Outside of Time

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Look, he is coming with the clouds! Every eye will see him, including those who pierced him, and all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of him. This is so. Amen. “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “the one who is and was and is coming, the Almighty.”
– Revelation 1:7-8 –

              Time. We keep track of it in gears on a watch or more likely by turning on our phone screen. When we have fun it seems to go faster and when we’re stuck in that class we dislike it seems to crawl to a slower pace. Sometimes we want to add more time to the day to get more done, have more time with a friend, or to take a longer nap! Whether we wish time was faster or slower, we’re all living within the constraint of time.

Since we live within time, it’s hard to imagine anything outside of it. It’s hard to imagine a Being that existed before time or outside of time. Since God created everything that means that before He created the universe in which we live, He existed before time. This is hard for me to wrap my head around. Time dictates everything I do. Even writing this devotional is dictated by time because I need to get it published on time for you to read when you have time! Yet God is outside of time. In this passage from Revelation we see this great creator God who has always been. God just is. God has always been, is currently, and will always be.

Our time-wrapped minds have trouble grasping this concept. This is appropriate because it makes sense that our created brains cannot fully understand the great Creator. Still in the thinking of this God who simply is and wrestling with what this means, we find comfort. A God who simply is can’t be surprised or startled by any event. A God who simply is is a constant Being interacting with the Universe without fundamentally changing. We can take comfort that whether life is chaotic or consistent, God is. God created us, God loves us, and God is with us in each moment of life. God is always with His people.

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