You Cannot Meet God Tomorrow
It is a great mistake to think that we can meet God tomorrow. You cannot meet God tomorrow. You cannot enter the presence of God tomorrow.
There is only now. Tomorrow never arrives.
We can always say that we will worship tomorrow, we will pray tomorrow. But what we will do is no good.
The poet Emily Dickinson wrote “Forever is composed of nows”. Heaven is not the continuation of time. I do not believe that eternity “goes on forever”. It is not simply more of the same. I am convinced that heaven will be an eternal present, a constant now. We will be freed from the constraints of time, the worries of the future and the regrets of the past. We will experience life fully and completely in the land of the present.
We must learn to become a people who worship God now. In heaven, there will be no tomorrow. There will not even be later. There will only be this moment. If we can’t learn to worship in the present, today, in this moment while we live on Earth, how will we manage in eternity?
I am inclined to think that we won’t manage. Those who always defer until tomorrow will find eternal paradise to be a hellish place. They will long for a day that never arrives.
You cannot meet God tomorrow. You cannot meet God yesterday. You can only join with God today, in the present, in the moment that is. We must seize the day and make it count in eternity.
How does one live in light of this truth? We must learn to live in the present moment. The secular tradition of mindfulness has much to offer Christians. It is the awareness of the present, living in the moment without any judgement, observing the passing of time and emotions. It is allowing thoughts to pass through the mind without feeling the need to act on them.
I find it particularly difficult to sit still without thinking up a list of all the tasks I must complete and obligations I have to fulfil. It’s also a struggle not to replay memories or become “lost in thought” about episodes from earlier that day or arguments with my wife or an annoyance at work. All these things are outside of the present moment, and where we spend most of our time.
As followers of Jesus, it is imperative that we take hold of the present moment and learn to live in it. I used to write a list every day, maybe more than one. I have largely given up this habit. I do not need to think constantly about the future or plan every thing that I do. It is enough to be here and now, and only here and now.
We must make the time when the most important focus is God, and God alone. We must actively turn away from every thought that is not God, every momentary obligation that whispers: “you don’t have time.”
Sometimes this is the very form of my prayers. I go through everything that I feel I ought to be doing and choose not to do that right now. I choose not to worry about it. It’s almost like undressing, so that I can be completely vulnerable and naked before the Divine Being, into whose presence I enter without the concerns of time and duty.
The irony is that we cannot be anywhere else. We cannot change or relive the past. To do so is regret and nostalgia. We cannot live in the future. We are consigned to this present moment and yet we attempt to flee from it in every moment, wallowing in that which has happened, that which will happen, that which might happen, and worst of all, that which could have been.
This is the only moment that matters. This is actually the only moment that truly exists. Each second is the shining cusp of time. There is nothing just before or just after, only the very edge itself.
This is the only moment in which I can worship God. It is where I will spend eternity: here and now. All the chaff and impurity of past and future and time itself will be burnt off to leave only the refined moment, the perfect present, the naked now.
This is what we must seek. This is the place to make home. You cannot worship God tomorrow, and you cannot enter the Presence yesterday. The Kingdom of God is at hand, and there is only now.
