Give us Today

Some days lately I’ve been waking up a little depressed.  Part of it is my own fault: I don’t keep a consistent schedule, I stay up too late then wake up “behind” from the start, and I people-please my way into over-booking.  (And let’s be real, sometimes with kids, any booking is “over-booking”.)

But part of it is my season- I really believe I’m in a transition phase in my life, and I don’t know how long I’ll be there.  (Maybe that’s true for most of us, to some extent.)  I’m writing more, hoping to speak more, and seeing God set up some encouraging momentum in those areas.  Still, I’m not there yet. Wherever “there” is.  And frankly, whether I’m here or there I’m still a mom and wife who should at least occasionally clean the bathroom and make a meal other than Ramen and hot dogs.

Waiting is hard.  I realize I need to practice living in the present, which sounds ridiculous because the present is the only place we can physically inhabit.

Lately I’ve noticed a new slightly irritating habit in my five year old.  He has a great need to ask me theoretical questions, with “what-ifs” and “so thens”.

“Mommy, if so-and-so can’t drive and we can’t pick her up, would her grandma bring her?”  “Mommy, can I go on that tall obstacle thing with you if we go to Great Wolf Lodge again?”

And the kicker is he likes to ask most of his questions while I’m driving and am zoning out with my own thoughts and the road ahead.  My answer lately is either a mindless “um, uhuh” or that I can’t answer the question because I just don’t know.  I find myself getting physically stressed out because I can barely handle for-real plans without crossing into the realm of the theoretical.

But when it comes to me and God, I do the same thing my son does:

“What’s next God?”  “If this scenario happens will you let me do THAT?”  “Can you just, ya know, just give me a sign so I know that we’re on the same page with my long term goals?” “Why am I waiting here for this when I know you’ve promised it?”

A wise member of our church recently shared how God showed him a picture of what it looks like to follow Him- that it’s like following down a path where you can see just to a curve, then no more.  And he said God asks us to follow in obedience just to where we can see, then when we get to the next curve He’ll show us more.

I love that picture!  And yet I need to be trained in it.

Today I felt like God helped me to see two important things related to waiting.  The first is that if He gave me the full picture now, I’d probably stop trusting HIM and start trusting the OUTCOME.  I might just be so focused on the final destination that I’d remove walking with Him from the equation.  “Thanks God, I’ve got the map now, I’ll take it from here.”

But isn’t the whole point that I walk with Him daily, regardless of where I’m going?  Back in Eden, Adam and Eve walked with God…I don’t think they were overly concerned with being “productive” or with who they were “becoming”.  They knew how to simply enjoy God.

And that’s the second thing He showed me:  Whatever promise I’m waiting on tomorrow doesn’t change the promise of who God is for me today.  There’s no hope for me tomorrow that isn’t available to me today.  In Jesus I live and move and have my being, in knowing Jesus I have eternal life, in the Spirit I find peace and joy and love. Today.  Because my God is constant, yesterday, TODAY and tomorrow.

There is nothing I’m waiting for that’s worth MISSING the beauty and promise of God’s presence today.

And maybe that’s why God must remind us to ask for our “daily bread”.  We come to Him for this minute when we have cranky kids and no more peanut butter; the grace we need for this moment of anxiety or depression that won’t lift; the perspective and joy we need for this day when the car or washing machine or lawn mower is broken.

Tomorrow will worry about itself, He says. Whatever God’s doing in our lives He will be faithful to complete it, so we can let it go.  We don’t live in tomorrow or yesterday- we live in today and that’s precisely where an unchanging God plans to meet us with arms big enough to carry this moment.