Here, there, and everywhere

"Are you all right, you seem sad and distracted?"

So it happened again this morning, my wife and I were playing with our one-year-old son and she caught me gazing off into the distance. I don't mean literally gazing the distance, but certainly wherever I was I wasn't there. My mind had wandered again to the day's distractions. This happens to me a lot, far too often I confess.

There are so many times in my life, looking back, where I have allowed anxieties about the future or worries about to do lists, distract me from the beauty and wonder of that God given moment. There is a reason that God encourages me to ask only for my daily bread -- he knows that my heart is too broken to try to process any more than that in a sitting. And yet, still, I can't seem to help myself. Over and over again, I insist on focusing on the (apparently) urgent and not the important. It is my heart's firm desire to contribute to my own salvation -- sitting just never came naturally to me. The world applauds this habit but the Lord weeps over it.

I am not suggesting that it is God's intention for us to sit around and do nothing; Christianity is anything but a passive religion and fully engages in the world.. Instead, before we do anything, we are asked to remember our position as sinners -- we are simultaneously incapable of doing anything to improve our standing before the Lord (which is the only standing that really matters) and yet through the power of the Holy Spirit capable of doing anything and everything. Whenever I approach my day without a firm grasp on the humility that my position demands, I end up getting distracted. I think that I am in control and that if I don't focus on all my tasks then the world or at least my little world will fall apart... what an obviously sad and false assumption.  

I miss so much of what is good in life through my distraction. Will it ever be possible for me to live in the apparent tension of respecting God's commands for my life (to love him and to love others) and to be present in the moment?  But of course it is...  I am just making a false assumption in my question; I am implying a false dichotomy. God's command is quite clear: love others. I'm sitting there with my son and my wife. Nothing on my agenda for the day should distract me from that moment.  My command is clear!

Of course we all know that any resolution that I make to follow this tact I will inevitably break. That is just the human condition. So I ask for your prayers.

Lord help this sinner be present and grateful for each of the moments you give me. Help me to be mindful of the simple question, "am I loving others in this moment?" Please forgive me in advance for all the times I know I'm going to fail.

CPP