Discipleship, Moment by Moment

“Offer your heart to Him at every moment. Don’t restrict our love of Him with rules or special devotions. Go out in faith, with love and humility.”Brother Lawrence (Practicing the Presence of God)To me, the most basic and most difficult challenge of being a follower of Jesus is the one Brother Lawerence (a 17th century monk) addressed in his marvelous little devotional booklet entitled Practicing the Presence of God. It’s remaining aware of God’s loving presence on a moment-by-moment basis. Every shortcoming I have as a follower of Jesus is, I believe, most fundamentally rooted in this.

Life is always lived in the now. The only thing that’s really real is now — this moment, and now this one. So the “life” we surrendered to Christ is nothing over and above a series of “nows” strung together. Hence, our life is actually surrendered to Christ only insofar as each and every now is surrendered to Christ. This further means that the only thing that really matters in our relationship with Christ is not a decision we made last year or forty years ago to surrender our life to Christ, but a decision we make this moment to surrender our life to Christ.

And now this one.

And now this one.

I encourage you to cultivate a conscious surrendered attitude toward God each and every moment of your life…starting now.

Peace,
Greg