Praying for Now

I have many times in the past five months looked over at my sleeping, cooking, email-answering, or smiling husband and prayed, “Oh God, please let me never, ever take this man for granted.” I will be at work, on my way home, talking with friends, or at the grocery store and I’ll picture him in my mind’s eye. I’m overwhelmed with love and gratitude that he is mine. I beg God to let it always be this way: to let me always know how blessed I am and to help me bless Ian.

And then it happens. I get home and all of the dishes are piled in the sink. I wake up early to work out and Ian gets up late while I make breakfast and coffee. I’m waiting out in the cold because Ian’s work ran late. I have a breakout on my face and so I get defensive and upset because Ian is looking at me for too long. Whatever the “reason” is, the result is tragically the same: I become more occupied with my present feelings than with the overwhelming, wonderful truth. I am not grateful that Ian is my husband - I am angry that he hasn’t foreseen all of my needs and met them miraculously. I am not marveling at how my husband loves me more than I ever dreamed possible: I am cowering in fear of him seeing me for who I am and despising me. I am ungrateful and I am sinning.

I’ve made a new resolution with this in mind. When I want to ask God to never ever let me grow tired of Ian, I will pray for now. I will ask God to help me be grateful for Ian today. Help me treat Ian well today. Help me to love Ian how he needs me to today. Right now.

When I pray for today, I am teaching myself to be the woman I want to be in that nebulous land of forever. I am training myself to be grateful. I am learning that I am dependent on God in every present moment, not just in the future. Only by giving God control now (and in every “now” that will come) can I guarantee that I will do so in the future. Now is all I really have, and so I will pray for it.

"But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end; While it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation." Hebrews 3:13-15