Lesson 308: “What is the Second Coming?”  “This instant is the only time there is.”

One of the purposes of the Course is to get us more comfortable living in the moment. 

When we practice living in the moment, our energy and presence become far stronger and more potent. 

When we are trying to live while we pay emphasis on the future or past, our intention gets divided because we are in conflict within and therefore, our energy dissipates. 

Our divided focus causes us to be far less powerful people and we will not enjoy this as much either because we are not balanced and in a state of energetic equilibrium- that which we are in when we connect with God in the moment.

The Course reminds us to make this practice constant and get in the habit. 

Eventually it becomes easier when we just keep creating that path within our minds where we make the present our true purpose and conviction.

We are all human, and, in order to function in the world as it is, we need to be able to deal with the past and future at some times or to some degree in order to function well. 

The Course is not setting us up for some inevitable fall where we are never allowed to see that the past happened or completely never plan for the future.  

That would be impossible and simply a waste or our time to do so, and it is not what the Course is actually saying.

We are asked to focus on the present as clearly and resolutely as we can.

We just keep in mind that the present is where we most want to be, because it is where God is- in the infinite experience of God’s Essence and energy. 

Thus, being in the present is best for us in the long run, because there we have most direct access to God.

When we allow the past and future to be powerful influences, then, we often shift our energy away from our experiencing God’s energy which is never helpful.

The past is helpful when we see it as a picture of information- with which we simply evaluate and carry the helpful lessons we learned there. 

The future is best if we trust God enough to give it to Him.

We never can plan for the future solitarily- without God- because we simply don’t know what is best for us truly.  Therefore, we absolutely must listen to God for prompting, about which direction to take.

Then, when we so desire, and we are in our practice of expressing the extraordinary uniqueness of ourselves, and we want to plan in a way that feels appropriate for us, this is fine. 

But most importantly, we want to hold the past and future especially lightly. 

We let go our ego’s fierce grip on the picture we think we want.

This is the best way to manage and deal with the past and future. We let it evolve and we do it with God.

And we just keep practicing the balance we need emotionally and energetically to keep the future in check with our very light grip.