The Past Becomes Present

It has been a while since my last post..... actually only a week, but it seems much longer, and for those who have not been following along, (which is most of you since I do not have that many readers at this point) there is actually no apparent time lapse at all! Since the time has already passed between the time I wrote the last post and this one, anyone reading this blog from this time on, can read any post up till now without delay.

It may seem like a trivial point to make, and while I did not intend to make this point when I sat here to write this post, it seems now like the perfect time to cease upon this opportunity. Let me first share that the reason for my delay in posting was partly due to the fact that as I have mentioned already, I am in the process of getting my pilot's license. The focus of much of my free time over the past few months has been to diligently study to pass a written test for the FAA which is one of the requirements for that license. That test was today, and I passed with a 98% score. There were 44 questions taken from a pool of more than 650 questions, and I missed answering one of them correctly. I say it that way because I understood the question; I knew the answer; it was just that I made a mistake in understanding the wording of the answer I chose. Either way a 70% is a passing grade, and anything more is a personal achievement.

This is the Human Journey side of this post. I still have more flying skills to accomplish, and depending a lot on weather conditions especially during the winter months will determine how much time I will be able to work on those skills in the pilot seat of the aircraft. The next goal to strive for, is the final practical exam to get my actual pilot's license, or as they like to call it, "A license to learn". At that point, I will be qualified to take a passenger up with me when I fly, and I am looking forward to the time when I can do that.

Now back to the point I was going to make. Back in the summer of '93 I first watched a VHS tape of Willie Hinn preaching a message in Vancouver B.C. from 4 years earlier. God used the impact of that message to radically change my theology from that moment on. It would have been no more real to me than if I heard a literal voice of God that spoke to me that day and said "This is what you have been waiting for all these years." Most of the things I believe today are a result of the change that started within me that day.

After that day I got a copy of several tapes of messages from him, and listened to them in the car on the way to work and back every day. Then I made arrangements for him to ship me a box of about 35 more tapes, and I listened to them in a matter of a couple of weeks. I soon got many more tapes, and over the course of the years following, I've listened to a couple hundred messages and more from him, and many others.

When I first started listening to the tapes, he had several series of messages he would preach, and I thought it was such an advantage to not have to wait until the next week before I could hear the next message. All I had to do was pop the next tape in to listen to the next message. Then it dawned on me that he had already preached these messages, and while I was hearing them for the first time, the delay in between the time they were preached had already passed. To me, it was almost as if that time delay did not exist. That past had become my present. 

What a lesson in perspective! To those that were hearing it in "real time" they had to wait until the next week had passed before they could hear the next part. For me, I was able to hear the exact same messages, but at a different time and place, and since they were already preached, it was just a matter of the time it took for me to hear what was being said, without any delay in between each message.

I think of that when I consider that God is not bound by the limits of time either. The past and the present are all the same to Him! Many are familiar with the verse in Revelation that says: 1:8 "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty."  What might have slipped your attention, is that the time is not in sequential order. He is the Lord that IS present tense. That would be enough because He IS always present, and time is always present tense with God, then it says which was and which is to come! We relate to time in the past and future tense, but God is not bound by those limitations!

I wondered how I was going to do on my test this morning. God did not have to wonder with me. And the fact is that now it is in my past through the passage of time since then, and it is no longer a mystery to me, but it was never a mystery to God! It is the same with any event in the history of the Universe!

Ecclesiastes 1:9 says: "The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun." How does that make sense? The thing that HAS been is that which SHALL be? How can it yet happen if it has already happened? I believe it is because God is eternally present. There is no future tense with God. He does not have to wait for something to happen to know how it would work out. As a matter of fact, I believe there is evidence to prove that God knew what my test results were going to be before He even created the Universe!!

Isaiah 46:10-11 "Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times [the things] that are not [yet] done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure:....yea, I have spoken [it], I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed [it], I will also do it."

 Colossians 1:17 "He is before all things, and in him all things hold together." 

While some people read the Bible to try to discern future events, I believe that the Bible could be considered on a smaller scale, like the VHS tape was to me. There is nothing that has yet to happen during the course of time, that has not already taken place in the mind of God. As far as we are concerned, the process of time must take place before we can experience the events that have already taken place! It is partly because of this, that I do not believe man has what many have come to define as a "free will."

This provides great comfort for me!! It means that no matter what happens.... whether it is something that I enjoy, or something that I do not enjoy, everything down to the finest detail has already been carefully and lovingly thought out and planned and purposed, and worked out to the exact specifications ahead of time, and have already taken place in the mind of God according to His Will. It is a great comfort to know that what ever results there are that take place as the byproduct of my actions, or anyone elses', that it was not because of some random decision made independently of God's purpose.

I intend to write more definitively on this matter in future posts, but for now I am content to rest in the peace that comes from knowing God has it all under control for when that which is in The Past Becomes Present.