I love when Jack Nicholson, in the midst of his character’s disastrous life, asks “What if this is As Good As It Gets?” It’s a question worth asking. Because this – – whatever is right now – – IS as good as it gets. In fact it’s all we get.

“Improving my life” is a cycle I can repeat in the same predictable circles, without ever managing to visit the present. I can be terminally busy with the minutia of some master plan that never seems to run into “right now.”

When Nicholson asks “What if this is as good as it gets,” it is an invitation to live fully, engage, not with some long range plan, but with the people around me, in the moment I am in. It is a call to stop being the constant observer, the interminable planner and the incessant critic – – to put down my bullhorn and take off my director’s cap, and to jump into the scene itself. It is a plea to stop pausing every fifteen minutes to take my own and everyone else’s emotional temperature and simply participate.

Too often, I run around thinking, “If I believe, if I Trust in God, if I pray, and if I do it right, my life will somehow fall into place, become easier… better…different.” Like the whole notion of this journey is to get somewhere other than where I am. After years of trying to cram this idea down life’s throat, I am finally convinced that’s not what God meant, when he said “Follow me…”

So back to Jack. What if I believed my life was perfect as it was. With all the not-knowing, with all the ungracefulness, with all the doubts, with all the unanswered questions, with all the circumstances that aren’t going the way I want them to. What if I ceased living my life on the battlefield of how it is vs. how I want it to be, and realized, as Jack did, that this IS as good as it gets. These ARE the good old days and right now IS the gift. That changes things. It forces me to look for the gift within the moment, not the gift to be created with the ingredients of the moment. The gift is already there, fully formed, just waiting to be recognized. It’s not up to me to manufacture the gift, because the gift of the moment is always from God rather than my own efforts, ingenuity or design.

Sometimes I imagine God hearing what goes through my head and bursting out laughing, taking me in His arms and saying, “Sweetie, that’s not what I meant… No wonder you are so tired/frustrated/disappointed/disheartened/upset.” I think God would remind me that what he said was, “Come to me you who are weary and I will give you rest for my yoke is easy and my burden is light….” It’s a choice. A decision. A turning over of power and influence. And I love the image of the yoke – – a brace that binds two oxen together to share the weight of pulling a plow. God says, I am the strong one, I can pull this load, you bind yourself up with me and let me do the heavy lifting. God says, “Come to me,”…. It’s an invitation, NOT to work, but to rest.

God and Johnny Cash PROMISE us that “In this life you will have troubles.” I constantly forget that this isn’t our home. I have a perspective that generally takes into account everything up until early next week, not eternity, and as a Christian woman, that degree of foresight can wreak havoc.

Does this sound familiar? “If I can just make it through the holidays, if I can just make it through her junior year, if they can just get in, if I can bear with it all until vacation, if I can just make it until next Friday when I have a whole afternoon unscheduled….” None of those scenarios include living in the here and now. I live my life on fast forward waiting to get to “it.” And “it” is right now. And “it” is as good as it gets. The things I am always waiting for – – they never arrive. Because when I get there, I am already focused on the next “when.”

Jack is right. This IS as good as it gets. This is it. It’s the only thing that is ever going to happen.

There is this great line: “Surrender to win.” I am there. I am convinced it is a terminally losing battle to get life to behave. I am choosing to believe that the life that God “has planned for me…” the one intended to “prosper me not to harm me” the one He assures me will give me “hope and a future” is the one unfolding right now.

I love the passage in Philippians 4, in which the apostle Paul talks about how he has learned to be content in all circumstances. He actually wrote that line when he was in jail. I remember being in a Bible study when I first started to really believe there was a God, and I wasn’t it. I heard this passage in Ephesians that struck me then and has stayed with me since. It talked about the kind of faith that didn’t leave you at the mercy of the wind and waves in life. That is the life God promises…not the one out of the storm, but the one in which no storm is too great. God isn’t promising me an easy life. He’s not. But he is offering me a way to make it through my life without being rocked by my circumstances – – which is a different and deeper kind of life…it’s the life I have always wanted – – to be in the midst of it all and be unshakeable, strong, there for those around me, calm on the inside, filled with peace, and trusting that I am right where I am supposed to be, right now. And until I get to heaven, that’s as good as it gets.