That One Word Thing

Julie Garmon wrote about it a few days ago, and Ann Voskamp told us what hers was on Thursday.

I’ve never chosen one word to focus on for an entire year before, but as I asked God what I might choose, the answer came almost immediately.

I saw it coming when we bowed our heads to pray a few days ago, and I had to pull my thoughts back from a to do list forming in my mind for the next day. When we gathered as a family, and my mind jumped ahead to figure out how much time it might take to clean up later, the word was on its way. And yes, I knew what it was when I tried to sit down to write the post, but less important tasks took me hostage to busyness.

My word, my focus, for 2013 is NOW.

NOW is the time to quiet my soul and focus on the One who made me. NOW is the time to cherish the few moments and days I have with those I love. NOW means doing the most significant task first.

NOW means not letting anxiety and worry pull me into the future, and rob me of the present.  

NOW is all I have—all any of us have. Why not make the most of this fleeting second? Why not live NOW?

God is NOW. According to this author, St. Augustine proposed that God lives in the timeless present tense. My only experiences with timelessness have been occasionally during prayer, or when I’ve been painting, writing, or playing music and found when I looked at the clock, I had absolutely no idea how much time had elapsed. Somehow, when we slip over into that place so close to the Lord, we lose the temporal sense.

C.S. Lewis wrote, “For the present is the point at which time touches eternity.”

I think of all the ways I’ve allowed my NOW to be stolen from me, when I’ve cheated myself out of touching eternity.

So, NOW is my word.

Come, Lord, invade my present, my NOW with your presence.

“God said to Moses, ‘I AM who I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites; “I AM has sent me to you” ‘ “ (Exodus 3:14).

" 'I tell you the truth,' Jesus answered, 'before Abraham was born, I am!' " (John 8:58).