In 1939 C.S. Lewis preached a sermon titled “Learning in War-Time.” As he moved through his application, he said,
I haven’t always appreciated purposefully living in the moment, and to do so remains a struggle. Some of us seem to be wired to believe that the best is yet to come, giving greater value to what is potential rather than what is actual, striving for what’s tantalizingly just around the corner rather than enjoying what’s right in front of us.
I don’t think I’m alone in this. As I’ve wrestled with this concept, I’ve come to identify a few reasons we resist living day to day. In this article, I want to focus on two: first, we are prone to distractions, frequently searching for the means to escape the mundane; and second, we doubt that it is worth it, failing to see the cumulative effects of grace-fuelled obedience over time.
Distractions
We are living in an era of innumerable distractions. Through the smartphone we hold in our hands a mobile computer that, through the power of the internet, can transport us anywhere in the world. It can also take us out of this world and immerse us in whole new worlds. It is difficult to focus on the person, conversation, or situation in front of you when the potential connection to a host of online interactions and entertainment beckons with its siren song.
Worse, rather than being simply passively tempted by these calls away from the routine, we actively seek them out, giving as much free time as we can spare to be whisked away from reality.
To call this a distraction is to recognize that it is inherently wasteful, dragging us away from the purpose and goal God has given us in life. That purpose is to make more disciples of Jesus Christ (Matt. 28:16-20), a task that is hard, often disappointing, and slow. Contrast that with the online world that is easy, gratifying, and instantaneous, and the competition hardly seems fair.
How can patiently, consistently, and repeatedly pointing a real-life fellow human to Jesus ever give us the same instant buzz as completing the next level of Candy Crush or Meowdoku? Yet we know that the Great Commission is to supersede our own comfort, desires, and distractions. So, what to do?
Ironically, by not taking care to purposefully live each moment considering the glory of God, the long-term goal God has for us disappears, swallowed up by countless hours spent chasing high scores or the next amazing short video. Without purpose, our days go from living in the moment to coasting through endless wasted moments, untethered from the call of God on our lives.
In our attempt to escape the mundane, we simply exchange what we perceive as one meaningless routine for another. While it may initially seem exciting and fulfilling, a life without purpose prevents us from accomplishing our mission and is therefore ultimately pointless. Escapism is a myth, and worse, the most popular forms of it easily become more enslaving than what we vainly attempt to leave behind. Also, if the evil one cannot convince us to abandon truth, he will certainly try to convince us to live as though it is unimportant.
The goal of our Heavenly Father for each of his children is to become more like him every day, a process that is slow—almost imperceptibly so sometimes—but nonetheless moving forward gradually, daily, moment by moment. As 2 Corinthians 3:18 says,
We are to do this together, in community with others who are being similarly transformed by the gospel, and to call those who do not yet worship God to do the same. This happens when we put down our phones, and all other distractions (Heb. 12:1-2), and day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, take every thought captive to Christ so the long-term, cumulative effect is Christlikeness in us and cultivating discipleship in others.
Watching the 2025-26 Blue Jays, especially after the All-Star break and throughout the playoffs, reminded me of this. Although they fell agonizingly short of the ultimate goal of winning the World Series, their ability to stay in the moment, free from distractions, and rely on each other, showed what can be accomplished in the long run by doing so. Never out of it (until Game 7), they relied on the camaraderie of the clubhouse as they seemingly slowed time down and focused on the next hit, the next out, the next run, the next play.
Everyone picked each other up, encouraged each other, didn’t get too high or too low, and together, willed themselves all the way to the brink of defeating the Dodgers. If a sports team can defeat distractions and purposefully live in the moment in pursuit of a temporal accomplishment, surely we, as God’s children, can, by God’s grace, similarly limit the non-eternal from our daily lives and live each moment for God’s glory.
Is It Worth It?
Another reason we struggle to purposefully live moment by moment is we cannot see the bigger picture: the result of these moments, strung together, for godly cumulative effect. In our fast-paced, instant-gratification world where waiting an extra 10 seconds for our video to load seems like an eternity, the difficult ministry of making disciples seems antiquated, unproductive, and inefficient.
Similar to parenting, the daily grind seems endless even as the behaviour of our children seems to be regressing. The harder we try, the more it appears that it isn’t working, and like a car stuck in the snow, the more effort we expend, the farther behind it seems we fall. Yet, we know that God has promised us that he is at work in the ordinary, purposefully lived moments, eventually producing his character in us and through us to others (see Prov. 4:18; Gal. 6:9; Phil. 1:6; 2 Pet. 3:18).
I doubt I can recall more than a handful of meals from my childhood, but the health I enjoyed as I developed was a direct result of the cumulative effect of good meals, prepared with love, enjoyed as I grew up before I left home.
I was at a funeral recently for a man who was a part of my congregation when I pastored in Ontario. After the service, many people from that era of the church’s life talked with me. These conversations made me appreciate the practical benefits of living purposefully in the moment. Those moments of everyday connection, discipleship, conversation, and fellowship, put together over years of investment, forged a family who helped one another and still support each other today.
How often did I want to quit in ministry during those challenging years? And yet, looking back, how many families are faithfully serving Jesus because of the investment we made in each other’s lives?
As I further reflected, I realized that although there is pain associated with memories, the daily tasks and tough slog of ministry, done shoulder to shoulder with fellow workers, were a blessing that I may have largely missed because my focus was too much on the next thing, too much on the difficulty and not enough on the joy, and too much on myself.
As Ed Helms’ character Andy Bernard from The Office famously said in the show’s finale, “I wish there was a way to know you’re in the good old days, before you’ve actually left them.”
There is a deep, abiding hope and peace in purposefully living day to day, moment to moment. It helps us appreciate those events while they’re happening, it keeps us tethered to our mission, and over time, almost without us noticing, it produces, often through suffering, an eternal weight of glory (see 2 Cor. 4:16-18).
