Staying Present
Scenario #1: A single mother named Leanne was struggling to teach and discipline her willful teenage son. What first started as breaking curfew turned into refusing to go to Church, which turned into sluffing school. However, each time the behavior worsened, the mother disciplined less and less. However, it was not because she didn’t want to. It’s just that she was struggling with some deep insecurity and overwhelming guilt.
Why? She had made some mistakes in parenting her son earlier in his life, and she believed his choices were her fault. She was so sure she had messed everything up with him in the past, she couldn’t figure out how to discipline him now. In Leanne’s mind, his behavior was just an extension of her failure. She could not forgive herself for it nor forget about it, both of which were paralyzing her. Fear and frustration were part of her everyday interactions with him.
Scenario #2: Ben started feeling that he needed to switch to a different college in a different state. That school had a better program than the one he was currently attending and would allow him to better pursue his education. However, every time he thought about it, he would get a sick feeling inside. He was sure that meant he wasn’t supposed to go.
The only problem? Any time Ben would even think about switching schools, his mind would become consumed with these thoughts: “Where am I going to live?” “How do I know things will work out?” “Will I find a job?” “What about all the transfer credits they won’t take?” “Who will be my roommate?” “What if others think it’s a stupid idea?” “What if I hate it?”
Have you ever found yourself, like Leanne, so paralyzed by something that has happened in the past that you feel unable to do something today? Have you, like Ben, worried so much about something that might happen in the future that you feel unable to make decisions today? Well, you’re not alone — and it simply may indicate you are not staying present.
Lao Tzu, a Chinese philosopher, is quoted as saying:
She was so sure she had messed everything up with him in the past, she couldn’t figure out how to discipline him now.
However, every time he thought about it, he would get a sick feeling inside. He was sure that meant he wasn’t supposed to go.
"If you are depressed, you are living in the past.
If you are anxious, you are living in the future.
If you are at peace, you are living in the present."
We know what it feels like when we dwell on the past — holding on to mistakes we’ve made or repeatedly going back to the disappointments in our lives. We feel helpless. We feel hopeless. We feel depressed. And if we stay there long enough, we get stuck somewhere back in that past. We are trapped by something we can no longer do anything about.
We also know what it feels like to worry about what might happen somewhere down the road. We feel anxious. We panic. We look to some future event when we will finally be happy or successful. We just want today to get over with already. In the process, we lose sight of the people and circumstances that need our attention right in front of us. Today becomes a blur because we are actually living in the future.
None of those feelings and experiences seem peaceful in any way. And there’s a reason for that. There’s a reason, as Lao stated, that peace cannot be found by living in the past or future. And, in many ways, it has to do with revelation.
In C.S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letters, we read about a head devil named Screwtape who is training Wormwood, his apprentice, on how to lead humans away from their Enemy (or God). At one point, Screwtape tells Wormwood,
“The humans live in time but the Enemy destines them for eternity.
He therefore, I believe, wants them to attend chiefly to two things,
to eternity itself, and to that point of time which they call the Present.
For the Present is the point at which time touches eternity. . . .
“He would therefore have them continually concerned either with eternity
(which means being concerned with Himself) or the Present. . . .
Our business is to get them away from the eternal and from the Present . . . .
We sometimes tempt a human to live in the past . . . .
He (God) does not want men to give the Future their hearts . . . .
We do . . . we want a man hag-ridden by the Future.”[i]
What an incredible concept. The Present is where time touches eternity. If that is true, it seems, the present would also be the place where God is and the place where we can connect with Him.[ii] And if the present is where we connect with eternity and where we connect with God, it would seem, then, that the present is where we can receive messages from God. It would seem the present is where revelation flows. Thus, it is the place where peace — and every other fruit of His Spirit — can be found.
And so, simply put, another way we can hinder revelation in our lives is by not staying present.
We hinder the ability for God to communicate with us when we are not where He is. It becomes very difficult to receive or act on revelation when we are not where revelation flows. And the adversary, as Lewis so brilliantly explained, will do whatever he has to, and in whatever way he has to, to cause us to live in some other time and place than where God is. Satan wants us to disconnect from the present and hinder the flow of that communication in our lives.
We find this principle in an incredible miracle from the Israelites’ 40-year journey through the wilderness. Shortly after they had walked through the Red Sea on dry ground, the children of Israel quickly forgot the mercy and deliverance of the Lord. They began to grumble about the lack of food.[v] Instead of showing gratitude for their freedom or exercising faith that He would provide for them again, they complained. They told Moses they would have rather died as slaves to the Egyptians, sitting by the fleshpots, than wander around in the wilderness dying from hunger.[vi]
Now, we know that their nomadic lifestyle largely prevented this multitude of Israelites from hunting game or growing sufficient crops to feed everyone. Food was going to be an ever-present need during their exodus. Moses knew that. The Lord knew that. Yet it seems God also knew their wandering, fickle hearts needed some refining.
And so, incredibly — even in their murmuring, even in their lack of trust in Him — He chose to rain down “bread from heaven” every day except the Sabbath to feed them. They called it manna (which literally meant “What is this?”) and it appeared on the ground day after day, six mornings of the week . . . for forty years.[vii]
Elder D. Todd Christofferson explained:
“By providing a daily sustenance, one day at a time, Jehovah was trying to teach faith to a nation that over a period of some 400 years had lost much of the faith of their fathers. He was teaching them to trust Him, to ‘look unto [Him] in every thought; doubt not, fear not’ (D&C 6:36). He was providing enough for one day at a time. . . . In essence, the children of Israel had to walk with Him today and trust that He would grant a sufficient amount of food for the next day on the next day, and so on. In that way, He could never be too far from their minds and hearts. . . .”[viii]
[i] The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis, pp. 75-77, emphasis added
[ii] Elder Neal A. Maxwell even uses a phrase “the holy present” in one of his talks, a concept that I believe could be studied further. (“Content with the Things Allotted unto Us,” Ensign, May 2000)
[v] Exodus 14:16; Joshua 3:17
[vi] Exodus 16:3
[vii] vs. 4, 6, 15
[viii] “Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread,” CES Fireside for Young Adults, January 9, 2011, Brigham Young University
[ix] Elder D. Todd Christofferson, “Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread,” CES Fireside for Young Adults, January 9, 2011, Brigham Young University