Missing The Now

Goals can great. They help us stay motivated as we trudge through the difficult/mundane/miniscule parts of life. The next big vacation… the next promotion… retirement… your kid’s graduation… a better future. We all have different goals for different reasons. Some of them are very long term, and some of them are things we’re trying to achieve by next week. Goals can be team-based or solo missions. Business, ministries, and even families use goals to motivate people to buck up and work together to achieve something significant.

As good as goals can be, they can cause us to miss out on something wonderful: now.

How many wonderful moments in life do we miss because we are trying to achieve a goal? How much of today is missed because we’re looking towards the future?

I’m incredibly guilty of this. I’m a dreamer, a vision guy. There are about three thousand really cool ideas running around my head about my family, our community, ministry, our local economy… you name it. If they all happened, life would be great, wouldn’t it?

I find that as I’m planning a better tomorrow, I often find myself missing moments right now . Moments to ask people how they’re doing today. Moments watching my boys throw rocks. Moments teaching them how to swing a baseball bat (although Brock is really pretty good swinging a bat like a club Bam Bam style). Moments just soaking in the beauty of my wife.

Jesus told a bunch of people to stop focusing on some future event, and start being excited about the now. Specifically he was talking to some people waiting for the kingdom of heaven as a future political upheaval, and he wanted them to know that the kingdom was, in fact, himself right there with them. The thing they were supposed to be focused on was right in front of them, not somewhere off in the future. (I spoke on this last Sunday. Give it a listen if you have a few minutes — http://bransonchurch.org/sermons/Kingdom 2 – Near.mp3).

Don’t get me wrong, goals are good things. However, once in a while we need to take an inventory of the things we’re missing. Maybe the now moments should outweigh pursuing the goals for a change.

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