A reminder on "now"

My small group is reading through Henri Nouwen's book "Here and Now." In the first chapter, there's one point I found to be very poignant.

"We are constantly distracted by things that have happened in the past or that might happen in the future. It is not easy to remain focused on the present. Our mind is hard to master and keeps pulling us away from the moment."

This may be one of my most difficult challenges in life--living in the present. I have big plans. I have things I want to accomplish or simply do. I have the tendency to focus on the end result and often times either miss the journey, or never even work toward the goal. Accomplishing something in future requires doing something in the now. For me it's just much easier to dream about what could be than to actually takes steps to make it happen.

Nouwen says the same about prayer.

"Prayer is the discipline of the moment. When we pray, we enter into the presence of God whose name is God-with-us."

I can act like what really matters is my projects that I need to get done. But when I take the time to stop and reflect, life is really about the relationships--with God and with people. Like prayer, relationships are a "now" kind of discipline. I would like to have a better marriage in the future, but the only real way to have that is to focus on the now. I can't do anything about the future, I can only work with now. I can only improve my marriage now.

"If we could just be, for a few minutes each day, fully where we are, we would indeed discover that we are not alone and that the One who is with us wants only one thing: to give us love."

If I could "be where I am..." As strange as that sounds, if I really want to care for people, it's where I have to live...not worried about the future or regretting the past, but fully in the now. As it is, I think I miss out on a lot of opportunities to love because I'm stuck in another place or time, always wanting to have my life be different in some way.

But I think as learn to I trust God, I will learn to trust that He has me where He wants me and I'll be satisfied with my place and the influence I have right here, right now.