Enjoying One Moment At A Time
Building Joy Intentionally
The serenity prayer has these great words: “Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time.”
A book by Christian counselors called Can You Hear Me Now? states that four main negative emotions tend to dominate our lives, guilt, anger, fear, and sadness. I tend to agree, and the one I want to focus on for this article is guilt.
A thought will pop into my mind out of nowhere, like “turn on the TV and watch the news.” If I follow through, I have just wasted a moment or several moments, which results in guilt. I can’t help but feel bad for the time, which is my most precious resource, that was wasted.
To waste even a moment is a great setback. The reason is that if we waste a moment, we leave that moment feeling guilty. That guilt will color the next moment and the next moment until we are gloomy, because we are filled with regret. “I could have had a V8!” But regrets are powerful and even a little regret can make joy out of reach.
The fact is we have one chance to make each day enjoyable. Before we know it, it’s over. But days are made up of moments. Those little packets of time need to be stewarded wisely.
So the next time we feel the impulse to do something wasteful, stop and do something worthwhile. We can spend a moment in prayer for those we love. That will then pass into the next moment where we will decide again, but we will be guilt-free, which is why each moment needs to be taken seriously.
A passage from the book of Genesis shows that we have a choice to make each day, and part of that is to master our tendency to do the wrong thing.
Then the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.” (Genesis 4:6–7, NIV)
The Contemporary English Version of verse 7 says, “If you had done the right thing, you would be smiling.” That’s how I want to live each day, and it happens as I do the right thing one moment at a time.
Here is a link if you’re interested in the Serenity Prayer.
