“You are worried and distracted by many things.” (Luke 10:41)

This statement may have been said by Jesus two-thousand years ago, but there is probably no better sentence that perfectly encapsulates today’s modern society and individual angst.  It’s almost as if we have a collective case of ADHD and cannot focus on the present moment.  I’m a time-oriented kind of guy.  Whenever I get into the mode of obsessing over the clock, my wife starts calling me “Left Brain.”  I can get so caught up in what is going to happen next, and how the future is going to shake-out, that I get worried and distracted.  Such a fascination with minutes and seconds only brings a real inability to live in the present.  There is no good end to living in the future because I just fret over what will or could happen.  I end up with the left brain compulsion to plan, strategize, and connive over every possible contingency that could ever happen.  Just so you know:  I’m not fun to be around when I get into my extreme left brain mode.

But that’s not the end of it.  If I get my left pea brain out of tomorrow, then I reflexively boomerang to the past.  I lie in bed and dig into my past like a determined archaeologist, trying to find lost words and ruminating over conversations that could have gone better.  I utter expletives about myself that I would never dream of saying to another person.  I play judge and jury, hanging both myself and the dolts who I let wrap me up like an Egyptian mummy.  That kind of stuff only erodes and ruins the soul.

One of the telltale signs that a person is living in either the past or the future is that they incessantly misinterpret and misread the present.  Adverse circumstances become personal crises, instead of an opportunity to become a better and stronger person.  Suffering gets billed as an evil to be fixed, instead of a chance to use it to improve the lives of others.  Other political or religious viewpoints get vilified because I, after all, don’t need to change, instead of me being the one in need of rethinking my presuppositions.  Football players kneeling is an offense to the country, instead of a wake-up call to the daily misfortunes of others different from me.  Faith is all about expunging my past and giving me future heaven, instead of a real relationship with God in Christ which is meant to grow, develop, and morph into a concern for living in the present moment.

Yes, we are a society worried and distracted by all of our insecurities, financial investments, cultural hegemony, and personal agendas.  We are so busy doing things important to us that we miss the present opportunity to connect meaningfully with the Jesus who loves being with us.  Instead of enjoying the moment with God, we, like Martha of old, want some help from Mary and some recognition for all the good busy work we have initiated.  Martha misread the situation of Mary sitting at Christ’s feet and, in essence, blurted-out:  “Jesus! Don’t you give a damn that I’m in here working for you while that slacker Mary is kneeling!?” (Luke 10:38-42).

Perhaps it sounds counterintuitive that in sitting down we become active, and that in being active we become distracted.  It only seems paradoxical because of our obsession with both the past and the future.  Today, maybe even right now, Jesus wants you to be with him.  The grand spiritual discovery of life with God is that, by making Jesus the center and focus of our lives in the present moment, our past and our future comes into proper perspective.  What we do begins to have real purpose and meaning, more than just trying to get by to the weekend, and more than only lamenting the past.  Time becomes our ally and simply a tool to accomplish the will of God in the present moment, rather than a hard taskmaster exerting it’s dominion over us.

It has always intrigued me that Jesus accomplished so much in three short years of his life on earth.  I have scoured the gospels trying to find a Jesus rushing to the future or regretting the past, but he never went that way.  He was always in the moment, fully engaged and fully present to the people around him.  And it all came from his own relationship with the Father, which he completely centered his life around.  Not once did Jesus get the label “Lord Left Brain.”