Although you’re reading this blog on, well, today, I
actually wrote this on Wednesday. I did this because I knew something
unthinkable was going to happen… I was going to spend the rest of the week
somewhere without internet connection! How is this possible in this day and
age? Is it even possible to exist without a connection to the internet? Did I
survive? I don’t know. I thinks it’s safe to assume I did though. I am of
course being intentionally over dramatic as this is something which is a
semi-regular occurrence in my life and to tell the truth I actually find it
quite refreshing. I’m more impressed that I was organised enough to remember to
write this before I left!
It feels oddly strange writing a weekly blog after only half
of the week has passed. I feel a little bit like a fraud, pretending to be
somewhere in time that I’m not. Acting as though I would know things that I can’t
possibly know. Anything could have happened between today and well, today. Look,
I can’t even keep my perspective on time straight! Is today when I wrote it, or
when you’re reading it? It’s all very confusing!
Although it’s not something I often think about, this only
increases my respect for the writers of the Bible. The Bible was written
hundreds and hundreds of years ago and is still as relevant today as it was
then, and yet here am I struggling to write something only five days in
advance! It’s good for me to remember as I read the Bible that it was written
so long ago, as this helps me understand the real message being spoken outside the
context of the time and place in history in which it was written. Understanding
what it meant when it was written helps me to understand what it means now. Still
it amazes me that something written hundreds of years ago can still have something
valuable to say to me now.
I guess there are two reasons for this. The first is that
people are people. Although our cultures may change, although we may have
different technology and different daily experiences, people are still people.
What it means to be human has never changed. You could completely change
everything external to us, but still fundamentally we would be the same. The
second is that although the Bible was written by men, its words were inspired
by God. That is to say that the message carried by the Bible (sometimes clothed
in another culture) are the very words of God. And God doesn’t see time the way
we do.
You see, whilst I struggle to imagine what the world might
look like three days from now, God already knows. He’s always known exactly
what will happen in the next three days because He’s always known everything
that will ever happen. The really crazy thing about God’s view of the progress
of time, is that not only does God already know everything that will ever
happen, but He doesn’t see life as a chronological exercise that starts at the beginning
and finishes at the end like we do. To God time is based on the stories of the
lives of those of us who exist within it rather than the hands of a watch. Although
He works everything together perfectly at the right time, time is the servant
not the master. At one point the Bible says that God is not slow as we
understand it, but rather He is patient with us so that we might come to
understand Him. What an amazing God That He not only knows everything, but
knows everyone, and that He not only knows all we need to know but is patient
with us that we might be able to understand it.
No comments:
Post a Comment