“Your future looks uncertain and feels flimsy – even precarious. That is how it should be. Secret things belong to the Lord, and future things are secret things. When you try to figure out the future, you are grasping at things that are Mine. This, like all forms of worry, is an act of rebellion: doubting My promises to care for you.” Jesus Calling by Sarah Young

One of the things God is teaching me during this 40 days to Calvary is to be fully aware of the present even as my mind veers off  relentlessly toward a reckless road somewhere in the future. He is telling me not to miss the moments because all around me there are people who don’t have many left. And the ones they do have are precarious at best.

It seems God keeps bringing me these examples lately. Two co-workers on the Intel memorial page……..gone. One from a heart attack the day after surgery and the other I am not sure about. Then, later in the day I inquired about someone else on our Shift because he wasn’t answering his work phone. Today we found out he is in the hospital with cancer. All of them around my age and younger. It seems God is saying…….”Slow down. Pay attention. When you wallow in worry you steal from your present and I didn’t create you for that.”  

The best way we can glorify God is by standing with Him right here in the present without wasting precious time immersing ourselves in the past or worrying excessively about events we have no control over.

This morning, I was rushing out to the car to get in some quiet time; (whooshing by people in order to get out to the car and think God thoughts mind you) and on the way I saw my buddy Gilbert who does maintenance here at the site. I stopped and asked him how he was and he paused as he looked down at the floor a minute. “Oh”……he said, shaking his head. “I have been up since 4:00 AM. My daughter called because my ex-wife had kicked her out of the house to let her son move in. She didn’t have anywhere else to go.” He said she had all her belongings there in her car.

Sometimes, the best way we can pray is by closing our mouth and listening to someone else pour their heart out.

I am so glad I didn’t rush by him so I could go out and do something “Holy.” Not that there is anything wrong with that. When I left, we were both smiling and joking. I hope I made him feel just a little bit better.

By the time I got to my car, my bagel was like rubber but I didn’t care. That, and my coffee tasted like communion. I opened the sunroof on my car and birdsong greeted me. And Jesus has been in the wilderness 10 days now.

He must be so hungry.