God Above Time

     "See, the former things have taken place, and new things I declare; before they spring into being I announce them to you." (Isaiah 42:9 NIV)
     One of the most remarkable, yet unknowable, things about God is how He contains all of time within Himself. In some way that our human minds cannot begin to grasp, an eternal God stretches out infinitely before time began and infinitely beyond the end of time as we know it. How can that be? Before time began, God always was (is?) and after time ends, God always will be--He simply is (hence His name I AM).
     Because God contains time within Himself, it's really easy for Him to tell us anything He chooses about future events (He is, in a sense, already there in the future even as He is always in some sense always in the past). In fact, in more than one place in Isaiah God's ability to foretell the future is highlighted as one of the things that marks His "Godness."
      Is this kind of thinking giving you a headache or making you say, "So what?" I hope not because, if nothing else, such thoughts can bring to us a sense of worship and awe that takes us completely out of ourselves and bring us to a place of holy fear. In God's eternal nature and the omniscience that flows from that we can see, if only dimly, the infinite gulf between Creator and creature that He so willingly spanned to reconcile us to Himself through Jesus. And we are undone (I tremble as I write this!)
     But we also have some amazing reassurances contained in God's being above time. One of these relates to God's sovereignty. I have written earlier about how God's sovereignty works in a way that allows Him to work out everything according to His predetermined purpose yet do so without violating the free will of His creatures. Without His knowing all things, God couldn't do this, but because He does know all things, His promise to work everything out for the good of those who love Him brings us comfort even when evil seems to be winning the day. Because He knows the end from the beginning God is able to work "in the background" so that even the (infinitely-stupider-than-God) devil's worst works will be turned to good in the end. (And no, I don't understand how that will happen nor does any creature He has made!). As one who has stood in the wreckage of tragedy not only personally but with many others, I take great comfort in knowing that God is above time and therefore able to use time to fulfill His perfect and perfectly loving purposes.
     Another wonderful implication of God's containing time within Himself shows up when He takes us back to something in the past to encourage us in the present moment. I had one of those moments this morning. I was needing very specific encouragement about some very specific things in a very specific way. Papa's answer was to nudge me to go back exactly 11 months in my journal to read what I had written there. When I did that, I was blown away to see exactly the specific encouragement I was needing in exactly the specific form I needed it. I could write much more about this (there were many, many "God coincidences in this event), but suffice it to say that only a God who knows everything could have orchestrated this. And God has done this for me so many times that I could never count them up! I smile as I think of what He said to me when I asked Him how He does this so often for so many of us. I sensed His joyful laughter as He said, "It's easy when you know everything!" I smile even now as I think of that. What wonder and love is this, that an infinite God would bend His infiniteness to bless His very finite creatures!!?? Ah, Papa, we are undone by your kindness and by your impossible-to-grasp power and knowledge!
     God above time, we worship you even as we realize how remembering this about you enables you to reveal things to us whenever we need them to serve you and others! You can at any moment, as needed, drop into our listening spirits whatever we need to know that will best serve others! Keep me/us listening, then, God above time, that your Kingdom may come and your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.

Tom, one of Abba's listening children