Have you realized how our lives unfold within moments of time? If we’re not careful, our future will simply be an extension of our past. There is a natural domino effect from the moments behind us to the moments in front of us.
We will pass through without much notice if it were not for the disruptive moments, the moments when we must choose between extending our past and creating our future.
We call these defining moments. These are moments that change us. Many moments go unrecognized for the miraculous contained within it because it’s shrouded within the mundane, but their secret comes to us years later in our longing to relive them.
The older I become the more obsessed I become with the idea of Time Travel. There are so many other things I could be obsessing over, but why this? Maybe it’s the idea of reliving past experiences that were so glorious I wished they never ended or perhaps to divert an asinine mistake that in hindsight, could have been prevented.
The TV show, “Timeless” tells the story of a mysterious criminal who steals a secret state-of-the-art time machine, intent on destroying America as we know it by changing the past. The only hope is an unexpected and mismatched team, who must use the machine’s prototype to travel back in time to critical events. While they must make every effort not to affect the past themselves, they must also stay one step ahead of this dangerous fugitive.
This is a very cool concept but in spite of scientist’s best efforts, nothing has worked so far in transported humans back into time. Man’s search of Wormholes, Black Holes, Infinite Cylinders, and Cosmic Strings have so far failed to provide the necessary portal to visit ancestral homelands.
Time, according to Einstein, is an illusion. it is relative — it can vary for different observers depending on your speed through space. To Einstein, time is the “fourth dimension.” Space is described as a three-dimensional arena, which provides a traveler with coordinates — such as length, width, and height —showing location. Time provides another coordinate — direction — although conventionally, it only moves forward.
I do see we are Time Travelers of sorts moving through moments of Time as natural as breathing. Like Einstein, we agree we cannot travel backward, we can only travel forward one moment at a time. In the words of Futurist, Erwin McManus, “We are all time voyagers leaving history in our wake, pioneering into the future.” You cannot change the past, but we can begin today to change the future.
The Bible reveals that Time is a construct by God relative to Creation in order to measure seasons and purpose. “To everything, there is a season and a time to every purpose under the heaven.” (Eccl 3:1 KJV) Time, as a creation of God, is a temporary interruption in eternity. God, Who is eternal, therefore exist outside of time yet He chooses to work with humans who are within time.
Because God is outside Time, He can operate within time, all of the time at the same time, the way a pianist is above the keyboard yet can touch all the keys. This may blow your mind but God does not pass with time. It’s always NOW with God. He is just as present at the hour of your birth as He is present at the hour of your death. Get ready for it… He is already in your future!
So, what does this mean for us? Is it possible for the unseen Kingdom of Heaven to touch our natural world every day but it’s outside our awareness? Could we be deaf to the whispers of God concerning our future and miss the miraculous in-breaking of God’s realm because it’s shrouded within the mundane moments of our lives?
What if you knew a moment was coming that would change your life forever, a moment rich with potential, a moment filled with endless possibilities? What if you knew there was a moment coming where God will meet you in such a way that nothing would be the same again? How would you treat that moment?
However mundane a moment may appear, the miraculous may wait to be unwrapped within it. When a moment is missed, you have glanced at an opportunity lost. My mother would often admonish me to pause in my busy moments to “smell the roses.” She knew the petals of the rose, like a moment missed, will soon fall to the ground.
The problem is when our schedules get packed with the mundane and the ordinary, we may even become even irritated with God when He interrupts us with the miraculous and the extraordinary. We don’t see our divine moments because we’re so distracted by the clutter or perhaps, we are stuck in a moment gone past.
Within those passing moments, a handful will become defining moments in your life. When you dream, you look to a moment still to come. Yet the only moment that you must take responsibility for right now is the one in front of you. You may have heard, there is power in the present moment. Your challenge is not seizing divine moments, but seizing YOUR divine-moment.
If a moment is the gate through which your divine journey begins, choice is the key that unlocks the future. If we’re going to unlock every moment for all its historical, personal, and kingdom value, we must pay attention to the choices we make within it.
As Leaders and Citizens in Kingdom enterprises, it is imperative that we learn to think in alignment with the “Unseen” Kingdom we represent. When you allow your mind to be shaped with the dynamic processes of faith, hope, love, your mind-set becomes ever-expanding and we become more present to our Divine Moments.
According to Romans 8:28, for lovers of God, our life is rigged by divine favor. Paul, the Apostle was absolutely “convinced that every detail of our lives is continually woven together to fit into God’s perfect plan of bringing good into our lives, for we are his lovers who have been called to fulfill his designed purpose.” (Romans 8:28 TPT)
But do we really see the Kingdom abundance and activity that daily surrounds us? Do we often miss the miraculous because it’s shrouded within the mundane?
Studies show that the human nervous system is hardwired to be more sensitive to negative cycles of impending danger than to positive signals of burgeoning opportunity. In today’s media-saturated world, we are constantly reminded of the potential negative side of virtually everything around us. Is it any wonder so many feel depressed, overwhelmed and hopeless in today’s world?
Did you know the average human thinks around 70,000 thoughts a day/ 50 thoughts a minute/ 2900 per hour….and studies show that over 80% of our thinking is skewed toward repetition and negativity?
Paul, the Apostle tells us to not be conformed to the pattern of this world. He is actually confronting our mindsets that create perceptual blindness to the Kingdom surrounding us. There is a pattern of thinking that is formed inside a person who does not believe in God.
“Stop imitating the ideals and opinions of the culture around you, but be inwardly transformed by the Holy Spirit through a total reformation of how you think. This will empower you to discern God’s will as you live a beautiful life, satisfying and perfect in his eyes.” (Romans 12:2 TPT)
A key to all life transformation, discernment, and open hearts and minds to the miraculous is to upgrade our spiritual intelligence to perceive Kingdom reality. Our minds must be renewed and we must be intentional with this discipline.
During my seven-year “sabbatical” in Northern California, I developed a course called “Abundance-Based Thinking” where I take students on a journey to intentionally upgrade their thinking. The premise is based upon an understanding that we have not developed the “eyesight” to see the unseen Kingdom of Heaven Jesus spoke of.
Renewing the mind begins with repentance which is a word stemming from the Greek: me TA noi yah- which means “to think differently.” At the inauguration of His ministry, Jesus instructed His disciples to “repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Repentance isn’t just an altar call experience in church but it’s a new way of life opened to us by a new way of thinking.
People often want new, but think old. We love to envision a brighter future and we get inspired by the promises of God. We rightly love God’s promises, but not often God’s processes which are attached.
We want to experience new but cling to the old way of doing things. Going to the alter is not our ONLY response to God, it is our acknowledgment that we are painfully aware things must change
What has been significantly under-appreciated about Jesus is how He changed the way His followers actually engaged life. He launched a movement that unleashed previously untapped potential in those who believed in Him and awakened them to a new reality.
He created an environment where His disciples began to believe for the impossible and soon found they were turning inspired dreams into reality. His became a movement of dreamers and visionaries called and compelled to create a better world.
How did He do that? He modeled, and taught His disciples to be present to their divine-moments. The miraculous was daily breaking through the shroud of the mundane of their world and it changed the way they viewed their reality. They knew God was working with them and “with God, all things are possible.”
