Why Events Happen on God's Time and Not Our Time
In a previous post, I discussed how time works very differently in God's outer Universe than it does in our universe. Our universe (containing the earth and the solar system and all the galaxies) is merely a small part of the much bigger Universe created by God. We are a universe nestled within a Universe.
I mentioned that time as we know it is probably a sort of artificial construct created for us in this particular world containing our galaxies. I hypothesized that our time as we know it is probably related somehow to whatever the 'real' time construct is out there in God's world, but that our local time-construct is still separate and made just for us.
Why events do not happen on our time but on God's time
In the Bible, prophecies tend to indicate that an event will happen after a certain other event. Or that an event may happen before a certain other event comes to pass. Prophecies usually do not specify "on calendar day such-and-such, this particular event will happen." Even the case of "forty days and forty nights" is seen to mean "a long but finite period of time" by the majority of biblical scholars, as opposed to exactly 40 days.
There are a few exceptions to this rule that have given very precise and narrow time periods. Possibly the best known of these is the foretelling by Jesus of Peter's denial of him:
Jesus said, “I tell you, Peter, the cock will not crow this day, until you have denied three times that you know me."
Luke 22:34
Peter's denial indeed happens just before the rooster crows. This does pin it down to a very specific and narrow time frame.
But most of the prophecies in the Bible have much longer and more variable time periods set for them to occur. This length of time may seem quite interminable to us while we are 'waiting' and there is much temptation for us to 'hurry God's plan along', which is the wrong thing to do. There are many examples in the Bible alone, not to mention whatever other things the rest of us have done. One of the best-known examples is Abraham and Sarah. God promises Abraham early on that he will be the father of nations. Yet Sarah remains without child. So she had her maidservant become a wife to Abraham so he could conceive a child that way. Much later on, after she was past the normal childbearing years, she did indeed conceive a son, just as was foretold. She could have just waited for this to happen, but because she didn't want to wait for God's timing, she decided to 'hurry things along' her way.
Most of us humans do tend to pay strict attention to time, as a side-effect of being in this heavily-clocked world. We can't really help it, but that doesn't mean it's the right thing to do. As a result, we tend to get more hung up on what the exact date and time is, as opposed to looking at events as a sequence. Many people can look at an event in history (e.g. the discovery of the electron) and correctly realize that this occurred within a sequence of events. These events arose within the political / social / scientific / technological climate at the time, not randomly. Most people do not think "Out of the blue, physicist J.J. Thomson looked at the calendar, saw the date was 30 April 1897, and he exclaimed, 'Look - it's 30 April 1897 - it's time to discover the electron!'" Nor did later J.J. Thomson's friend remark"Yes, good thing he checked the calendar that morning. If he hadn't, he would have missed noticing the day, and the electron would never have been discovered."
This is exactly what we need to remember when we get impatient with God. His events come to fruition through a sequence of events, not because the calendar says it is a particular day. This is also a reason why doomsday predictors will never be correct, because they are always predicting it based on the calendar saying a particular day. Looking at a sequence of events is better, and even then, we are unlikely to be able to guess the correct date within the range.
Our universe is a (relatively) small and insular world compared to whatever bigger Universe it's nestled in, that God made. Thus, please don't think that God is 'weaseling out' of His predictions by tying them to events in our world that have yet to pass and not to particular dates in our calendar. Please don't make Him smaller than He is. He is not weak and not weaselly and there is no need to talk down to Him and criticize Him for not being specific. Instead please remember that instead He is talking down to us by telling us which events have to come to pass first because this is the only way we will understand it in our limited intelligence (compared to God). It's the same way as you tell your very young child "after dinner we will play, then after playtime we will brush teeth and then after brushing teeth we will go to bed". Because "at 6:30pm we will play, at 7:00pm we will brush teeth and at 8:00pm we will go to bed" means nothing to a 2 year old.
Events need to happen on God's time, and as tempting as it is to hurry them along, it's not a good idea.
