This Moment

One of these days I will make better use of a diary! I make prolific use of notebooks! I don’t just use one note book, write in it until it is empty, but have half a dozen scattered about the house. I will just pick up the nearest to hand and start writing in it! One of these many note books has the rota of who is speaking and who is leading worship for the next few weeks. Can I find it? Absolutely not!

However, in the browsing I came across a few lines of a poem that I had been inspired to write:-

This Moment

Sometimes we think
We have forever
But we have
Just this one moment
If we wait for what we think to be
A better moment
We miss the chance
The flame never gets ignited
It never burns
We don’t have yesterday
We may not have tomorrow
We have just now

Typing it out here I have just remembered what the context was. It was in a mid-week meeting. A friend was sharing with us the sad news of the death of one of her relatives. As she talked, she smiled, as she shared stories of some of his activities. He had been a Christian, a very vibrant Christian. He was sold out for Jesus and talked about Him to anyone he met. It wasn’t in a heavy “Are you washed in the blood of the lamb?” type of sharing, but something natural and easy.

He had been ill. An operation perhaps. I am not sure of the details, but his death was unexpected. It impressed on me that sometimes we lack a sense of “now”. I know that God has often pressed me with the knowledge that I live should be living in the present tense. I shouldn’t be living on past glories, or hindered by past defeats. Neither should I be simply looking to a “better time” – like the summer holidays, or the weekend, or a future time when I can really put God at the centre of my life, in a way that I don’t think I can do right now. There is always going to be something that could distract and divert my attention.

Now is the time – not some indefinable day in the future.