Farmville Enterprise February 22, 2017
“But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:8-9) Our perspective about time is not the same as God’s. At different stages in life we might perceive the passage of years differently. Some say that the older we get the more quickly the days and weeks seem to go. For a child, waiting for a birthday or Christmas can be almost torturous as the hours seemingly drag. On a particularly enjoyable vacation the trip flies by while life appears ploddingly slow to a person in the hospital or suffering from physical or emotional anguish.
Charles Hodge in his Systematic Theology wrote, “The infinitude of God relatively to space, is his immensity or omnipresence; relatively to duration, it is his eternity. As He is free from all the limitations of space, so He is exalted above all limitations of time. As He is not more in one place than in another, but is everywhere equally present, so He does not exist during one period of duration more than another. With Him there is no distinction between the present, past, and future; but all things are equally and always present to Him. With Him duration is an eternal now.” Exodus 3:13-15 gives us a good glimpse into our eternally present Creator. “Moses said to God, ‘Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name? Then what shall I tell them?’ God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: I AM has sent me to you.’ God also said to Moses, ‘Say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers-the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob- has sent me to you.’ ‘This is my name forever, the name you shall call me from generation to generation.’”
God understands that we human beings live in a universe bound by time and that we experience chronological order. God’s experience is different. Think of the first time you read a certain book or saw a particular movie. At first, you only could have guessed the ending. Once you knew it, the circumstances made sense. Your perspective was different. You couldn’t un-know the ending. It can be very reassuring to remember that God sees how our lives will come together. A few years ago there was a Casting Crowns song that offered such great hope.
“From where you’re standing Lord, you see a grand design that you imagined when you breathed me into life. And all the chaos comes together in your hands like a masterpiece of your picture perfect plan. When I’m lost in the mystery to you my future is a memory. Cause you’re already there. You’re already there, standing at the end of my life, waiting on the other side… One day I’ll stand before you and look back on the life I’ve lived I can’t wait to enjoy the view and see how all the pieces fit.”
celiastone 