There is a friend who likes to humorously talk about his struggles growing up. “When I was in my twenties, I felt that by the time I was forty, I would have grown up enough to let go of my bad habits. But, when I turned forty, I gave myself an extra ten years, promising myself that I’d have conquered these habits by age fifty. Well, now I’m in my fifties, and I’ve promised myself that by age sixty, I’ll be more mature and more serious about the deeper things in life.” Most of us, if we are honest, have a similar story. We’re well-intentioned, but we keep pushing the things we need to change in our lives off into the future: Yes, I need to do this, but I’m not ready yet. I want more time. Sometime in the future, I’ll do this. That’s a near-universal sentiment and for good reason. The tension we experience between our desire to grow up and our perennial procrastination and infinite stalling in doing that reflects, in fact, a tension that lies at the heart of Jesus’ message, a tension between God’s promises as being already here and God’s promises as still coming. Simply put: Everything Jesus promised is already here, and everything Jesus promised is still coming. We’re already living the new, resurrected life, even as we’re still waiting for it. Jesus preached this very clearly; the problem was not that his hearers didn’t understand him. They understood, but almost universally, they resisted that message. Much as they yearned for God’s Kingdom to be already here, like my friend who keeps asking for another ten years to get his life in order, they preferred to push things into the future. Having God become concrete in their lives was far too threatening. (excerpt from Fr. Ron Rolheiser’s “May Your Kingdom Come, But Not Yet”)