Spiritual Corner -- Living In The Present

Once I read an article saying that there are only 3 days in a man’s life:— yesterday, today and tomorrow. Yesterday is over, tomorrow has not come yet, so only today is the most important, because today is still on-going. So, living today is living in the present. The present refers to everything happening now:— what one is doing now, the situation one is in and the people around him. Living in the present is to commit one’s whole body, heart and soul into this moment, to care for the people, the happenings and things around him.

Life is not the past, nor the future but now. The passed has past whether one has achieved much or idle much. What has passed cannot be reversed. If one cannot let go of the past but linger on past happenings, the present would soon become another past that one cannot let go. From the Bible, we learn that Jesus forgives the sins of people to free them from their failures and sins in the past . If one keeps worrying about the future, living in the worries of the future, one would neglect life in the present. So Jesus also says, “Look at the birds of the air, they neither sow nor reap nor gather into the barns, and yet your Heavenly Father keeps on feeding them. Are you not worth more than they?” So, with God’s care, there is no need to worry about the future, “Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough troubles of its own.”

Living in the present is to experience God’s presence here and now. With this joy, let go of the past, trust God in a way like a child without worries. Let trust replace the worry about the future. As Jesus says, “Give us this day our daily bread”, not tomorrow nor yesterday, but the bread of this day. Thus, we have to live in Jesus in the present, entrust everything in His hands, try our best to do our work, live well and care for the people in our lives.

Yours,
Fr. Matthew Wang