I have to get through to reach that ideal, promised future.

Yet the more I think about it, the more I realize this approach is a recipe for wasting my life away. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great to have dreams for the future, great to be excited about possibility. But if that's my constant source of wonder and hope and excitement - well, then when will I ever truly be fulfilled?

The last year of my life has been the weirdest one yet. I graduated college with no full time job, and a very clear direction from God to wait, even though I didn’t really know what I was waiting for. There has been so much confusion at times, unanswered questions and open ended sentences. Sometimes I feel like I’m just sitting in a canoe with no oars, floating in the middle of a wide lake that I can’t even see the ends to.

And yet, God has never left, has He? He did not decide to send me out on this boat by myself and hope I’d figure it out on my own. There is purpose here, in the present. Even when my life is not where I thought it might be at twenty-three. Even when I wonder how exactly He’s going to get me to whatever it is He has for me.

So I am learning simply this: be present. Just because I’m not out on the mission field (yet), not married, not published, doesn’t mean this season is any less valuable. Actually, the fact that I’m “not there yet” on any of these things might even make this season more crucial, more valuable because it is the foundation, the building block, for all that is to come in my life.

What a waste it would be to be so blinded by the lovely but elusive concept of the future that I miss the beauty and the meaning of the now. I don’t want to be a head-in-the-clouds type of person anymore. Not if it’s going to keep me from the still, small beauty of the imperfect, but purposeful present. After all, if God is here, in every small and seemingly insignificant facet of my life - then there’s no where else I’d rather be.

#christian #2016