Give Us Tomorrow’s Barabbas

If asked what folks would change about themselves before the pandemic struck, I imagine many would have responded something like:

“I just want to be more present. Let tomorrow worry for itself. Take every day for what it is. Less technology. More people. More passions and productivity. I just want to be present.”

I’ll raise my hand to that.

Being present has been a lifelong challenge, going all the way back to childhood when I wrote myself into storybooks that imagined me an alternate me entirely: confident, with many friends, always signing up for a daring adventure.

I didn’t want to be a lame, acne-ridden, closeted loner. I wanted out of this stale life and into a bold new one.

Even throughout adulthood to this day, my fantasy life rages. I no longer write clandestine stories about myself in giraffe-spotted composition books, but I still follow those same tendencies: fantasizing about being more confident, especially socially, especially among other men, and also confident to follow my passions without fear of failure — that even in failure, the magical process is still being unwound.

I want a future version of myself, not the present one.

Ugh, the present; the present is the worst.

And then the coronavirus happened. And now the present is truly the worst.

People speculate about a new normalcy returning “in two weeks,” or “by April 30,”  or “some time this summer,” or “certainly by fall.”

Trapped in the throes of a worldwide crisis, I want nothing to do with the present. I never did even before COVID-19, but especially not now.

I’d hit the big red button on canceling the next six months of my life if it meant all this insanity were over.

And the more I think about that statement, the more disheartened I grow. A human on this earth with limited days, I’d seriously eliminate two hundred of them just so things could be normal again.

And what even is normal?

Pining for another life. A bolder, more relationally fulfilling life. Somewhere. Somewhere out there…

Much of my life has been wasted on pining for potential futures. On the one hand, it’s healthy to hope for something better than the present. To strive for more: healthier minds, healthier bodies, healthier relationships. Healthier lives. From an eternal standpoint, surely there must be something better than this.

But from these strictly earthly confines, what if the better we’re beckoned by is right here? Right now?

What if our life never gets better than this moment that is today? Are we willing to step out where we are, however limited or “not ready” we think we are, because it doesn’t matter, because today is all we even have?

What if we loved others today as if tomorrow never came?

What if we followed our God-given passions today as if tomorrow never came?

What if we laid down our lives today as if tomorrow we stepped into eternity?

Our entire lives we have wanted to be more present. And now that we’ve been given nothing but buckets upon buckets of the present, we are kicking away the pails and saying, “Give us back our precious longings.”

The savior we have anticipated through countless yesterdays is finally here in our midst, and we cry for Barabbas.

It’s been a challenging couple weeks. I’ve been present in quaint walks around the neighborhood, and I’ve wasted hours to oversleeping and binging unnecessary things in hopes of waking up to a new tomorrow that hasn’t yet come.

I’ve been convicted by a lot in the last two weeks. I’ve been negligent in my gratitude — my ease of access to groceries and gasoline and good people. I don’t pray nearly as much as I think I do. I certainly don’t spend the time in the Word as much as I’ve needed to do.

Above all, I am desperately not present. I am months, if not years into the future — a future that will not even transpire if I do not invest in the present.

We’ve been given a gift with this pandemic. It’s a huge and long and uncertain, even painful gift to open.

And yet if we’re open to opening it — opening it entirely — side by side, ribbon by ribbon, day by tedious day . . .

We may find an unprecedented present inside.