In the moment ~

It's fascinating how so many people are encouraging everyone around them to live in the moment. Live right now. Don't think ahead. Don't fall behind. Don't look back and be stuck in the past. Right now is the only time that you have.



It's in meditation apps and videos and recordings. It's in blog posts and books and self-help guides. It's taught in big companies and everything else. Marketers use all of this teaching to get people to go ahead and spend money on something they really shouldn't buy.



But since you're living in the moment, you should have your best life right now and have this right now. Spend your money on my thing.



As a Christian, I read the Bible. I love to read the book of Proverbs each month. And I'll pick a few Psalms and run through the New Testament. I don't really enjoy the prophets because it's just depressing. And I'll do the whole history books whenever we're going through them at church. Just so I can be reminded of all the great stories that the Bible tells about our God and his people.



But this living in the moment thing is a struggle for me. I meditate and I use a couple of apps to do it. They are not Christian-based meditations. And so they are beating hard on that drum that you should live for right now. Breathe in, breathe out. And that's all there is.



I struggle with that teaching because that's not what I was taught. I was taught to plan ahead and be prepared. And I struggle with that.



In the Bible, Psalm 49 seems to talk about this. Psalm 49 talks about plain spoken wisdom being set before you, how the writer doesn't fear the bad times. In The Message version of Psalm 49 it even says, "there is no such thing as self-rescue, pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. The cost of rescue is beyond our means, and even then it doesn't guarantee life forever or insurance against the black hole."



Further down in Psalm 49, it says, "we aren't immortal. We don't last long. Like our dogs, we age and weaken and die. This is what happens to those who live for the moment, who only look out for themselves. Death herds them like sheep straight to hell. They disappear down the gullet of the grave. They waste away to nothing, nothing left but a marker in a cemetery." And then the writer says, "but me, God snatches me from the clutch of death. He reaches down and grabs me."



It's interesting to think about that psalm in light of things being taught.



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