July 10, 2022
Today I want to start with a question: How many of you are here? Not just physically present (or with us at home), but how many of you have your mind here, present, in this moment? If you’re here, say, “I’m here.” Tell someone near you, “I’m here.” (If you’re at home, Type in the chat, I am here, wherever you are.) I’m so thankful you are here, we’re all together in this moment, worshipping of our awesome God, in the presence of his Holy Spirit. The reason I asked, “are you here?’ is because soon, some of you won’t be here. You’ll still be here, but your attention will be somewhere else. You’ll get a text message and your mind will go to that. Some of you will be thinking about what you’ll do for lunch, or what you have on your to-do list today.
Today we’ll hear about some of our fathers and mothers in the faith, whose feet were in one place, but their minds were somewhere else.
The Lord God rescued the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. They were so happy they sang songs about the victory that God won over their enemy: they sang about the Egyptian chariots: horse and rider, the Lord has thrown into the sea! That was an amazing victory! They celebrated, singing and dancing! But the Israelites were not happy with what came next: camping!
The Lord told them to go into the wilderness of Shur, and they did. They walked for three days in the wilderness but couldn’t find water. When they finally found water in Marah, they couldn’t drink it because it was bitter. The people complained to Moses that there was no water to drink. So, the Lord had Moses throw a piece of wood into the water, and the water became sweet. That was good. Then they moved on to a place called Elim, where there were 12 springs of water, and they camped by the water.
But they have to keep going. They don’t stay at Elim. They move on. And the people of Israel are feeling anxious. They are worried, will we have food and water every day? So, they go to Moses and Aaron and say, ‘If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots (fleshpots were pots you used for cooking) and ate our fill of bread; (we wish we had died in Egypt), because now you, Moses, have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”
This is extreme complaining! To say if only I died in Egypt, I would be better off! The Israelites have a particular talent for complaining. But it’s common for you and me to look back on our past experiences and think, “Things were better back then.” We edit out the bad parts: we say, things were better when I was a kid. Forgetting that back then, you couldn’t wait to grow up so you could stay up as late as you wanted to and eat ice cream for dinner if you chose to, and no one would ever tell you no!
Haven’t you wished you were back at some time in the past? Or wished you were in the future? Well, we miss out on a wonderful day when we do that: a day called, “TODAY!” Your best days are not behind you or ahead of you. They are right now.
Jesus was always present in the moment. He gave people his undivided attention, one of the greatest gifts he could give, his attention and love. I’m not always like that and I pray to be more like Jesus: engaged in whatever is in front of me. Not just living in the happy moments and the exciting moments. I want to be present in all the moments. Even the annoying ones. I wonder how many of you live in the middle of a lot of annoying moments right now? Don’t point at anybody! Some seasons of life are more annoying than others. If you have little kids, so often it seems like there are toys all over the floor. And you wish you could come home to a clean, picked up house. One day when your kids are gone, you’ll miss them, and long for those days when they were with you. Those toys all over the floor weren’t so bad! So often we’re complaining about things we will miss one day!
Or you’re a grown adult and you have parents who annoy you. But when one day they pass on to their heavenly reward, you will wish they could be here again, annoying you! Your best days are not behind you or ahead of you. They are right now.
Jesus lived in the moment. He responded to people who interrupted him as if they were not interruptions. Blind Bartimaeus yelled out to Jesus, and Jesus called him over, asked what he wanted and healed him. Then there’s Zaccheus, if you don’t know who he was, I want to tell you about Zaccheus. “Zaccheus was a wee little man, a wee little man was he. He climbed up in a sycamore tree, for the Lord he wanted to see.” If you were in Sunday school as a kid, you know who Zaccheus was. And Jesus said to him, “Zaccheus, you come down! For I’m coming to your house today.” When Zaccheus sat at dinner and told Jesus he would pay back all he had cheated from people. Jesus used an important word: Jesus said TODAY! “Today salvation has come to this house.” Jesus was all about TODAY. He paid attention to the people around him. They were what was important to him in the moment.
The truth is, Your best days are not behind you or ahead of you. They are right now, TODAY. Research finds that 47% of the time, our minds are not where our feet are. We’re in a conversation with someone but checking out at some point and not listening. Almost half of your waking life your mind is not engaged with where the rest of your body is. Phones: we tap, type, swipe or click on average, 2,617 times a day!
The Israelites were good at complaining, but the Lord was good at providing. He provided water and food. They were in the wilderness for 40 years, but God took care of their need. He would continue to provide in the future. The people said they wanted to go back to Egypt, back to their past, but when they were slaves in Egypt they cried out to God for help. The people slowly learned in the wilderness that they could trust God with their future.
There was something very good about the TODAY of the Israelites. They spent their TODAYs in the wilderness, where God revealed Himself to them. God made a way for them when there didn’t seem to be a way. He worked miracles: he gave them food: manna for bread and quail from heaven. He gave them water from a rock. And God promised to be their God in the future. He said, “I am the Lord your God.” God was teaching them that they could live in the moment. They could stop wishing for the past and worrying about the future, because he was their God and he would take care of them.
The only way you can be present in the moment is to surrender a past you can’t change and trust God with a future you can’t control. All will be ok, because God is with you TODAY!
Who likes camping? It depends: if I have something comfortable to sleep on, and I won’t get wet if it rains, it’s pretty great! In the Bible, the wilderness is not a hopeless place. Camping is a holy thing. The wilderness was a place where God spoke to his people. God spoke to the Moses on Mount Sinai and gave the people the 10 commandments. God spoke through Moses. Sometimes we don’t want to camp, we want to avoid the discomfort of the wilderness. But camping is an invitation to live in the moment. You don’t have the distractions of home. It’s up to you to make your fire, cook your food, pitch your tent and find your way through the woods. When you camp you don’t bring everything from home with you. You eliminate the stuff that doesn’t matter, so you can pursue the things that matter most.
Your best days are not behind you or ahead of you. They are right now: TODAY! TODAY is the only place you can make a difference. You can’t change the past or control the future.
My homework for you this week is to practice being fully present. Slow down and soak in the moments happening around you. Pay attention to the people around you and see nature. Thank God for TODAY.
Try that now. Take a deep breath in and s-l-o-w-l-y let it out. Look around with a smile. This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it!
Let us pray: Holy God, we thank You for today and for this moment. Help us be fully present with You and with others. We don’t want to miss what we have now in pursuit of what we want later. Please give us peace and strength to be here in this moment. We trust You. In Jesus’ name, amen.
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