You’re going to grow impatient with me. Why? Because for some reason, the Spirit still has me thinking about time. Yes, I get it. Been there and done that, for the past two weeks! Right? Well, there’s still obviously something for me, and possibly you, to learn in this ongoing pondering. So, let’s get right to it.
Many of us have heard some version of this passage from Peter’s Second Letter: “But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day” (2 Peter 3:8). In other words, God’s time is nothing like ours, is it? What we think of being a day, is but a blink of God’s eye. What we think of being a thousand years is but a divine second. And what is a thousand years in God’s presence can also feel but like only a second. So, what gives?
Well, I can’t help but to think about Albert Einstein, for he was once quoted in saying, “Time is relative; its only worth depends upon what we do as it is passing.” In other words, the passing of time all depends on your frame of reference. It is intensely personal. For, when you think something is happening too slowly, I might think it is happening too fast, and vice versa. Now consider for a moment all that God has seen and done as told to us in Scripture. Pretty astounding right? By some accounts, if you were to backtrack dates in the Bible, the dawn of Creation was some 6,000 years ago. Yet, modern science tells us that the earth is billions of years old. So, which is it? Well, are you going by our time or God’s time? If one day is a thousand years and a thousand years are one day, could 6,000 years and billions of years be the same as well?
I know, getting pretty confusing and over-whelming, isn’t it? So, let’s call a “time-out” for a moment and consider this – what does it really matter? Is it just to prove whether faith or science is in the right? Is it just for one side to say, “I’m right and you’re wrong”? Well, I certainly hope not, because then all of it would be just a total waste of time. In the Gospel of John, Jesus said: “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now” (John 16:12, NRSV). I think God has always been saying that. God has always revealed to us in God’s time, not ours, for there are so many things we couldn’t understand from one age to another. I mean, people have tried to explain the 1960’s to me, but I wasn’t there and
I’m sure I’ll never really understand!
Time is relative, because it’s meant to be relational. It is relevant in a certain setting with a certain person or people, which another cannot understand. Yet, God has a way of working things out – in due time, God’s time not ours.
Well, until another time…keep on pondering. Pastor Steve
