The Gift of the Present

As I reflect on Advent and the Christmas season, I am impressed by the need to be reminded of rest.  The challenge in this season with all its busyness and distractions, even if we remember the “reason for the season,” is to cultivate the time and leisure to be open to the message of peace and rest that are fundamental to the Christmas story. One resource for cultivating this awareness is found in practicing being present—being mindful and intentional about where you are and who you are at this point in time!

The tendency at Christmas is to be forward looking, anticipating the “big day” with its preparations and presents, family and food; or, to be backward looking with a nostalgic glance at the glory of Christmases gone by.  Both tendencies can steal from us the ability to be open to the importance and opportunity of the present.  I find in scripture (Hebrews 4:9-16) both a reminder and a recommendation regarding my need for rest and God’s offer/promise of rest.  A key component of this is the link between rest and the powerful and revelatory function of God’s word and Spirit.

For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.  Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do. (vs. 12, 13)

These verses, set within the discussion of a rest for the people of God, bring me back to an attentive awareness of my current state.  I am invited to reflect on the nature of my un-rest: as a product of motives and ambitions at the level of soul and spirit, thoughts and intents, even at the level of what is “in my bones.”  I am challenged to acknowledge that much of what weighs me down, what destroys my peace, are the motivations for my actions, choices and thoughts.

Rest is a potential component of every day, of my present situation, but it is dependent upon the extent to which I have ceased my own works—and this is dependent upon why I do what I do, and what I am hoping to achieve as a result.  In order to realize the rest potential of my everyday, I am invited to embrace being naked before God, through the searching, but loving ministry of his Word and Spirit.  For me, this is a call to being present, for this loving disclosure comes about within my immediate circumstances.

I am being invited to accept my exposed state, my strengths and weakness, my hopes and fears, my lack of rest and peace, as a gift within the ministrations of the All-knowing.  Being fully present, being willing or able to live contentedly where we are, is a constant challenge for us.  But, when we acknowledge that there is really no other way to live—that all we have is now, that there is no disguising our thoughts, our ambitions, our present reality—we can find the resources to fully embrace our present, even as we are fully known and embraced. “Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.” (Hebrews 4:16)

May His Peace be your reality today,

Oz Lorentzen,
For King’s Fold Community