Redefining Living In the Moment

“Shun youthful lusts and flee from them, and aim at and pursue righteousness
(all that is virtuous and good, right living, conformity to the will of God in thought, word, and deed);
[and aim at and pursue] faith, love, [and] peace (harmony and concord with others)
in fellowship with all [Christians], who call upon the Lord out of a pure heart.

2 Timothy 2:22 (Amplified Bible, Classic Edition)

To live in the moment in its purest form is to live mindfully, guided by divine love and rooted in peace that surpasses all understanding. To truly be present means to let go of the worries about today and the anxieties of tomorrow, surrendering them to the Lord, so we’re not calculating next steps. We live in the moment when we feel safe in who God is, rather than feeling safe in the circumstances we find ourselves in. Circumstances always change, but the Lord never does. To be present with His presence leads us to live from a spiritually rested place that catalyzes a deeper level of healing that we wouldn’t be able to do on our own if we lived hustling and striving for something seemingly unattainable: true love, joy, and peace.

Lust is a time waster. It creates these mental loops of fantasies built on possibilities, allowing for another person to play russian roulette with our hearts, while never taking accountability for the action of giving our hearts to someone who never had the capacity to take care of how precious our hearts truly are. Lust causes you to live in the history of your broken relationships, and to scheme and plot for your future, always trying to see what cards you have that can trump another. But love was never meant to be a game. Love was meant to expand that precious shared moment into something that strengthens the person’s foundation for a thriving life, rather than a game to play to see who “could win.” There is no winning when someone else gets hurt. Yet, in the world, many use this conception of “living in the moment” to justify living in lust, giving themselves over to the whims of old wounds and broken conceptions of the world.

There have been many different conceptions of what it means to “live in the moment,” emphasizing the usage of ritual to root oneself in the illusion of now, inorganically creating cycles that feel spiritual, but fall short of truly attuning one’s soul to the reality of today. Today is a present that can only be lived fully by letting go of baggage that only weighs our souls down – the disappointments, grief, and unforgiveness and bitterness that try

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow
will worry about its own things.
Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

Matthew 6:34 (New King James Version)

In the world, people are always reiterating the importance of living in the moment through popular sayings like “YOLO” (You only live once), “LIVE FAST, DIE YOUNG,” and even through mindfulness practices that reiterate the importance of the present. But because these sayings are not rooted in the spirit of truth, which is the Holy Spirit, the meaning becomes perverted and leads people astray. Each of these sayings produces the following in us: YOLO stirs emotions of fear because we believe that we are missing out, and we end up guilting ourselves to attend things

feeling that to live to the fullest means to live recklessly, or being so focused on the present that we lose sight of the future. Yet God gave us basic instructions before leaving Earth, aka the Bible.

One of the most convicting verses that God has given me over the years has been 2 Timothy 2:22. Although I was getting older, I still had some habits that stemmed from the wrong thinking I had grown up meditating on, thoughts that sounded good, but led to more pain down the line. Being a Christian is more than changing our outer appearance; it is about being a DISCIPLE. Disciple shares the same root word as DISCIPLINE. And while one can be disciplined outside of having faith, the only way to maintain heart purity is to recognize that the discipline we live out is ONLY possible because of what the Spirit of the Lord has placed inside us, rather than what we can do in our own strength. While we all