God is not in Time."

 

Daily Gratitude Year 13 - Day 244:  Today, I am grateful our God is not in Time.

I cannot tell you when this truth became evident to me. I grew up recognizing the scripture that "his days are not our days." He does not really work on a 24-hour clock. He is without that boundary and limitation. 

The brilliant C.S. Lewis wrote Mere Christianity. It is for the deep thinkers and for those who want to think deeply in smaller doses. He does an amazing job of explaining how God is not bound by our earthly limitations. 

"Almost certainly God is not in Time. His life doesn’t consist of moments following one another. If a million people are praying to Him at ten-thirty tonight, He hasn’t got to listen to them all in that one little snippet which we call “ten-thirty.” Ten-thirty, and every other moment from the beginning to the end of the world, is always the Present for Him. If you like to put it that way, He has infinity in which to listen to the split second of prayer put up by a pilot as his plane crashes in flames.

That’s difficult, I know. Can I try to give something, not the same, but a bit like it? Suppose I’m writing a novel. I write “Mary laid down her book; next moment came a knock at the door.” For Mary, who’s got to live in the imaginary time of the story, there’s no interval between putting down the book and hearing the knock. But I, her creator, between writing the first part of that sentence and the second, may have gone out for an hour’s walk and spent the whole hour thinking about Mary. I know that’s not a perfect example, but it may just give a glimpse of what I mean. The point I want to drive home is that God has infinite attention, infinite leisure to spare for each one of us. He doesn’t have to take us in the line. You’re as much alone with Him as if you were the only thing He’d ever created.

When Christ died, He died for you individually just as much as if you’d been the only man in the
world." -C.S. Lewis

God has infinite attention for you and for me. He, in Jesus, took on the challenge of being earthbound for about 33 years. I cannot even fathom it.  

“Don’t cling to me,” Jesus said, “for I haven’t yet ascended to the Father. But go find my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” John 20:17 

Perhaps it gives some insight to this passage. It takes place in the garden with Mary Magdalene. She was overwhelmed and her instant response would have been to reach out and embrace her beloved "Rabboni." He stopped her. Not in rebuke, but because he needed to finish something. He would return and appear to many. How? He is not in Time. 

Today, I am grateful our God is not in Time.