If you found this post interesting, you might also like these related posts on this blog:
I mentioned that time as we know it is probably a sort of artificial construct created for us in this particular world containing our galaxies. I hypothesized that our time as we know it is probably related somehow to whatever the 'real' time construct is out there in God's world, but that our local time-construct is still separate and made just for us.
Why events do not happen on our time but on God's time
In the Bible, prophecies tend to indicate that an event will happen after a certain other event. Or that an event may happen before a certain other event comes to pass. Prophecies usually do not specify "on calendar day such-and-such, this particular event will happen." Even the case of "forty days and forty nights" is seen to mean "a long but finite period of time" by the majority of biblical scholars, as opposed to exactly 40 days.
There are a few exceptions to this rule that have given very precise and narrow time periods. Possibly the best known of these is the foretelling by Jesus of Peter's denial of him:
Jesus said, “I tell you, Peter, the cock will not crow this day, until you have denied three times that you know me."
Luke 22:34
Peter's denial indeed happens just before the rooster crows. This does pin it down to a very specific and narrow time frame.
But most of the prophecies in the Bible have much longer and more variable time periods set for them to occur. This length of time may seem quite interminable to us while we are 'waiting' and there is much temptation for us to 'hurry God's plan along', which is the wrong thing to do. There are many examples in the Bible alone, not to mention whatever other things the rest of us have done. One of the best-known examples is Abraham and Sarah. God promises Abraham early on that he will be the father of nations. Yet Sarah remains without child. So she had her maidservant become a wife to Abraham so he could conceive a child that way. Much later on, after she was past the normal childbearing years, she did indeed conceive a son, just as was foretold. She could have just waited for this to happen, but because she didn't want to wait for God's timing, she decided to 'hurry things along' her way.
Most of us humans do tend to pay strict attention to time, as a side-effect of being in this heavily-clocked world. We can't really help it, but that doesn't mean it's the right thing to do. As a result, we tend to get more hung up on what the exact date and time is, as opposed to looking at events as a sequence. Many people can look at an event in history (e.g. the discovery of the electron) and correctly realize that this occurred within a sequence of events. These events arose within the political / social / scientific / technological climate at the time, not randomly. Most people do not think "Out of the blue, physicist J.J. Thomson looked at the calendar, saw the date was 30 April 1897, and he exclaimed, 'Look - it's 30 April 1897 - it's time to discover the electron!'" Nor did later J.J. Thomson's friend remark"Yes, good thing he checked the calendar that morning. If he hadn't, he would have missed noticing the day, and the electron would never have been discovered."
This is exactly what we need to remember when we get impatient with God. His events come to fruition through a sequence of events, not because the calendar says it is a particular day. This is also a reason why doomsday predictors will never be correct, because they are always predicting it based on the calendar saying a particular day. Looking at a sequence of events is better, and even then, we are unlikely to be able to guess the correct date within the range.
Our universe is a (relatively) small and insular world compared to whatever bigger Universe it's nestled in, that God made. Thus, please don't think that God is 'weaseling out' of His predictions by tying them to events in our world that have yet to pass and not to particular dates in our calendar. Please don't make Him smaller than He is. He is not weak and not weaselly and there is no need to talk down to Him and criticize Him for not being specific. Instead please remember that instead He is talking down to us by telling us which events have to come to pass first because this is the only way we will understand it in our limited intelligence (compared to God). It's the same way as you tell your very young child "after dinner we will play, then after playtime we will brush teeth and then after brushing teeth we will go to bed". Because "at 6:30pm we will play, at 7:00pm we will brush teeth and at 8:00pm we will go to bed" means nothing to a 2 year old.
Events need to happen on God's time, and as tempting as it is to hurry them along, it's not a good idea.
If you found this post interesting, you might also like these related posts on this blog:
- Why Time Works Very Differently in God's World Than Our World
- God's Earth and Outer Space - a universe within a Universe
- No-one is Beyond Salvation
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