Now - For Dummies

This post is the result of two books I am reading at the moment (Mere Christianity and Where is God when it Hurts?) plus a conversation I had with two of my friends yesterday. It is probably quite a bit more confusing than most of my posts, but if you can get your head around this idea it can help understand some things about God better.

In Exodus 4, God appears to Moses in the burning bush, and tells him that His name is "I am that I am". Elsewhere in the bible, we are told that God is the same yesterday, today and forever. God is also called the 'Alpha and the Omega' (or the 'first and the last'). He existed before the universe began and will continue to exist after it ends. He knows everything that has happened, and everything that will happen in this universe.

The problem for us as people, is that we exist within creation, and part of creation is the concept of time. Time is something that God created along with everything else, and we are told this in Genesis 1. God says 'Let there be light' and later there is the first day and the first night. This shows that time is created at that point.

Some people who have problems with Christianity ask where God came from, the whole "Who created God?" argument, but they fail to grasp the idea that because God created time, he exists outside it. Without the concept of time, there is no such thing as beginning and end, or before and after. Everything is now.

It can be quite difficult for people to understand this fully. God doesn't simply 'foresee' the future, or 'remember' the past like we would do. He actually lives in those moments as if they were happening right now, because to him they are! God tries to explain this to Jeremiah when he says (Jeremiah 1:5) "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you". God knew Jeremiah because at the same time as he IS creating the earth, he IS talking to Jeremiah, just as he IS watching you read this right now, and IS watching the universe finally end whenever it will. This is how God knows who will choose to follow him in the end, because he sees them following him now.

If everything for God is now, then there is no need for anyone to create him. That would imply having a beginning, but without time there is no beginning, just as there is no end.

If everything for God is now, then He didn't know that Satan would rebel when he created him, or that people would choose to disobey him, he sees them disobeying him now. He sees every single act of rebellion and disobedience that ever was or every will be as if they are happening right now, and yet he still chooses to create them and give them the chance to obey. This means also that for all eternity He sees his son give up his life to set us free from our sins. There is no pain that we could imagine that could ever even comprehend that in any way. No wonder He turns his face away from the sight.

Imagine watching the one you loved most of all dying, and then having to watch them die forever. Then think how much you must love someone else, in order to allow that to happen.

That is how much God loves you.

Thats why I love Him.

If you want to talk to me about any of this, leave me a note, and I'll email you. God loves you that much, He deserves a chance from you.