The Narrow Door of Now
How Pain is a Key to Living in the Present – By Dr. Keith M. Waggoner
Saturday Night Capture
I had been sitting in meditation and prayer after a tremendous bout with pain from a back injury. I twisted my L3 vertebra and created stenosis in the nerve. The pain was sharp and constant. Probably the most intense physical pain I have ever experienced.
I consider myself well versed in pain.
I have spent a lifetime inoculating myself to endure pain through living with abuse, martial arts training, and pushing myself in every way possible to become stronger and more capable. Hard training. Old school training. I came from the blood and guts era of karate where we did not tap until something snapped. I trained in Sayoc Kali where we intentionally pushed beyond logical limits. Where, as Theodore Roosevelt said, “I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life.”
I know pain.
But nothing hurt physically like this.
There were moments I clenched my jaw hard enough to crack a tooth. The stress was so intense that shingles broke out across my body. Sleep became shallow. Movement became deliberate. Every simple action carried sharp and immediate consequence.
One night I leaned forward over the bar in my living room just to find a position where I could think. Oh, sweet relief. I stood there quiet and still, thanking Jesus for a small window where the pain eased enough to let me stand upright.
Pain has a strange authority.
It strips away noise.
It shuts down distraction.
It forces attention into the body and into the moment.
That is part of God’s design.
Suffering interrupts autopilot. It humbles the mind. It pulls us out of memory and imagination and drops us back into reality. During that season I felt closer to God than I had in a long time. My prayers slowed down. My gratitude deepened. Awareness sharpened. Life felt heavier, but it also felt more real.
Out of that season of suffering came this insight… As something given in the middle of pain. I wrote it down as soon as I could and put it in this quote below…
“The PAST is an enormous place with so much to dwell on. So many things, like endless rooms in an endless maze. We can find ourselves lost there, absent from the present and tragically imprisoned.
We then will miss the only thing that’s real… the present and its narrow opening to focus on the here and now.
That is what we can only look through with one pair of eyes… our very own. This provides us with a new and enormous perspective.
Our personal aches, our looming sufferings, our terrible memories… they all compete with the now and seek to steal away our ability to live in the present.
Sometimes it may seem harsh to say but no matter what may be in our assorted pasts… if we are to really and truly ever be happy… it all must take a back seat to right here and now.
We must let go of the past and allow the present to define our possibilities.
It’s really our duty as the living to embrace the gift of life that can only be experienced now.”
What follows is the unpacking of that revelation.
THE PAST: THE ENDLESS MAZE
The past really is enormous. Neuroscience confirms this. The brain is wired to store emotionally charged experiences with far more intensity than neutral ones. This is called negativity bias. It evolved to keep us alive, but it also traps us in loops of memory, regret, and replay.
Rooms stacked with memories.
Regrets.
Wins.
Losses.
Old conversations.
Old wounds.
People do not just remember the past.
They live there trapped continually… ruminating on ghosts that haunt their now and steal away the present moment. We reinvent and reimagine as we recollect and regurgitate our lives… not in reality… oh no… what we reinvent is not what really happened… it’s tarnished and tainted by our feelings and the fleeting life we are wasting by living in the past. It’s a tornado of torment. So many of us get lost there with no preverbal red slippers to bring us home.
Psychologists call this rumination. Repetitive mental replay that feels productive but produces paralysis. Over time, identity forms around it. Habits harden around it. Emotional posture becomes shaped by what already happened instead of what is happening.
One thought opens another door.
One memory triggers another emotion.
One regret pulls ten more behind it.
Years disappear that way. Life can empty itself of all meaning and happiness. It’s tragic.
THE NARROW OPENING OF NOW
“We then will miss the only thing that’s real… the present and its narrow opening to focus on the here and now.”
The present is narrow by design.
Neurologically, attention is limited bandwidth. You cannot fully inhabit more than one moment at a time. Multitasking fragments awareness. Presence concentrates it.
This is where life happens.
Love happens here.
Leadership happens here.
Discipline happens here.
Forgiveness happens here.
Faith happens here.
Jesus said, “Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.” He was not teaching passivity. He was teaching attentional discipline. Stay anchored where God is working. That place is now.
When attention stays locked in memory or fantasy, the present starves.
YOUR VANTAGE POINT
“That is what we can only look through with one pair of eyes… our very own.”
No one else gets your seat.
No one else carries your family, your calling, your responsibility, your influence. Your nervous system, your experiences, your wiring, your timing. God placed you exactly where you are for a reason.
