It has been said that ‘Time and tide wait for no man.” Time is something that everyone has an equal amount of. No matter how rich or poor you are. No matter where you live or what nationality or race you are. Every single person on the planet has the exact same number of hours in their day. We’re all bound by time. This week I heard some preaching that made me think. It’s not something I’ve never thought of before.....I was just reminded and thought of it again. God does not exist within the realm of time. There is no “time” for God. HE doesn’t have a past or a future. HE just IS. As a human, bound by time and it’s movement....this concept just makes my head spin. I cannot wrap my mind around it. I don’t know if humans even have the capacity to understand what it’s like to exist outside of time. Not only does God exist outside of time....he also exists outside of the confines of physical space. It’s such a mind-blowing thing to think about. God, in His infinite existence, is everywhere, all the time. People wonder where God came from....and the only answer is HE didn’t come from anywhere. HE just IS.
The only way I can even begin to comprehend this concept is to relate it to something I’m more familiar with. My degree is in Audio/Video Production. In this field we have two kinds of editing; linear and non-linear. Basically, linear editing is when you have your master footage and you physically copy using a deck (like a VCR) from it to your edited product. So you have two monitors and two VCRs. As you watch your master footage play you physically copy it from that tape to the edited copy. Once you’ve made a cut you can’t change it back. You have to put them in the right order the first time or start over. The cuts must be in a line, hence the name “linear editing.” In linear editing, timing is everything. You have to pay very close attention to your time-code and you have to get your cuts right down to the individual frames. The other form, non-linear editing, is much simpler. In non-linear editing, it doesn’t matter what order you shot your film, it doesn’t matter what order you put your clips onto your computer. You can take them and shuffle them around and put them in whatever order you want. If you want to take a clip that you just filmed today and put it in front of a clip that you shot 3 weeks ago, you can do that. In non-linear editing you put all your footage onto a computer and use an editing program to arrange your clips and add transitions and so on. If you arrange things one way and decide to change them, you can. It’s basically like copy and paste.
So, this is kind of how I look at God’s existence and my existence. I know it’s so simple and watered down that it doesn’t even begin to fully explain His existence outside of time....but it’s the only way I can understand it. I live in a linear world. I have to live today and then tomorrow. Once today is over, I can’t go back and revisit it, likewise I cannot jump ahead to a future day and live it then come back to the present day. God on the other hand, can be in any day in the history of time whenever He wants to. He can see ahead to the future of time and He can see behind to it’s past simultaneously.
It’s amazing to me. It’s confusing to me. So what does it mean to me? It means that time is a precious resource. It means, that I better make sure I use the time God gives me wisely. The things I should do today, have to be done today. The hours and minutes that tick by will never come back. Some day my time, just like everyone else’s, will run out. When that day comes, I will be held accountable for all the hours and minutes I used here on this earth. I need to remember what it says in Ephesians; “Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil.” Christians need to be aware of the time they use each day. We need to make sure that we’re not wasting the time that God has given us. When I stand before Him at the end of time, I don’t want to regret the time I had on this earth. So, make the most of your time. When you can do something productive for the Kingdom, do it. Don’t waste time. It’s not ours to waste anyway, God gave it to us to use wisely. So let’s be wise.
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