Staying in the moment

Have you ever had one of those moments in life that you wished would last forever?

The good, happy kind of moments are like that. When things are going great in our life, we have lots of friends, the job is going great, our marriage is solid, the kids are healthy...on and on we can go with happy moments. It would be awesome to freeze frame these kind of  moments and keep them forever.

But what about when the moments turn ugly, they turn bad, sad and lonely. The moments like receiving news of a loved ones death, or a loss of a job, or a repossession of your car. These are moments that we would like to see pass quickly from our life.

The thing about moments that I have learned, whether they are good or bad, is that all moments come and go. Often times we have to take the bad with the good, but in the end the crisis or the happy time will come to an end.

That's just life. Good times come. They go. Bad times come. They disappear also. It really isn't about the moment, as it is about how we allow the moments in our life to form us and define us.

If all we do is concentrate on the bad times in our life, no doubt we will be grumpy, distant and extremely unhappy. On the flip side of that, don't live in the world of  "use to be". If you "use to" be happily married, or you "use to" be a successful business person ... it may be time to press in and move beyond  your "moment of use to be's"!

Recently, God opened my eyes to see that sometimes I get caught up in my "use to be's". It has been hard for me to let go of something that has always been a part of me. I found myself caught up in the memories or "moments" that I shared in my past with certain people. Some of these moments (or memories) have been joyful and some have been hurtful. But even so, I kept going back to the moments that "use to be".

God had to show me, just like He showed Elisha that sometimes we have to move past the moments of our past and grab hold of the moments that await us. Elisha was holding onto the moments he shared with Elijah, until Elijah was caught up in a whirlwind to heaven. Just like that, the moment that Elisha was in quickly changed.

2 Kings 2:11 "And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven."

There is one thing I am sure of and that is that moments in my life are going to change, and when they do I must be sure that my attention is not on so much the people or the circumstances of such moments, but that my focus is on Jesus Christ. It would have been easy for me to be in Elisha's shoes and worry and grumble and complain that Elijah was no longer with me, instead of seeing the power and the opportunity that God was placing upon me to create new moments in my life.

May we always remember the moments in our life, both good and bad, but may we never remain there. God has so much more for us than to live in the past. Good and bad things is what makes us who we are, trusting God for what is to come is what moves us from moment to moment. Don't be afraid to move past your moments.