Does Time Fly...Or Crawl?
Psalm 90:4
"For a thousand years in Your sight are like yesterday when it is past, and like a watch in
the night." (NKJV)
2 Peter 3:8
"But beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand
"But beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand
years, and a thousand years as one day." (NKJV)
I'd like to consider today the concept of the "relativity" of time. The verses listed above are
sometimes used by evolutionists to explain away the Genesis account of God creating the universe in six
days. They insist that the days mentioned are not literal, but stand for ages or thousands of years.
While I personally believe God did create everything in six literal days, I'd rather look at something
While I personally believe God did create everything in six literal days, I'd rather look at something
completely different revealed in those verses, and that is how God Himself perceives the passing of
time.
If you've read some of my previous articles, you already know that I believe that God only and simply
exists in this present moment...eternally. In other words, while God always was, and always will be, He
actually only dwells in this present moment, just as we do, experiencing the so-called passage of time
simultaneously along with us. Of course, being Almighty God, He doesn't suffer any of our limitations. His awareness and knowledge of this moment is infinitely vast, encompassing the activities of every single person, place, and thing that exists in the universe, from the largest galaxies down to the smallest parts of atoms. Nothing that exists is hidden or unknown to Him. It truly boggles the mind to think about it.
But now let's consider how differently God is able to experience time's passage, compared to how we do. As we all know, when we were children, time passed ever so slowly. We seemed to be able to extract so much more out of a single hour or day back then, than we can today at middle or old age. To a small child, summer vacation is like an eternity, yet to an elderly person, the seasons are barely noticed as they hurry by from one to the next. Some people attribute this difference of perception to the comparison of a fixed length of time to the length of one's entire life. For example, a year is fully one fourth of a four year old's life, while a year is only a tenth of a ten year old's life. The older we get, the smaller a year seems to be, in comparison to the whole. While there may be some truth to that, I don't think that tells the whole story.
You see, as human beings, we experience and process through our five senses all of the
activities around us at a certain, typical rate. While everyone clearly has different mental abilities,
we all tend to take in information within an average range of speed. Our minds take in huge amounts of
data and images, something similar to a movie camera, at a particular rate of frames per second. In
other words, there is a limited range as to how fast we can consciously learn and respond to stimuli.
This is an important concept to grasp, and I believe it truly explains why the young and old actually do
experience life at a different pace. I think that the amount of information that a child is able to take
in per second, is massive in comparison to that of a 70 year old, and it's mainly because our
neurological system is slowing down as we age.
Now let's think about motion pictures again for a moment. Movie films are shot one frame at a time, but at a rate of 24 frames per second to make them appear to flow smoothly and life-like when they are played back. However, a funny thing happens if you play the film back at a slower speed than it was taken at. As you slow it down, the movie will begin to appear jerky or jumpy, and if you slow it down further it will look like just an ordinary slide show. There are high-speed movie cameras, however, that can snap frames at 250,000 or more per second. Research scientists often use these cameras in order to clearly play back in slow motion such things as automobile accidents or bullets leaving the barrel of a rifle. It's an amazing thing to watch something in this way, because at normal speed we can miss all of the action if we merely blink our eyes at the right moment.
So then, I believe that the brain of a very young person operates much like that high-speed camera, able to quickly absorb, store and utilize vast amounts of data. But when he grows older, this ability will gradually slow to a crawl. The rest of our body functions proportionately slow down as well. Consequently, as we age and slow down, everything around us takes on the illusion of speeding up. It's kind of like running out of gas when going 70 mph. The other cars around you seem to pick up speed and pass you by, even though their speed really hasn't changed, only yours has. So this is how our life is. It is not that time flies when we get older, but rather our ability to experience life is slowing down, creating that perception.
By now, you probably want to know what all this has to do with "With the Lord one day is as a
thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." Well, this is the cool part. Better than any high-speed camera, God takes in information at a virtually infinite frame-rate. Consequently, He is able to experience and interact with everything at virtually any speed. He can experience a day in such slow-motion that it would seem to us as a thousand years, and conversely a thousand years can go by while seeming like just another day to Him. He can choose to either observe us up close in super slow-motion, or watch us from above zooming around like high-speed ants in those time-lapse nature films. While this all seems like fun stuff to ponder and amazing to contemplate, perhaps you are wondering what practical use this information is to us.
Well, as we have been reminded here how amazingly God has individually created us, it makes us
realize how much more God Himself is aware of everything that goes on, and since He can operate
at any speed, virtually nothing is impossible for Him. For example, if an unsaved person you know dies
instantly in a terrible car crash, and you think he didn't have a last chance to cry out to God for
salvation, you are wrong. In what may seem like an instant to us, in reality it is more than enough time
for God to have a heart to heart chat with him, for him to accept Christ as his Savior, and to even begin enjoying his gift of eternal life long before his head ever hits the windshield.
How can this be? Well, obviously in our normal state of consciousness there wouldn't be enough time. However, have you ever had a restless night of sleep where you start to dream, then wake up, look at the clock to note the time, fall back to sleep, go back into your dream, wake up, note the time again, and so on? This has happened to me on many occasions and I've noticed something peculiar when it does. I could be dreaming about something where days and weeks are going by, traveling around the world or whatever, and then wake up to discover that only 6 minutes have actually gone by. This phenomenon proves to me that God or an angel can easily meet with us, spend what may seem like hours in conversation with us, all within a split-second. Something like this happens when people "die" in the hospital, are resuscitated moments later, and then tell all about the long adventure they had in heaven while they were gone.
This is what I meant at the beginning when I said this would be about the "relativity" of time. The way we experience time is totally dependent on the speed or rate at which we are perceiving things. A person who lives a seemingly short life can still experience an incredibly full life. In fact, there are insects and other creatures who live out their whole life cycles in just a few days, and yet to them, I'm sure, their lives seem full and complete.
In closing, I've brought this subject to your attention mainly in order to magnify the greatness of our God, and to especially encourage us to pray without ceasing, because even when it appears to us that there is no time left for God to intervene, the reality is... that there is always enough time!
-nOFuTuRe
What a hope filled message. I have been to memorial services that were so negative and depressing simply because people do not realize the awesomeness of God!! None of us can possibly know who is in Heaven. We may be surprised, but God, in His infinite mercy promises everyone a chance. I prefer to walk in His time, not my time.
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