Each Present Moment is God’s Invitation to Grow.

Someone once asked: “When does spiritual growth take place?” My reply was simple: “It happens right now – right where we are.”  Every present moment is the richest and the most fertile time to become better than we are. Why? Simply because it is here that the Holy Spirit is working to move us along on our journey.

 Someone once reminded me that the Spirit is the finger of God while Christ is God’s hand pointing us in God’s direction. Often without our even being aware that it’s happening.

 Saint Ignatius of Loyola says that we only need “one kind of desire in life, which is to love God and as a reward for loving him is to love him more.” Every life lived is like riding a bicycle – we keep moving and when we keep moving our life is balanced!

 What God wants is that we try to realize how we got to where we are today. The poet T.S. Elliott often reminds us that we have experiences, but we rarely take the time to understand their meaning. When we do, we can better shape our tomorrows. And if we have to reach back to our past, we only should do so to live the present better. As a caution, listen to these words from Will Rogers, the popular American humorist: “Let’s not let yesterday take up too much from our tomorrow.”

 We each have different past experiences, different destinations, and took a variety of routes to arrive at our present. If we never stop to appreciate our differences or past, we can lose their meaning and the way they can help us live our present better.

 Saint Francis De Sales would never want us to revisit the past solely to mire in a past hurt, pain, or failure. Healing a past difficulty for Saint Francis is better done in the time left and not in the time spent.

Recently deceased historian, David McCullough, offered this observation about the past: “… history is not about the past. If we think about it, no one ever lives in the past. They live in the present. The difference is it was their present, not ours. They were caught up in the living moment exactly as we do, and with no more certainty of how things would turn out than we have.”

What should keep us going is realizing how much delight God’s has for creation. He sent Jesus, his son, to save creation and not condemn it. Sometimes we forget this truth, because many voices, including preachers, want us to fear God and not love God.

 Many want us to believe God is unhappy with the way his creation is living and caring for the created world. While this may be partially true, because evil does exist in our world, evil can never extinguish a good act no matter how small. It is always difficult to measure the impact goodness has in creation.

 For example, in Uvalde, TX, the fresh flowers, cards, and crosses labeled with the names of the murdered children, was an act of goodness smothering the memory of that act of cruelty. It sent a message of love to all who mourned the murdered children by lifting spirits and easing their pain.

 Unlike this act of goodness shown at Uvalde, voices continue to preach God’s disappointment in our world. They want everyone to believe that God has lost hope in us because of the tragedy done to those young lives.

 True, God may be watching us, but God is also watching out for us. He comes to our assistance, not with a sigh of weary reluctance, but because he loves us. What delights God the most is coming to the aid of those who fail and may be weakened.

 Reading the Scriptures or experiencing the liturgy clearly shows God’s plan for creation, and to what lengths God undergoes to forgive and help us begin again. Our recently completed Christmas season revealed God’s plan and deep love for his creation. After all, didn’t he send his son to be born to save us?

 As long as we live and journey in this life, God will guide us through our past into our present moments waiting for us in our future. As we change through ongoing conversions, we become more perfect, until the day we come close to God’s perfection when we arrive in his eternal home.

We are caught up in the living moment exactly as we are,

with no more certainty of how it will turn out than what we bring to it!

This is why we need to trust God and depend on Jesus words and promises!

 And remember, it is never how many years we live that matters, but how we live each year we are given!