Wolf Creek Christian Writers Network

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  Entering eternity, existing forever by Gregg Heid

  Mar 13, 2023

  If I pray in the morning that Rich delivers an all inspiring sermon on Sunday, that Don receive peace of mind and spirit in his lonely room at Pine Ridge, and Del's cataract on his left eye is healed, along with billions of other prayers and petitions throughout the day, how can God receive and answer all of them?

  As C.S. Lewis states, "Our life comes to us moment by moment. One moment disappears before the next moment comes along."

  We live in the past, present and future. God lives outside of this realm of time and space. So, if a million people are communing with Him at 7 am in the morning, He doesn't have to listen to each one at exactly 7 am. It's like Mail Chimp, the email program that allows one to send up to 2,000 messages at the same time. Even though they are sent at the same time, they go out to each receiver one by one to read at his or her leisure. So, it is with God being outside of time, He can open and receive our prayer requests one by one at his leisure. Let's say I'm writing a story: A rock shattered the window and landed on the living room carpet. The crowd shouts, "Come out and face us, you coward."

  Mike picked up his gun and held it behind the wall with his left hand as he opened the door with his right. Mike is in the moment of the story. But I, the author, can get up and get a soda, think for 10 minutes before continuing with what happens to Mike. I am outside the time element of the story just as God is outside the moments of our prayer requests. He has infinite time to attend to each one of our concerns and prayers, just as an author has time to attend to the actions of his characters. For God, it is still the first day of creation and the last day of the California fires; the day your granddaughter was born and the day your grandmother died.

  The Greeks had two words for time: chronos and kairos. Chronos is the concept of time marching on, kairos is the timeless moments in our lives, special events that touch eternity, like the birth of a baby, a daughter's wedding or prayer. Through prayer, our mind's thoughts enter eternity where God exists to tend to them. So, if we see time as a continuous line, then eternity is the page or plane upon which the line is drawn. God can see each dot on the line individually, uniquely, as the line is drawn or after the line is complete.

  This means all time is simultaneously present in eternity, as events in a novel are present in the mind of the author. All of our petitions and prayers are present in the mind of God, which means they are present in eternity, existing forever.

  So, when the Lord seems slow to answer your prayer, never give up; He might be getting a soda.

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