A song I recently heard included an interesting line:
“If the present is a place that my future will define, I want to slow things down and take a little time…”*
While I don’t know what the songwriter intended, the words prompted me to consider how people view the present. Some, as this lyric might suggest, see their present circumstances as ordained by God for the fulfillment of some divine imperative. Akin to the deterministic “everything happens for a reason” phrase one so often hears, their belief relegates them to just muddling through today in hopes that, “someday, we’ll understand; someday all of this will make sense.”
Accordingly, the significance of today may only be evaluated in the context of something yet to come. People reach some terrible conclusions about God as they see every life event as part of a divine plan to get them where they need to be. I have heard some adamantly contend that God took a loved one from them or gave them a life-threatening disease in order to form their character, or to otherwise accomplish some redemptive purpose. Those bad things had to happen, they confidently assert, or they would never have arrived where they now find themselves.
Another view of the present places undue weight on the past. This vantage point can lead to being defined by one’s past, and most often, not in a positive way. Past setbacks (perhaps even tragedies) and failures dominate a person’s psyche, resulting in a self-limiting mindset, and in some cases a victim mentality. 
Many focus for years on what happened in their past, and never get over it. I remember one woman in her late 80s who obsessed over a relatively minor offense her husband had committed scores of years earlier, on their honeymoon. Other people have deprecating recordings playing in their heads of harsh or hurtful words that once pierced their hearts and continue to release their poison. Some are thus held captive by their past and their interpretation of it.
Finally, there is a view of the present that perceives an opportunity to define the future.
I like what the apostle Paul once wrote from a prison cell:
“…one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 3:13b-14 (NASB)
Paul had a rather deplorable past as a new Christian…he had gone out of his way to put believers in prison and to kill them. After encountering Jesus and stepping out into his commission, Paul experienced hardship after hardship that would make anyone question whether he was on the right track. But he dwelt on none of this. Instead of sinking in defeat, he motivated himself to action and endurance by thoughts of what ultimately lay before him.
Rather than letting our past or our future define the present, we can choose to use the present to create a future. The present is, after all, a gift!
*Lyrics from A Hammer and an Awkward Nail by Jason Upton
