Word for Wednesday
But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 2 Peter 3:8
To a man with his hand on a hot stove, a minute is a very long time. But to a man speaking with a beautiful woman, a minute is a very short time. The minutes, hours, and days of our lives change in how we perceive them, depending on many factors. Looking back over the summer on a frosty fall morning, that summer seems to have been far too short. But looking back over the winter on a snowy March day, that winter seems to have been so very long. As we age, we look at the dwindling number of years we have left to live, and wish we could slow them down and make them last longer. But there is no way that you or I can make a second last longer, let alone a year. A watch’s second hand keeps moving at the same pace, and the pages keep flipping off the calendar with monthly regularity, regardless of anything that we do. Regardless of our perspectives, we are enslaved by time. But God is not. And we can take great comfort in that.
As he writes today’s text, Peter no doubt has in mind the words of Psalm 90:4: ‘For a thousand years in Thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night’. When Moses wrote that Psalm, he knew more about God than perhaps anybody else in the Old Testament, certainly more than you and I know about God today, even with our completed canon of Scripture. This great man of God had been in face-to-face conversation with God in the mountain. And the best Moses can do is to relate God’s perspective of time to an encapsulated version of ours. And while it is accurate, this perspective is not complete, because it fails to take in the reality that the God of eternity dwells simultaneously in the past, the present, and the future. We can’t understand that. But it is still precious to us.
Regardless of how well we plan for it, we can only guess what tomorrow will be like. But God is already in tomorrow, and knows its every moment and event. No event can ever take God by surprise or find Him unprepared. Because of this, we can trust our tomorrow to God. God is also in the next year, the next century, and the next millennium, which is why prophecy in the Bible is so accurate, and why we can trust not only our tomorrow but also our eternity to God. Keep in mind, that God not only has full knowledge of the future, but He also has determined that that future will be. And His Word tells us that our tomorrow is in His hands and our eternity is in His presence.
The last line of that great Psalm 23 is magnificent in its promise: I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Remember, God is already in the forever, awaiting our arrival. – Jim MacIntosh