I’ve got a place I want to spend more time in 2014. And I want to invite you to join me.

The place is right here, right now.

Wherever that may be.

I’ve begun to notice that I spend an incredible amount of time “elsewhere”—that space so many of our hearts and minds go that’s not where we are.

I go elsewhere when I focus on what I’d like to have and miss what I do have.

• Like when at 6 p.m. around the dinner table, I think how nice it will be when my kids are in bed.
• Or when I’m alone in my car, stressed about something undone at my home or office.
• Or when I get lost in a book or a movie and forget the person sitting next to me.
• Or even in my favorite moments, when I try to capture here and now so I can send/share/post it for others (who are elsewhere) to see later.

I’m pretty certain that if I’m not careful, I may just forget how to live here and now.

But to live here and now, I need to face the reality about why I’m so drawn to elsewhere.

For me, elsewhere is attractive because it holds out promises of success, relationships, peace, a better me—all without risk, or work, or disappointment, or hardship.

Here and now makes no immediate promises.

Except for one: The life God is giving here in this moment.

C.S. Lewis once wrote that God only gives human beings his grace in the present. Not because he’s stingy, but because we’re not in the past and we’re not in the future.

Likewise, we’re not way over there or there. We’re each here, now.

God gives to us only where we are because that’s the only place we can receive it.

(This is good news because I’m going to need all the grace I can get to steer clear of living elsewhere.)

So this year, whether I find myself on the ocean or in my office, stomping through the winter snow or losing to my kids on our Wii, alone in a prayer closet or surrounded by others, I’m going to live here and now.

Better yet, I’ll start here . . . right . . . Now.

You coming?

Question: What’s your favorite “elsewhere”? What helps you to live here and now instead? Leave a comment below.

Josh