Outside of Time

By

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.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Light as a Feather

By
Image
 " And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them,  “If anyone would come after me, let him  deny himself and  take up his cross and follow me.  For  whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake  and the gospel's will save it.     For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?     For  what can a man give in return for his soul? " Mark 8:34-37   (ESV) There is a lot packed in these four verses from Mark. What stands out to me most through all this talk about losing or gaining our lives and our souls, is in verse 34 where we are told to “take up your cross”. This is an instruction I have heard many times through the church, but what does it mean to take up your cross? To me, taking up our cross is choosing to be a Christian everyday. The conscious effort to treat people a certain way, to rely on God, and to think about ...
Read more

When We Can’t Say Nothing at All

By
Image
  “ I said, ‘Mourn for me; I’m ruined! I’m a man with unclean lips, and I live among a people with unclean lips. Yet I’ve seen the king, the Lord of heavenly forces!’”  “Then I heard the Lord’s voice saying, ‘Whom should I send, and who will go for us?’ I said, ‘I’m here; send me.’” - Isaiah 6:5 & 8 CEB - We don’t often use the phrase ‘unclean lips,’ but it doesn’t take much to think about what it could mean. In our society, we classify certain things as ‘dirty words’ or ‘dirty language.’ But I do not think cussing or talking about lewd subjects is the only ways our lips can be unclean. How often do we think about the implications of what we say? Sure we realize that we might not always say the best things. Instead of saying a loving or kind word we simple just say something OK. Sometimes we do not say anything at all and hope that is better than what we wanted to say. After all, there is the motherly proverb of “if you can’t say something nice, don...
Read more

Strength in Weakness

By Anonymous
Image
He said to me, "My grace is enough for you, because power is made perfect in weakness." So I'll gladly spend my time bragging about my weaknesses so that Christ's power can rest on me. Therefore, I'm all right with weaknesses, insults, disasters, harassments, and stressful situations for the sake of Christ, because when I'm weak, then I'm strong. - 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 NRSV - In high school my youth pastor used the image of a clay jar with a candle inside to explain how we can find strength in weakness. If a clay jar is perfectly intact and closed with a lid, the light of the candle inside is hidden. From the outside no one is able to tell that the candle exists. However, when the clay jar is cracked and broken, the light of the candle shines through, revealing its existence. This is how we can find strength in weakness, thereby glorifying God. If humans were perfect, there would be no need to point to a savior. From the outside no one w...
Read more