In just a few days 2018 ends and 2019 begins. To me, it feels that 2018 just began. Time flew by. Have you ever thought about time? Some days and weeks move slowly depending on what we are dealing with at the time. But most days, time goes so quickly that we don’t notice its passing until something makes us sit still, and really think about it. I think the New Year is a great time to thank God for all the He has done not only in this year but in all of our years. Recently I took on a very big read… The Confessions of St. Augustine. It is not a book that you need to read cover to cover. It really is organized into separate books and within these books are topics. It is a great book for devotionals. Augustine brings up some great questions that are truly timeless. They are just as relevant to the human experience in 2019 as they were in 397 AD. One of the recent books within his Confessions that I read was Book XI. This has to do with time and what God was doing before time or what was he doing before creation? Augustine says that God is always the same. God’s word echoes that ” Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” He says about God, “your years do not come and go. Our years pass and new ones arrive only so that all may come in turn, but your years stand all at once because they are stable.” I just love that when we rest in God’s presence which is living in the present moment, we are stable. We don’t have to be shaken. He says that God’s years are a single day. God’s single day is Today, and it is eternity. There is much truth to these confessions. When we live in the past…. we can get stuck with bad memories maybe even with inaccurate views of what really happened. When we live in the future, we expect some things that will never happen. But if we can practice living in the present which is how God lives, then we can be happier and as a result, we can be a more effective influencer for the Kingdom. We will have less stress and can release a lot of the strongholds that the enemy uses to keep us down. When we live in the present, money does not hold us down, fame does not hold us down, envy does not hold us down, fear does not hold us down…and even death cannot hold us down.
As we roll into 2019 let’s all make a deal with God to practice living in the present because this lifestyle change is eternal.
Blessing to you in this new year,
Jessica
That’s a very profound concept, but very well explained. Thanks for the encouragement (and the explanation) dear Jessica.
Wonderfully written message, Jessica! It is hard for us to think of time in the same way God thinks of time but as mentioned in your blog, living in the present day is good for us.