Being Present

We are in the middle of a great series for our high school kids talking about past, present, and future.  I am always so amazed by how applicable a lot of the lessons are even within my own life.  There are just some things that are timeless truths.  This week we learned about embracing the present.  We watched an incredible video by Rob Bell (Nooma.com) that started several chains of thought for me.  The message explains how much time we waste by wishing things could be as they were in the past.  We dwell in past stories and experiences and focus our energy on remembering those things.  We often do this to the point where we are so busy looking back that we miss the current moments. 

I have been guilty of this plenty of times.  This past year I had several friends move to other states.  I spent a lot of time in 2011 dwelling on how much I missed them and how I wish things were back to the way they were.  I was so focused on this at times that I missed opportunities to spend time with potential new friends.  Changing my thought process doesn’t mean I love my out of state friends any less but it does mean I can’t sit around dwelling in how much I miss them.  That mindset won’t change their location and it won’t bring me any closer to building new friendships.

I think we get very comfortable in our lives and change scares us.  The issue with this is that life is always changing.  People get sick, people move, friends change, people die, people grow apart, and our circumstances are always changing.  If we cling too heavily to something stationary in the past it will only cause us to be pulled in too many directions.  We can cherish our memories but we must recognize that they are memories; they part of the fabric that made us who we are but they are not the whole tapestry.  The lesson challenged us all to embrace today.  There are opportunities all around us if we can only increase our awareness of the present moment and capitalize on those things. 

“The past is history, the future is a mystery, but today is a gift – that is why they call it the present”

Here is a brief trailer from the video we watched – you can buy the full video download online and I promise it is worth it!