We are all time travelers to some extent. Most of us spend at least part of our lives reliving the past or thinking about the future. This is not necessarily wrong – we were given memories to remember the lessons of the past, and imaginations to see and plan for the future as well as we can. But we were never intended to live in another dimension of time.
Sadly, some Christians who have undergone traumatic experiences, or who have made mistakes they find hard to forget, spend a lot of time and emotional energy dwelling on the past – re-living or analyzing events and mistakes and often suffering through the events repeatedly. This is definitely something that we need to overcome. We should always try to learn what we can from the past mistakes that we or others have made, but as Christians we are instructed to let these things be covered by the forgiveness we have in Jesus Christ (Hebrews 10:14–18). Isaiah specifically tells us “I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins” (Isaiah 43:25 ESV – and the clear implication is that what God chooses to forget, we should also.
Anything less is not to trust in the fullness of Christ’s sacrifice – it is to proudly believe that the sins and problems of our past are too great to be covered. We may not consciously think this, but if we do spend a lot of time re-living past events we should carefully assess our thoughts and ask God for help we may need to come back from the past: to forget the details, remember the lessons, and let God move us forward. As the apostle Paul (who was as conscious as any of us of mistakes in his past) wrote: “one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead” (Philippians 3:13).
It is much healthier – both emotionally and spiritually – to look forward rather than backward. But Christians may also fall into a ditch on that side of the road of life. If we find ourselves frequently being concerned about the future, we must focus on the fact that trusting God regarding our future is a basic aspect of our faith (Matthew 6: 31–33). As Jesus said: “do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself” (Matthew 6:34).
But there is a final and equally debilitating aspect of living in the future. Many Christians begin to look to the future as an answer to the problems of the present. This is not wrong if it is part of our trust that God will work things out, but if we begin to focus unduly on the coming kingdom of God or “when I get to heaven” or prophecies regarding the end of the world and what might happen next, we can begin to live in the future and lose our focus on living God’s will and doing God’s work today. Sadly, many who do this inadvertently diminish God’s calling in their lives. We can and should pray daily for God’s kingdom to come, but that involves the institution of God’s will now just as much as in the future. The responsibilities God gives us in this regard are all in the here and now. God calls us not to live in the future to escape the now, but to live in a now that is inspired by the future.
God himself is clearly a God of the present. When Moses asked God what his name was, God told him: “I am that I am” (Exodus 3:14) – God does not focus on what he has been or will be, his identity is tied to now, to eternally filling the present. Certainly God is the alpha and omega (Revelation 1:8; 21:6) – the beginning and the end – but that means he was and will be the same in an eternal present. And that is what God calls us to be, also. Trite as it may sound, there is a lot of wisdom in the old saying “Today is God’s gift, and that’s why we call it the present.”
When we focus on living in the present-moment, whatever we do – even the simplest action – can be fulfilling God’s long-term purpose for us. The psalmist wrote “I will sing praises to your name forever as I fulfill my vows each day” (Psalm 61:8), and this is God’s intent for us – for us to keep the big picture of eternity in mind, but to live in the present of each day we are given.
We should always remember that God calls us to let the past be our teacher, to let the future be our hope, but to let the present be our life.
