How should I say this…
…but to state it simply. There are two nows. There is now, the immediate need for my attention, the momentary fulfillment of whatever it is I want, the “this is what I am doing now and can’t be bothered with what is next.” Then, there is now in light of the eternal, God’s engagement with the present moment in which we live, the culmination of who we have become; or expressed another way, the dis-membering and deconstruction of our life in light of the re-membering of that deconstructed life into one of wholeness and peace.
The first now suggests all the foibles of who we are as human beings, our fallen nature attached to all those rationales convincing self of any desire we think is acceptable because we wish it to be. Cast your memory to Veruca Salt singing “I want it now” in the movie “Willy Wonka,” and you have the idea (or go to YouTube).
The second is the ongoing, inward conversation we have with God, the conversation God wishes most to have with us if we just allowed Him room amid all those other wants while living in the first now. And how does God shift our focus from one to the other? I believe His most interrupting force is grace because grace is the eternal now that greets us, slaps us, shakes us, deconstructs us, dismembers us from self-construction. This is God’s now. Grace always has as God’s intent to gain our attention. And the humility that comes with grace directs us to the conversation with which God wishes to engage us.
Where, then, does the conversation take us? Jesus said, “Of faith, hope, and love, the greatest of these is love.” Love’s thread runs through each for faith is our love for God. Hope, the promise of eternity, is God’s love for us. Love, agape love, is the love God commands each to give amid the uncertainty of knowing what the next moment brings. This is the truth of grace, the idea God remains the sole architect of our redemption, our wholeness, and peace. When grace appears and we are saved by it, perfected in it, we must also claim it and grow in it by engaging God’s desire for us to seek what He has prepared for us, the ever-widening sphere of His purpose.
Scripture reveals many things to those who seek God. From Genesis to Revelation, the Bible affirms God’s promise to the faithful, assures them, awakens them, reveals His involvement in this world and our life, and tells a story of God calling us back to Him, His imminent coming into the eternal now.
Though it is much more than this, the Bible can be considered a story, and if it is, it is God’s story intertwined with ours. Perhaps reading it this way helps us. Every story’s last chapter provides the ending. But ask yourself if the last chapter is the beginning of the end or an ending with a new beginning? Grace answers the question.