I was listening to this interview of one of my favorite nonfiction authors, and he briefly mentioned a favorite party game of mine, Who Would You Invite To Dinner? I love these sorts of games because they really help me get to know a room of people without having to deal with the awkwardness of questions or small talk.

We adults often like racking our brains with exotic lists in situations like this. But do you know who children choose? They overwhelmingly say, "I would want to have dinner with my family."

This statistic is, on one hand, quite simple, yet profound at the same time.

Children have an innate sense of the power of this moment, one that we who are older seem to lack, because we are so distracted.

Perhaps this is one of the many reasons Jesus says in Matthew 18:3, “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Because when we are fully present in the moment like a little child we can truly fulfill the commands Jesus gave us later in the Gospels to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind," and to “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

It sounds so simple, but it is incredibly hard and so important that we get it right. Because if we are not fully grounded in this moment, our hearts can easily become divided. And once our hearts are divided, our attention is diverted.

Ultimately, this results in our hearts being unable to fulfill the command that Jesus gave us to Love the Lord God with all your heart.

Consequently, we wind up only loving God with a part of our heart. This starves our soul and recalibrates our minds further away from the will of God. We wind up being frustrated with our Christian walk as it leaves us unfilled.

Additionally, if our hearts are divided and our mind's focus is split, how can we possibly love our neighbors as the Lord has commanded us to do? The truth of the matter is we can't.

Sure, we can try. But it will ultimately end up in colossal failure. We will either find ourselves wanting to control our neighbors or resenting them so much that any love we might have had for them gets shriveled up. This is where we need the Holy Spirit to constantly be renewing our minds and souls so we see people correctly: not as projects to fix or puppets to manipulate but as cherished brothers and sisters who have the most wonderful and unique treasure ever known - a living soul. To put it into a proper perspective, let us consider these words of C.S. Lewis: "There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.”

So, you might be wondering, how do we stay fully present as people of faith? That is a great question.

First off, we have to accept and acknowledge that we are by no means omnipotent. I like what God says in Job 38:4-5, “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me, if you know so much. Who determined its dimensions and stretched out the surveying line?” Here God is speaking to Job about his unlimited power, which was ultimately displayed by the empty tomb on Easter. These words and God's actions throughout history ultimately reinforce the ultimate truth that God is in full control of today, and of tomorrow, too. If we use up all our mental energies worrying about today and tomorrow, then we miss the present God has given us.

Another way to stay grounded in the present is silent prayer. Due to the situations we find ourselves in and some workplace regulations, we cannot always say a prayer out loud. But silent prayer is such an under-looked and seldom used spiritual weapon. After all, the devil and our own flesh attack us silently all day long with temptations, racing thoughts, et cetera. So why don't we fight back just as violently? Prayers help center our focus on God's perfect and Holy Will, allowing us to see situations and people rightly.

Worship music, too, is another tool we have in our arsenal. Whenever we lift our voices up to God, something miraculous happens. In Chernobyl, there is this black opal looking fungus called Cladosporium Sphaerospermum, which feeds off the deadly radiation levels that the area is still facing decades after the famous nuclear power plant failure. In much the same way, on a spiritual level, whenever we turn our attention and our worship towards our Heavenly Father, our souls are changed. The Holy Spirit and God's presence “eats” the broken bits of sin that have been radiating from our hearts throughout the week like the fungus I've mentioned above. This spiritual cleansing helps us stay in the present since our hearts are aligned and our spiritual lives are hitherto unencumbered.

Lastly, there is the gift of grace. God's grace is more than sufficient, like how Niagara Falls is more than capable of creating tremendous amounts of electricity through its constant currents, or how the Sun is more than sufficient in warming our planet each and every morning. In our times of weakness when we are not fully present or our hearts are divided, we can rest assured that God can and still is using us to bring about His perfect plan, no matter how we feel or how cloudy the view of our circumstances seems to be from our earthly perspective.

May you always be blessed.