Does God transcend time? I think so

A great thinker I am not.
It goes with being a guy, I guess. When we are focused on something important like a workshop project, a really good football game, or women, we can think as deep as the best of ’em.
The rest of the time, well, … let’s not go there.
Women on the other hand can think deep, wide and often.
My wife, for example, frequently complains of not being able to sleep because her brain is too busy. I can’t say I’ve ever had that problem. By the time my head hits the pillow it’s usually just a matter of seconds, perhaps minutes, before the internal lights are out.
That being said, I do have a tendency to daydream, especially during my hour-long commute from Amarillo.
In recent weeks my pastor at Washington Avenue Christian Church has been preaching about how big God is. Coincidentally, it’s the same thing we’ve been studying in our Sunday school class. I’ve also had that conversation several times off and on with a friend of mine back in Colorado.
I have come to the conclusion that the human brain is incapable of comprehending all that God is. God made everything that exists, including time. I still have a hard time understanding how anything can exist outside of time, but apparently God does.
Follow me now into my private little twilight zone for a minute or two. God is eternal. Eternity has no beginning and no end. Yet everything in the physical universe is governed by time – and has a start and finish.
Human beings see time in the linear way God created it. It only moves in one direction. Its beginning and end are hidden from us. We don’t know when and how things were created. We just know they were.
I don’t think eternity is linear at all. I think it exists without boundaries. It has depth and dimensions as well as direction. I think that is how God is omnipresent. He can and does visit every moment in time. Because of that, he appears to be everywhere at once, at least from our limited perspective.
I take a lot of comfort in knowing that God resides in eternity. I would hate to think he is limited by the confines of his creation. And there is no doubt in my mind that God created the universe and everything in it.
Evolution is an interesting concept, but it has fatal flaws. It cannot tell us how matter came into existence. It cannot explain how such and amazingly complex universe was formed and functions as orderly as it does. It cannot explain how life came to be. It cannot explain time.
To understand God – as much as we are capable of understanding him – is to know that all those things will be made known when we reach the next life after this.
I’ve heard it said that some think Hell is an existence in eternity separated from God. I think that much is given, but I think it’s going to be a lot more painful than that. But that’s another topic for another day.
I mention that because I was trying to fathom what oblivion would be like. What would it be like if nothing existed? What if you were self-aware, but there was nothing else to be aware of. That would be an empty, lonely existence that spanned beyond known time. That in and of itself would be hell.
I am comforted in knowing I have an eternity in paradise awaiting me rather than eternal oblivion/damnation. I am also comforted in knowing my thoughts don’t go much deeper than that. I don’t know about you, but this is giving me a headache.
I’d rather think about much simpler things like football, cheeseburgers, sunny beaches and intimacy with my wife – and not necessarily in that order and most definitely not at the same time.
Women are very adept at thinking about multiple things simultaneously. So can most children. I think the human male loses that ability about the time the hormones kick in. That’s when men develop the one-track mind.
My wife can watch television, talk on the phone, browse Web sites on her laptop computer and maintain two instant messaging conversations without missing a thing. My children can do that to a certain degree as long as two or more of the elements involve electronic devices.
Yet when women try to focus on just one thing, they go bonkers. I think they have too much mental energy to handle just one thing at a time.
Well, there I go again, trying to think too much. I should know better than to try and understand women. I will have to accept on faith that they are creatures wonderfully and perfectly made by God and, like all the other mysteries in life, will be explained at a time of God’s choosing.
I just don’t know which mystery will be harder to understand – time or women!
(Joe Southern’s column and other writings can be found online at joesouthern.blogspot.com)