A Moment Outside of Time

There’s one thing that has baffled me for decades. If we have free will (and the bible says we do) then how can God know what we will do in the future? How can he predict what’s going to happen?

Something happened a few years ago that really got me thinking about this and time. I think I’ve finally figured this out (and this is just my theory.)

The reason God can give us free will, yet know the future is because he lives outside of time. This is a hard concept to accept because we’ve always lived within “time.” But…before creation I don’t think time existed. God created time for us.

In the first chapter of Genesis, we see that God created the light, morning and night; giving us the first day. My guess is that this is when time began.

Now I’m going to tell you what happened to me while working on the line that got me thinking deeply about this. I was working in the kit cell. We have this cart on wheels, which we place two big, thick plastic sheets on. These plastic sheets have lots of pockets. My job was to go around the kit cell and grab the correct parts for the set of doors coming down the hill and place these parts in the correct pockets. I would push the cart to the person waiting at the beginning of the door line. They would grab the bags off of it and place them on the carrier and then I would go around and do the same thing all over again.

One day I was pushing the cart to a guy that I will call Brad. He started to grab the bag off the cart and give the cart a gentle push just like he had done thousands of times before; only, this time something went wrong.

His foot got tangled up in the cart. He was holding the bag in his hands and he was hopping on one foot, coming straight towards me. The cart was rolling and he couldn’t stop it. He didn’t say a word, but his eyes were big and it was like they were pleading with me to help him.

Our brains are geared for self-preservation. When I saw him coming at me, my first thought was that he was going to knock me over backwards onto the ground and land on top of me and we were both going to get hurt. My mind offered a solution. Just step out of the way and I would be safe, but he wouldn’t. I couldn’t do that. I knew that if I didn’t try to help him and he got seriously hurt, I would never forgive myself. Now my thoughts changed gears. What can I do to help him?

Somehow, my mind remembered something I had read a long, long time ago. It was instructions on the correct way to lift and lower heavy things so that you don’t hurt your back. You were to stand with your feet shoulder-width apart and bend your knees into a squatting position to lower your center of gravity and give you better balance. Then, you lean a little forward to lift or lower the item. That’s what I did.

I stood right in his path, placed my feet shoulder-width apart, bent my knees and leaned forward to catch him. Surprisingly, I didn’t lose my balance or get knocked over. I caught him and lowered him to the ground. His right knee was the only thing that hit the ground.

I was going to help him up, but I was now way behind and I figured he was probably embarrassed and if I helped him up, it would only embarrass him more. So, yep, I left him there on the floor to get up by himself.

When I came around with the next cart, he was waiting for me. He thanked me for helping him. He said if I wouldn’t have helped him, he probably would have smashed his face into the steel shelves that were behind me.

I didn’t think of that, but he was right. If he would have rolled past where I was, that’s exactly what would have happened.

I’m bringing up this story because this all happened in just a few seconds. Anyone who knows me knows that I have a horrible memory and I’m not a quick thinker. I have to ponder things. When in this dangerous situation, all these thoughts were calmly going through my head and they didn’t feel rushed. There wasn’t enough time for me to think all these things, make choices and then react to them. It felt like I had gone into some kind of time warp. I know that sounds odd, but we hear of unusual things happening in stressful situations.

I’ve heard of people having super-natural strength when someone they know has a car on top of them or a tree has fallen on them. Normally, they wouldn’t be able to budge these things, but they somehow had the strength to lift them.

I’ve also heard of people getting premonitions about things that were going to happen and it occurred exactly as they said it would. The twin towers are a good example. There are many stories of people who for one reason or another, was delayed getting to work that day. Sometimes it was because of a feeling they had and they purposely got there late.

I’m getting off track here. Getting back to the time issue. In my situation, some people would say that it was the adrenalin which kicked my brain in high gear and allowed it to do extraordinary things. This time thing is completely explainable and God had nothing to do with it.

Really? Well, who made us? Who gave us these “supernatural” abilities and who invented adrenalin to help us? I believe it was God. I believe that God can see what’s going to happen and, if he chooses, he can help us and change the outcome.

God knows before we do, what we’re going to do and what’s going to happen. If, for his purposes or reasons, things aren’t going the way he wants them to, he can alter them. Usually, he doesn’t because he wants us to have free will. He wants us to choose to do the right things with the right motivations. He wants us to make our choices out of love for him and our fellow man.

I’ve never had God speak to me in an audible voice and I’ve never experienced anything super-natural, except this one thing.

You’ll have to trust me when I say that this wasn’t ordinary for me to think and act that fast. My belief is that God lives outside of time and he can bend it and alter it as he chooses.

Isn’t he amazing?

Isaiah 46:10 I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say, “My purpose will stand and I will do all that I please.”

God lives outside of time. That’s the only explanation I can come up with for all the predictions he has made that have come true exactly as he said they would.

I found this web page that explains how God lives outside of time. It’s interesting.

https://www.blueletterbible.org/faq/don_stewart/don_stewart_353.cfm

The beginning of the New Year is a great time to talk about time.

Have a blessed New Year everyone!