To open to the sense, to become really conscious, you have to drop out of the future and the past and remain for a time in what T. S. Eliot called "the still point of the turning world" — the present. The only true reality is the present.
It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view. The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision...This is what we are about. We plant the seeds that one day will grow. We water seeds already planted, know that they hold future promise...We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities...We are prophets of a future not our own.