celebrating the present

July 26, 2006

many nights ago, ann and i were driving around the city. at some point, ann asked me if i ever stopped to enjoy the moment. i thought about it for a while and shrugged my shoulders. i never really thought it before and i was struck by that. what she said was so true. in the days that followed, i kept thinking about what she said.

look around. our culture is speeding up fast. from transportation to computers to losing weight to cooking, we want to get places faster and accomplish our tasks quicker. if it's not instantaneous, it's too slow for us. while there is nothing inherently wrong with this, there is a problem if we develop a mentality to treat life in the same way. sadly, people do. people move through life at such a rapid pace, they never have time to appreciate what's right in front of them. to use a familiar phrase, they never have time to "slow down and smell the flowers."

if we do not slow down, life will fly right by us. we will miss out on many precious moments, moments that should be cherished. time cannot afford to wait idly by for us. it continues at its relentless place. time always moves on, whether we like it or not. every single moment that passes is a moment in time that will never happen again. we cannot get it back. we cannot change what happened. we cannot fully relive it. each moment we have is a gift from God. each day we have is a gift from God.

i've never really learnt to celebrate the present until i met ann. i love every single moment with her. sometimes i wish i could freeze time for a while so i could really stop to enjoy and celebrate what's happening in that moment. it might be something we're looking at, the place we're in, or the simple fact that we're together. each moment is so precious to me and i wish i could capture it all by slowing things down to see them frame by frame. i've learnt that's how you really appreciate something, by slowing down so you can see what's there.

it's like going into a museum and looking at a really nice piece of art. you cannot appreciate it fully if you glance at it for a few seconds. to appreciate it fully, you must stop what you are doing and give it the time it deserves. as you stand there, you can appreciate the colours, the composition, the artistic techniques, the metaphors, the story behind the piece. it's simply not possible to do in a few brief moments. it needs time!

celebrating the present is about slowing down. it's making a conscious effort to enjoy and appreciate what's happening around us in the here and now. it's about remembering and celebrating the fact that all good gifts come from God (cf. james 1:17). at the season of the soul workshop i attended at the willowcreek 2006 arts conference, nancy beach was saying how the season of summer was the one that went by the fastest. when life is going well, it's easy to take it for granted and let it pass us by. i don't want any of those moments to pass me by. i want to celebrate what the Lord is doing in my midst and store them up for when the seasons change. i want to capture every single precious moment.

to celebrate the present, we cannot be solely future-oriented and/or past-oriented. for me, it's far too easy to focus solely on the future. i am a big picture person. i like to see what's up ahead, to plan for what's to come. i delight in dreaming about possibilities. the potential problem with this is, by my looking too far ahead, i sometimes fail to see what's right in front of me. at my church, we are constantly planning different services. after one service is finished, we plan for the next. we try not to think about what's next while we are preparing for one service, but sometimes it's inevitable. i've realized with this constant planning mentality, it's easy to forget what's happening right in our midst because we're too focused on what's coming.

the human eye can only be positioned in one way, at any given point of time. it's not possible to look in two directions at once. you couldn't, for example, look forwards and backwards at the same time. if we're looking only towards the future, we can't see what's in front of us. conversely, if we're looking only in the past, we can't see what's in front of us. that being said, it's important to remember the future and past. in order to figure out where we are today, we must look to the past. in order to figure out where we want to go, we look to the future. but, remember that how we act today shapes our future.

to recap, i believe there's three things that prevent us from celebrating the present:

1. excessive speed
2. a future-only orientation
3. a past-only orientation

slow down. stop. appreciate what the Lord is doing in your midst and give Him thanks. don't let these precious moments of life pass by any longer. celebrate the present.

Posted by Leo Chan at July 26, 2006 2:20 PM