Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Wrinkled Hands-Blazing Heart

Hands, wrinkled and weathered by age, tenderly touched the faded pictures as she recounted details of the story behind each portrait. Our eyes soaked in the beauty of her once young face while we eagerly listened. Page after page brought forth more accounts of God's faithfulness to John and Helen Cox as they served Him in Thailand.

Now she is old and frail, her hearing and eyesight are failing, yet she continues to live with persistence. Every day she retreats to her single room at the Lammermuir House so she can talk with God and fellowship with Him. The most important thing in life, she tells us, is to spend time alone with God. And she does, faithfully.
Helen is just one of the dear people we had the honor of living with last week in Lancater, Pennsylvania. The other "reassigned" missionaries have similar stories and spend their days in like fashion- prayer and Bible study. One couple decided they must get up earlier, 4:30am, if they were to cover all of the prayer needs each day.

I will be formatting more of my thoughts into intelligable language soon, but for now I wanted to leave you with a picture:
(Helen is on the far left in the bright blue dress... what a precious woman of God!)

Friday, September 14, 2007

Life- One Sentence Style

I leave for Pennsylvania tomorrow at 10:21 AM.

The Lammermuir House is my end destination.

Ann Marie, Ben and I will be socializing with 85 year olds for a whole week.

I haven't started packing yet which is highly unusual for me.

I am buying a new camera today.

It is hot in my office.

Speaking of office, it will be my own in a month and I am getting excited to decorate it.

Evangeline's CD (from my friend Jonathan Barrick) is being released on Tuesday (http://www.evangelinegroup.com/).

I have a lot of work to do so I am going to go do it.

Bye. :-)

Thursday, September 06, 2007

Timelessness

Last week I was talking to a friend about God. A good topic, huh? Yes, the only topic worthy of discussing! We briefly mentioned the mind-blowing idea of God's timelessness and I thought, "I should write a post about that!"

So, here it is.

I love thinking about the deep things of God. It is fascinating, faith building and just good to think! There are times when I get frustrated when I realize how finite my thoughts truly are. There is NO way, ever, never, EVER that anyone simple or scholar, will be able to comprehend or explain God. It is beautifully impossible.

As Ben exhorts, though, "We should always be thinking lofty thoughts and purusing a deeper humanly understanding of the majesty of God." Ok, that may not be exactly what he says, but it is pretty close!

God is outside of time. He is outside of time because He created it. Notice in Genesis 1 that light, the sky, water, and plants were all created BEFORE time:


And God said, "Let there be light,"
and there was light.
God saw that the light was good,
and He separated the light from the darkness.
God called the light "day,"
and the darkness he called "night."
And there was evening,
and there was morning—the first day.
Genesis 1:3-5
And God said,
"Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky
to separate the day from the night,
and let them serve as signs to mark seasons
and days and years,
and let them be lights in the expanse
of the sky to give light on the earth."
And it was so.
God made two great lights—
the greater light to govern the day
and the lesser light to govern the night.
He also made the stars.
God set them in the expanse of the sky
to give light on the earth,
to govern the day and the night,
and to separate light from darkness.
And God saw that it was good.
And there was evening,
and there was morning—the fourth day.
Genesis 1:14-19

The creator cannot be apart of the creation. The creator only puts characteristics of His being into what he creates (eg, children- they are not their parents but have part of their parents in them). Since He is outside of time He controls it. Time does not have any affect on God. Time was given to humans to govern seasons, mark years, etc.

God sees everything in an ever present now. He was there before time began and He will draw time to a close at the end of the world. I love Revelation 22:13 -
I am the Alpha and the Omega,
the First and the Last,
the Beginning and the End.
If you put those two together, just in themselves, without the other thousand ideas I can draw from God being outside of time, you will have a headache. Let's try for one, ok? :-)

Since God is outside of time and sees everything in an ever present now, He knows all things we have done, will do and could do. And He can see them all at once. From God's presepective He can see the creation as if it is happening and the end of the world as if it is done already. This is called God's foreknowledge and comprehensive knowledge.

Knowledge, as well as thought, have to do with time because as FINITE beings we need time to learn. We do not know all things all at once. God, on the other hand, because He is INFINATE, knows all things all at once. He does not have to ponder, think or recall information, all three of which are linked to time.

He knows what I will think, do and say every day for the rest of my life. He knows those same things for everyone I know and everyone that has breathed and will breathe until the world comes to an end. He knows all information, from how many hairs are ON your head to the number of molecules it takes to make up each of those hairs. And He know the same for all people who have ever lived and will ever live. He knows how many trees the world has held at one time, how many molecules were in each tree, how many tress will be planted, their molecules, etc. He knows how many books there have been, will be, number of pages, letters, cost of producing, molecules to make the book, how the book will be destroyed, how many good books have been thrown away, etc. He knows all things about all things- Past, present and future, which He sees all at once in His "now" existence.

Get the point?

God's timelessness means I can trust Him. He knows. He sees the future, He sees the past and it is a beautiful orchestra of praise and glory for Himself. He is never shocked or surprised by anything. He is never late. He never delays.

He is, also, gracious to give us time. Time allows us to have order and a pattern to life. Time shows us how we have grown and matured. Time gives us food in harvest, a break in the winter, a cool evening after a hot day, light to see and darkness so we can rest.

Time will end. Everything CREATED has a beginning has an ending. God is the only everlasting being. He lasts forever. Humans and angels are only eternal beings, with a created being that will last for eternity.

There is a lot more I could say on this topic because it is one I love to discuss. It causes my heart to swell with love and awe for God. It makes me want to scream along with the Psalmist, "Who am I that the Son of Man would care for me???"