Bowing to the Altar of the Future

It’s our last country, our last two months, and if we really want to think about it, the last of everything on our race. We got our official flying home and last day of ministry dates a few days ago, and every week in-between then and now are already planned out in front of us. 

So it’s been really hard not to harbour the future in our minds while we all come to the realisation that this is it. And as a result of all of this newness and future in front of us, my team and I have really been struggling with being present here in the Dominican.   

We ended up having a lot of conversations during ministry about buying our plane tickets home, all the food that our moms make that we miss, our summer jobs ahead of us, how embarrassing our shorts tan lines will be, and how nice it will be to have privacy in our own bedrooms again. It’s month seven of our race and there’s a lot of comforts and people we have left behind to be here. Comfort becomes a nagging desire when you’ve been uprooted to yet another place that far resembles home. Home sickness can’t quite be captured in words, but it’s real. 

And not being settled yet makes our time here seem shorter than it will be. Our roots haven’t quite dug deep enough yet into this soil to feel like we are going to stay for long. Costa Rica was a hard goodbye, and the thought of another hard goodbye often makes me not want to settle again. 

And amongst all these circumstances, the future was becoming the idol that we worshipped and we didn’t even realise it. 

In reality, home is probably not as perfect as we are making it sound, and the food we miss won’t be as tasty and satisfying as we make it out to be, and getting back to the states will have it’s own set of uncomfortable complications.

The present alone is the place in which we can receive all grace, pleasure, knowledge, and satisfaction; it is the only place where God can gift us the abundance he longs to give. And the enemy knows this. So he tries to divert our attention to the future so that we miss out on everything that God has for us in the very moments that we are breathing the breath He put in our lungs. C.S. Lewis describes it in the most beautiful words: 

“Hence nearly all vices are rooted in the future. Gratitude looks to the past and love to the present; fear, avarice, lust, and ambition look ahead….[there is] a whole race perpetually in pursuit of a rainbows end, never honest, nor kind, nor happy now, but always using as mere fuel wherewith to heap the alter of the future every real gift which is offered them in the Present.” 

What I have learned is that the best preparation for the future is living in the present because the future can’t provide nor satisfy our desires if we don’t learn to let the present do that first. Satisfaction can’t be found in the future. Satisfaction lies solely in our Father and our access to the Father lies solely in the present moment passing by. We must learn to live on our daily bread.    

So as a team we decided that we would make boundaries about when we can focus our attention to the future. Because there is a right time and place for it. We made the choice that during ministry we will talk only around subjects that exclude what’s ahead to prevent our wandering minds from straying to what we don’t already have. Boundaries can be hard, but they bring true freedom if they guide us back to God. 

 

Ultimately, I don’t want to walk onto the plane flying me home while in the same moment coming to terms with everything I completely missed in the nine weeks leading up to going home; I don’t want to live a life always longing for the next thing; I don’t want to miss the feast at the table I am sitting at because I am thinking that the next meal will be better. I want to be so encapsulated in the present that I have access to the satisfying riches and goodness of God. My prayer is that I never again miss the place where my feet are standing. Too often that is where I have found the very miracle I have been longing for.