Neuroscience shows that perception is not passive. What you attend to literally shapes neural pathways. When attention returns to now, perception sharpens. Noise drops. Reality becomes clearer. You stop exaggerating yesterday and stop fantasizing about tomorrow.
Perspective widens.
THE WAR FOR ATTENTION
“Our personal aches, our looming sufferings, our terrible memories… they all compete with the now.”
Pain is loud.
Fear is loud.
Old wounds are loud.
The brain’s threat system constantly scans for danger. This keeps us alive, but it also hijacks attention. Viktor Frankl described the critical space between stimulus and response. That space is where freedom lives. Presence protects that space. Without it, reaction becomes automatic and responsibility disappears.
This is why awareness is power.
THE DECISION OF PRESENCE
“Sometimes it may seem harsh to say but no matter what may be in our assorted pasts… it all must take a back seat to right here and now.”
Not because the past does not matter.
Because it cannot be changed.
Forward motion requires forward focus. The nervous system follows attention. The body follows the nervous system. Action follows the body.
Presence becomes a daily decision.
LETTING GO
“We must let go of the past and allow the present to define our possibilities.”
Letting go is not forgetting.
It is releasing control.
It is choosing movement over stagnation.
It is choosing responsibility over rumination.
Behavioral science confirms this. Identity is not built by reflection alone. It is built by repeated action in the present moment.
Strength is built here.
Habits are built here.
Character is shaped here.
THE GIFT OF NOW
“It’s really our duty as the living to embrace the gift of life that can only be experienced now.”
If you are breathing, you have an obligation.
To show up.
To participate.
To carry weight.
To live awake.
John Eldredge writes that the soul withers when it disconnects from lived experience. Men especially drift into numbness when they stop engaging life directly.
Life is not something you wait for.
It is something you step into.
A PERSONAL COMMITMENT
Here is what this season of pain changed in me.
I am no longer wasting the narrow doorway of now.
Even pain has become a teacher.
Stenosis created suffering, yes. But it also created contrast. Those brief moments of relief became sacred. Standing at my counter breathing without agony felt miraculous. Gratitude deepened. Awareness sharpened. Life became brighter because pain darkened the background.
This is God’s design.
Contrast trains appreciation.
Struggle forges perception.
Pressure refines presence.
Scripture says all things work together for good. Not some things. Not comfortable things. All things.
Life is not happening to us.
It is happening for us.
Pain is not just an enemy. When properly stewarded, it becomes a tool. A teacher. A refiner. A doorway back into the present where God is always working.
The narrow keyhole of now is not a limitation.
It is a gift.
It focuses the soul.
It sharpens the senses.
It concentrates meaning.
And it reveals how beautiful life actually is.
Paul Kalanithi’s book When Breath Becomes Air captures this same truth from a medical and human perspective. As a neurosurgeon who became a terminal cancer patient, his world narrowed dramatically. Titles faded. Ambitions softened. Control evaporated. And what remained was presence. Breath. Relationship. Meaning. As his body weakened, his awareness sharpened. Pain did not destroy his sense of purpose. It clarified it. The narrowing of his physical life widened his inner life. That is the same paradox I experienced standing at my counter in pain. When life constricts, what matters becomes unmistakably clear. The now becomes precious. Attention becomes sacred. Existence becomes vivid again.
C.S. Lewis described this same dynamic from a theological angle in The Problem of Pain. He wrote that God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain. Not because He is cruel, but because suffering is often the only thing loud enough to wake us from spiritual sleep. Pain has a way of breaking illusions. It disrupts comfort. It dismantles false security. And it forces the soul to look upward and inward at the same time. When understood properly, pain does not separate us from God. It drives us toward Him. It pulls us out of numb living and back into the narrow door of now where real transformation happens.
Final Challenge
Stop living in rooms that no longer exist.
Stop feeding stories that keep you trapped.
Stop postponing the life that is happening in front of you.
Bring your eyes back to now.
Bring your breath back to now.
Bring your responsibility back to now.
The door is narrow.
But it is open.
And life is waiting on the other side.
Step through it.
Recommended Reading
Mastering Presence, Attention, and the Now
-
Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
-
The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Mark Comer
-
The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle
-
12 Rules for Life by Jordan Peterson
-
The Way of the Heart by Henri Nouwen
-
A Severe Mercy by Sheldon Vanauken
- The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis
- When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi