This Is My Real Life—Right Here, Right Now

from Pat Morley

Volume 234
June 11, 2007

Recently I’ve been learning a lesson that falls in the category: The greatest lessons to learn are the ones I already know.

I’m always thinking about the future. Perhaps you do the same. The problem is, the further we live into the future the more confusion and anxiety we experience in the present.

But then how do we plan? We treat the future as a place we visit, not as a place we live. So recently I resolved, “I will try to live in the present.”

I was working on the idea of living in the present, but still getting stuck. The other day I ran across something C. S. Lewis said that helps complete the puzzle. Maybe you will find it helpful too. He said, "What one calls the interruptions are precisely one's real life--the life God is sending one day by day: what one calls one's 'real life' is a phantom of one's own imagination."

In other words, what’s happening right now is my real life—not the picture of what I wish will happen. My real life is writing, preparing messages, phone calls, aching muscles, asking Jesus for grace to overcome my fears, dropping everything to work a deadline.

God, don’t let me miss it. Help me find joy in everything I do. Don’t let my contentment depend on outcomes. Instead, may the act of faithfully doing the task before me in obedience to you be all the joy and contentment I need.

This is my real life—right here, right now.

For the glory of Christ and no other reason,

Pat Morley, Ph.D.