Beyond time

There are four basic questions that every human being will wrestle with at some point in their life. Who am I? Where did I come from? Why am I here? Where will I go when I die? I remember as a teenager thinking about these questions, including the thought of my own death, which would bring on an anxiety attack.  It was freighting to realize that someday I would cease to exist and that my consciousness would evaporate forever. Now, with all my gray hair and wisdom and thanks to my faith in God, I do not feel the same way but look forward to eternity and getting back to the future!

These four basic questions eventually lead us to only two possible world views; that everything is a cosmic accident or that we are the result of a deliberate design by a designer.  For most of us, growing up in the 1960’s, we were taught that outer space was infinite. We were also instructed that the microscopic world existed in an infinitely smaller and smaller direction.   We were systematically taught that everything around us was the result of a cataclysmic accident. We were forced to swallow “The big bang” theory, which simply stated explains that “First there was nothing and then it blew up!” Doesn’t it take more faith to believe that then in an omnipotent Creator?

So now science has discovered that our universe is not infinite but finite. They have discovered that the velocity of light is not constant but is indeed slowing down and if you have lived here on earth for any length of time it soon becomes clear that all matter goes from a higher energy state of order to a lower, cooler disorganized state. Just open your garage door (if you can) and see if it looks organized or cluttered. If left on its own does your garage contents tend to become more organized making room for the family car? As we near death even our own body begins to break down ending in one of our own major organ failure. Even our sun and the galaxy in which it resides will one day suffer catastrophic heat loss as it cools beyond a pre-determined threshold point. 

So if there is a God is He getting older with us? Is His hair turning gray as He sits waiting for us to return to the garden? The answer to that question is really the one that got my attention. Since we live in three dimensional space consisting of height, length and width we can discern the fourth dimension, time, but all additional dimensions are simply just out of our ability to comprehend.

Eternity is not a place where there is an abundance of time but rather it is outside the confines of our physical universe altogether. If all of us could accept this, then most theological disputes evaporate into thin air. Here’s a crude analogy: Your sitting on the main street of a metropolitan city watching a parade as it turns the corner. You can’t see the beginning or the end but only the present as it rolls by you. Now think about someone sitting in a helicopter hovering over the parade route. From their perspective they can observe the entire parade at once. Every detail from the staging area, street routes as well as the finish area is observable to someone in the next dimension. 

As we study the bible we find many examples of where information has been recorded ahead of time with precise detail. It’s this amazing property of the scriptures that has convinced many people of the existence of God. Proof for many that the universe we are presently living in was created by an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent Designer. 

We were not created to live like we do now, with death always looming over us. We were originally designed to live and walk with God in eternity. It was because of man’s sin that God planned for his redemption from before the foundations of the world were formed. He then inspired men through inspiration by the Holy Spirit to write the bible. It is through His Word, Jesus Christ, which all creation was originally created and it is through Jesus that all men have been redeemed. All we have to do is accept this free gift God offers to us. God never forces us to do anything therefore we must turn to Him and choose to receive His forgiveness.

So, If you don’t yet believe, why not take this time to ask God to reveal Himself to you personally? All you have to do is ask. Our hardware will wear out someday but our software or soul will continue to exist. So the question is “where  do you want to spend eternity”?