The day was horrible - temperature was in the low 40s and it drizzled all day. Everywhere I looked, I saw shades of gray. Earth has lost its greenery. Light fog covered everything. I had two choices, both unusual: make batter with chickpea flour, deep fry everything I could put my hands on, or spend the day in an Adoration Chapel - a 15ft X 10ft room with no windows - and make good use of the Notepad app on the iPhone. I chose the latter. And now I wonder if I would get up tomorrow regretting my choice. Choices, O God, tricky indeed they are. With Your grace, one thing I have decided - when choosing between the two unknowns, I will go for the one that is more unusual than the other.The Plot
I don't know if anybody besides a human person could dream - dream while they are awake or imagination, to be exact. If you ask me, I would say that the ability to dream is the second most amazing characteristic of a human being - second only to the ability to love. As a parent, I used to get irritated seeing one of my kids sitting motionless and staring into the blank, with varying expressions flashing through his face - squinting eyes, grinding teeth, a subtle smile on the corner of the lips. I often have to remind myself not to interrupt anybody's dream anymore - it is a vision, a glimpse of what the future has in stock; it is an amazing gift of God.
The Theme - The Bad and the Ugly
God wants us to be concerned about what we do, rather than what we would do. We on the other hand are more concerned about what we would do and pay little attention to what we do. We like to manage everyday things by doing just enough to get by. We live in the present by regretting the past. We worry about all the lost opportunities of yesterdays and we keep second-guessing the path we chose at every fork on the road we passed. We can't wait for the day to be over, to get a fresh start, a new step towards the future of our dreams. Then we wake up the next morning regretting how we wasted yet another day yesterday.
A regretful yesterday and an anxious tomorrow are the two things that barricades ourselves from reaching the potential that God intends for us. The God I believe in is a God who exists outside the limitations of time. He was, is and will be the same God yesterday, today and tomorrow. But I am not. I am not a man of yesterday or tomorrow - I am a human person of today. Yesterday's gone; tomorrow's yet to come. But today's here and so am I. So I wonder WHY? Why God - the God of yesterday, today and tomorrow - give me today, rather than giving me another turn at yesterday, or skip ahead to that tomorrow that I dream of?
God doesn't live in the past
I think the worst part about losing something is the lasting memory of ever having it. I know this because I have lost more than I have ever made (And if you wonder how somebody could lose more than what they have, try losing things that was borrowed from others). Poverty is not painful for somebody who is born poor, for somebody who has always live among poor; a meal a day could make him happy. Losing a meal a day, however, is painful for somebody who is used to having four meals a day; it is not the hunger, but the memories of a satisfying fourth meal, that hurts. I pray everyday to God to give me the ability to be happy with I am/have today. In doing so, I am telling God that I am not happy with where I am/have today, that I would rather be in my yesterdays - away from His love and mercy. No matter how much I try to mask it with humility and obedience, it is there at the bottom of my heart. HE knows it, and He knows that I know it too.
Though He is the God of yesterday, God doesn't live in the past. And whoever lives in God and God in him doesn't live in the past either. The saying goes: No man ever get to step in the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man. There must be a reason I am no longer in my yesterday, and that reason could be that I am no longer the man I was yesterday. Therefore I no longer belong to yesterday and yesterday no longer fit me. I may look the same as I did yesterday, but I have changed. And through change God is strengthening me to find the purpose of my life.
God doesn't live in the future either
I dream big, but then so does everybody else. Why dream about becoming smaller than you actually are (unless of course you have ambitions of losing weight)? But think about the act of dreaming itself. For a rational being, it is an incredibly absurd thing to do. To sit there, in the midst of all anxieties and agonies, and to think of a happy place that exists in another dimension. Though it is within an arm's distance, somehow we could never touch it with our hands or hold it by closing the fist. How could anybody with the ability to dream ask for proof of God's existence? Who but God could think of medium where even the lowly of the lowliest could close their eyes and have a private world of his own - a world where mortals are immortals, where one is living the other's death.
Though God has given us the incredible ability to dream, He is not a God who exists only in the future. When I dream, I don't dream about God (I do make the mistake of dreaming to become god though), but I dream about me. There is always me in my dreams, and I could be that 'me' only if I could believe, not in me but in the One who has given the ability to see me as 'me'.
The Climax - God is present
No matter how much I don't like it, I live in the present - there is only NOW. Yesterdays are behind me, it was there to prepare for me to change; tomorrow is ahead of me, someday I will leave it behind; God is present, enabling me to remember the past to prepare for the future. But why do I have to have an awareness of the past and anticipation of the future to live in the present? Why God, why can't I just live in the present without regretting the past and worrying about the future?
Living in a selfish world, we have stopped looking at our lives through the eyes of God. We get glimpses of what God's intentions are with us through our imagination. But this enormous dream that we compile about our future is minuscule in comparison with God's plans for us. We fall flat on our face and might never get up if we ever realize what God has in store for us - not in the next life, but in this life here on earth. You see, God wants our future to be bigger, better and brighter than the past. It doesn't matter how good of a past we had, He wants to step it up another notch. How can He ever make it a reality unless we are able to remember the past and envision the future, all the while living in the present.
The Anti-climax
Living in the present is our chance to intrigue others. By committing ourselves to do simple things of everyday life spectacularly well with care and love, God wants us to fascinate others. He wants us to respect and cherish our family. He wants us to work hard and pay attention to our daily work. He wants us to go out of our way to help somebody in need. He wants us to stand up for what's right without counting the cost. God doesn't measure our life by counting all the spectacular accomplishments, rather He looks at the way we live and we love. We live and love in the present, so is GOD. Amen.
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