He is Eternal
Lost time is never found again. – Benjamin Franklin
Time waits for no one. – Unknown
Time is the most valuable thing a man can spend. – Theophrastus
How did it get so late so soon? It’s night before it’s afternoon. December is here before it’s June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon? – Dr. Seuss
What would you do if you had endless time? I have often wished for the ability to stop the clock – to catch up on sleep, to finish the dishes, or just to make the weekend last a little longer. That is why Dr. Strange IS the best superhero ever! Feel free to disagree with me, but you must admit those are some seriously useful powers! But alas, we mere mortals are powerless slaves to time, and no matter what we do, it pursues us to the end.
Not so with God. A trillion, trillion years ago, God was FAR more than a trillion, trillion years old. I know trillion, trillion isn’t a real number, but it saves me from being mathematical about the largest number we can write, blah, blah, blah. You’re welcome. Just consider the enormity of what if means to be eternal. Not only existing forever into the future, but existing eternally in the past. We can easily comprehend the idea of never ceasing to exist. We spend a lot of time, money, and hope on this very idea. But to really understand never needing to be created in the first place – it’s mind boggling! How can someone not have a starting point? This is what seems impossible; it just can’t be real.
We tend to think of our time, universe, and world as ultimate reality – what we can scientifically authenticate. However, God existed before all of it. Isaiah 57:15 describes God as, “the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity.” Before there were minutes and seconds to count, God was eternal. He framed the boundaries of the cosmos, if indeed there are any. He created everything in this physical universe, including time, and then stepped inside it. What we see, hear, and touch is not ultimate reality. . .God is.
God is infinite; we are not. Let that sink in. Our minds cannot even conceive of numbers large enough to begin to prescribe to Him. Eternity is an unknowable actuality for us. It is there – we know it, but we cannot see it or quantify it. It is a tension: a balance between the truth God has revealed about Himself and our inability to understand it. However, that does not mean we should shy away from trying. Where would we be if at every mystery in this universe we threw up our hands and walked away? There is something so valuable in approaching a tension, not to quench it but to linger there in awe.
Have you ever stood at the precipice of a cliff, with a valley laid out below you, and a whole mountain range stretching vastly in the distance? Have you stood staring into the clear night sky trying to comprehend the amount of stars laid out in endless array and the eons in which they have burned? Have you held a newborn baby while smelling her sweet breath and marveling at her perfect toes? I know you know what it is to be in awe. It is the feeling of being extremely insignificant in the face of something so breathtaking. You would think feeling that insignificant would be a terrible incident, but somehow it is not. We savor those moments, recall them fondly, and build our lives in order to experience more of them. It is because we were made to find our greatest joy in something bigger than ourselves.
So, linger here for a time. Try to comprehend what it would mean to exist outside of the relentless marching of a clock. Let the reality of “the One who inhabits eternity” steep into your mind and into your soul. He is bigger than mountains and valleys, far beyond the age of stars, and endlessly more perfect that a newborn baby.
That is the first step in experiencing the kind of awe that satisfies forever.