Napping is a staple of my Sunday afternoon. After prayer meeting and church, I need to recharge before heading out again for the evening service. But when I wake to a blaring alarm, I’m initially disoriented. For a second, I don’t know where I am or what time it is. Sometimes I instinctively think it’s a workday before I realise I’m on the couch with the afternoon sun streaming in the window.
But is this kind of disorientation confined to those few post-nap moments? When I look at my own life and the frenzied, anxious society around me, it seems few of us truly grasp where we are or what time we’re living in.
That’s also Adam Ramsey’s contention in his newest book, Faithfully Present: Embracing the Limits of Where and When God Has You. Instead of wishing we were somewhere else or distracting ourselves from the realities of our days, we’ll thrive as Christians when we learn to be attentive. The back cover copy says, “… we’re often so busy thinking about the next thing that we’re at risk of missing the main thing: the people and places God has put in front of us, right here, right now.”
Faithfully Present
Adam Ramsey
Many of us live life at full speed, trying to be in two places at once, our minds too busy and distracted by all the things we feel we ought to be doing to be mindful of God’s presence.
In this thought-provoking book, Adam Ramsey teaches us to embrace the limitations of time and place that we have as created beings, liberating us from the feeling that we need to be everywhere at once.
Faithfulness in Time
I’ve always loved planning and goal setting. This can be a gift, but with it comes a danger: I tend to live in the future, always looking ahead instead of being content in and attentive to the life God has given me today.
Ramsey gives Type As like me a reality check. While it’s good to plan for the future, we can only ever live in the present. Every single day, what we’re given is today, this moment. Ramsey encourages us to cultivate attentiveness to the present. He suggests an alternative to always looking ahead to the life we want: “What if we were to allow ourselves actual margin in our days for unhurried delight in the life we have?” (63)
Ramsey also addresses those who are more tempted to live in the past, dwelling on either nostalgia or regret:
Nostalgia robs our present through comparison; regret robs our present through condemnation … Both cause us to miss being faithfully present to the life God is giving us in the here and now. (81–82)
There are many other obstacles to being faithfully present. In the first half of this book, Ramsey also covers our changing life seasons, times of waiting, our obsession with hurry, the importance of rest, and the fleeting nature of our lives. In all, he teaches us not just how to be attentive but why this is a beautiful way to live. Christians can live faithfully in our present times because we serve the Lord who is above and over time.
What if we were to allow ourselves actual margin in our days for unhurried delight in the life we have?
Faithfulness in Place
Where are you as you read this article? Maybe you’re sitting at your office computer, or scrolling on your couch at home, or crammed uncomfortably close to another person on the train. Whatever the case, God wants you to live faithfully in the place where he has put you.
In the second part of Faithfully Present, Ramsey helps us to think about how we can cultivate attentiveness to place. Fans of Wendell Berry won’t be surprised to see him quoted and his ideas influencing Ramsey. We’re encouraged to be faithfully present in our physical spaces, our relationships, and our bodies—all with our eyes on the heavenly places we’ll one day bodily inhabit with Jesus.
Ramsey identifies one of the biggest obstacles in this quest:
Perhaps no greater way do we experience this temptation today—the desire to transcend where we presently are—than through the small rectangular screens that we carry around in our pockets. (108)
For all the connection that technology allows, we’ve actually become lonelier. Our screens give us the illusion of limitlessness. And instead of freedom, we find only slavery to the endless possibilities—hardly the abundant life Jesus promises (Jn 10:10). We can sit with our families in the living room, all scrolling on separate devices, looking for something to satisfy or entertain and all the while missing out on the gift of being present with each other.
Our screens give us the illusion of limitlessness. And instead of freedom, we find only slavery to the endless possibilities.
Ramsey grounds his whole discussion of place in the place we truly belong: heaven. To dwell on our eternal home may seem like avoiding being faithfully present in our lives here and now. But Ramsey says it’s the opposite: “If we are to be a faithful presence in this world, then heaven is exactly what we need to have more on our minds” (141).
Only when we truly grasp the endless perfection of our home with Jesus are we freed not to treat this life as ultimate. We don’t need to be everywhere and do everything here, because fullness of life is to come. As heirs of eternal life, we’re gloriously free to be faithfully present in this life. We can serve the people around us, see opportunities for mission in our ordinary days, and stop worrying about what we could be missing out on. In the end, if we receive what God chooses to give us, we won’t miss out on anything.
Embrace Your Limits
We spend so much of our lives in a haze not dissimilar from my post-nap confusion. We forget what time it is. We forget where we are. And most significantly, we forget whose we are. Knowing more and more of the God who has all time and every place in his hand frees us to be faithfully present here and now. Here’s some helpful diagnostic questions as you consider Ramsey’s insights from Faithfully Present: Where are you pretending to be limitless?
Do you say yes to everything, pretending you have unlimited time, instead of taking the (initially) harder road of embracing your limits?
Do you ignore the God-given limits of your body, pushing yourself into burnout because you don’t want to miss out on any experience or achievement?
Do you pour yourself into maintaining close relationships with all your friends from past seasons and places through social media, while ignoring the friends, neighbours, and church members in your own place?
There’s a better way. Remember the faithful presence of God with you wherever you are, and then seek to and serve him right here, right now.
