Lately I was wondering about things like how God can operate outside of the constraints of this thing called "time". Did he actually create time so that He could interact with us? This kind of thinking makes me wonder what it means when the scripture says "a day is like a thousand years." Does time have no relevance in the presence of an almighty God? Have you ever had those moments when you seem to get lost in a moment and you look at the clock and say to yourself, "Where did the last hour go?" When we get to heaven, I believe that it is possible that time will be in many ways peripheral.
This was a topic that C.S. Lewis tackled in part of his book "Mere Christianity". The idea of God outside of time was challenging to him as well. Wrapping your mind around the idea that God can be outside of the past, present and future can be a little mind-bending.
One idea of this was put from another author:
"Another difficulty has to do with the question of how any actions on our part can be free if God knows in advance everything that we are going to do. The key here is that since God is outside of time, there is no “in advance” for Him. If God knows that you are doing something as you are doing it today, that does not make your action any less free. But since God is outside of time, there is no tomorrow for Him. All tomorrows are as today for Him. Thus God does not foresee you doing anything tomorrow; he simply sees you doing it as if it were today, even though from your point of view it is still tomorrow."
A bit mind-bending. Just thinking a bit lately & thought I would share the random firings of the synapses in my brain.
One way I've heard that makes sense to most people is to explain that time is like a book. It has a beginning, an ending, but God writes the whole thing, allowed us to be a living breathing character in his book, but he already knows what happens, has happened, and how we will react and change. History literally is, his story. This is how God can interact, pick up the book, move to any part of it at any time. He hasn't written it and left it on a shelf to rot. He is actively writing it, showing up, and as precendented in scripture, the prayers of a righteous man can "change" God's mind. Lot, Hezekiah, and others are good examples. Good thoughts here.
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