This summer I was in India for about six
weeks, and I began to learn to speak, read and write in Hindi. As I hit the
learning curve and began to branch out from the five cookie-cutter phrases I
knew, I learned that Hindi-speakers use the same word for “yesterday” and “tomorrow”: kal. कल Literally translated, it means “one
day away from today.”
That’s a little vague, isn’t
it? When that detail was first shared with me, I was baffled. To be honest, I
was pretty sure that was somehow a linguistic fallout. I mean, how does that
never become a communication problem, you know?
One of our Hindi teachers,
however, reminded us that language is a reflection of culture: “Yesterday and
tomorrow are the same for us,” he said. “We believe all we have is today.”
How right he was. This
challenge to be fully alive and available each moment is a treasure I began to
understand in India but that has been especially stepping on my toes here in
America. What a beautiful precedent that word sets for us in our Christian journeys,
as we struggle to trust God with the weight of our future and the burden of our
past. Yet Christ calls us to even more drastic measures than seizing the day;
we’re to live it out on an even more fleeting scale, for all we have is this
very moment, this second, this breath. How do we live in it fully? How do we
abandon everything in our present pursuit of Christ?
As I’m
seeking this out in my own life, I’m finding that the devil steals our present
moments with most ease when we’re striving to forgive our past or control our
future. Those are pointless and wearying ambitions for our tired hearts, and as
we grapple with them God doesn’t expect us to bear them alone. He didn’t create
us to. Every time we pray, He calls us to remember that our supply of daily bread abounds; we’re not given the
energy or power to control our future or past. He made us to surrender every
moment behind and before, and thus to lean on Him in the present moment.
In Exodus 23:20, God says to
the people of Israel, “See, I am sending an angel ahead of you to guard you
along the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared.” He shares several
other instructions and promises, confirming his covenant with them, and soon
Moses goes up Mount Sinai to speak with God.
At the beginning of Exodus 32,
Moses is still on the mountain, and the people are getting impatient. They
approach Aaron, Moses’ older brother, and say,
“Come, make us gods who will go before us.”
In their moment of need, the
Israelites are desperately seeking a God who is infinitely wise in His
forethought and trustworthy in His planning, a God who will prepare the path
before them and partner with them in walking down it. They’re tired of waiting
for Moses, and they’re ready to bring about their future on their own. Realistically,
we’re bound to the present by our inability to time travel. (Which is a bummer,
because that would be awesome.) So could it be that God has wired us with a
yearning, a need, to know Him as a God who paves the way before us?
I’m finding that this desire
is indeed one of our deepest thirsts. Aaron, however, points the people not to
the infinite God who beautifully orchestrates our futures, but to an idol, a
golden calf made of their gold earrings.
The people are essentially
praising a melted version of their jewelry, and the lifeless calf doesn’t quite
satisfy their longing. The sculpted gold doesn’t prepare their future or shield
them from behind. It doesn’t rescue them from worry or free them from the
throes of regret. The calf is merely an idol to worship, and it’s just another
way the devil loves to steal our current opportunity to worship Christ.
For many of us, worry can be
that golden calf, the idol we kneel before in desperate hopes of controlling
our futures. It’s one of the sneakiest methods through which the devil strips
us of present opportunities, for worry tangles us in a web of anxieties,
leaving us too weak to escape and appreciate the present moment.
“Look at the birds of the air:
they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly father
feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?...Consider the lilies of the
field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon
in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the
grass of the filed, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven,
will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be
anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall
we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly
Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and
his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” Matthew 6:26,
28b-33
So let’s open our eyes and see
the challenge we’re continually invited to embrace: to live with abandon to
Christ, in freedom from worry, from control, from regret. Let us look to the
God we’re worshiping; do you see a golden calf of worry or control in His
place? If you do, friends, trust instead the living God who goes before you and
forgives you and frees you. Let your heart worship Christ right now, in this
moment, as it was created to, so you can live fully into every opportunity God
has planned for you today.
“The Lord replied, “My
Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” Exodus 33:14
“Then shall your light break
forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up speedily; your
righteousness shall go before you; the glory of the Lord shall be your rear
guard.” Isaiah 58:8
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By Holly Fohr
