Thinking It Through

Have you ever played a game on a console, or a PC? On almost all games, you get to save your progress as you go. That way, if you get killed, you can call up the last saved spot, and continue from there...knowing now what perils are coming.

Any idiot can win, given enough time, and attempts, always restarting at that last saved place.

God, biblically, is the biggest, most powerful being in our universe.

The scriptures say He doesn't change. He is always the same.

Time is change.

If God is above everything, as it is written, then He is above time. If He wasn't, and He was limited by time, then time would be stronger than God. Time would then be god.

It isnt.

Being outside of time and space, a being could, like any gamer, just move back and forth until He gets it right. Yes, even you could, if you had that kind of power.

Think about it! If you didn't like how a job interview, or a date, went, you could keep going back until you got it right. You could easily live a perfect life, always getting what you want.

Still, if you make a mistake, and have to go back and do it again, we'll, you are still IN time.

God is OVER AND ABOVE time.

He doesn't change. He doesn't make mistakes.

Additionally, a gamer didn't make the game he plays. God did. God wrote this story. God wrote EVERY story ever written. Even the stupid stories that no one ever reads.

ALL of it!

Oh sure, He does many things like He is in time. He descends on a mountain, parts a sea, regrets making man and floods the earth, argues with Satan, gets pissed off, reacts to a lack of faith, becomes a man, dies on a cross, and rises from the dead.

It looks like He is in time. That's because He is!

"You're confusing me!?"

Of course a being outside of time would also be in time! He is anywhere, and everywhere, at the same time!

Look, He is big. Much bigger than your tiny time-based thinking mind can ever fathom. He is even bigger than that.

Either way, if God wants to do something, no one can stop Him. If God doesn't want something done, no one can do it.

He IS the top of the food chain!

"So, why is there such evil in the world!?"

Obviously, because He wants it there.

"How can God be good then!?"

Well, because He can. He is the one who defines good and evil after all.

After 40 years of walking with Him, I can attest that God is indeed good. This, even though He filled my life with disspointment, and hatred from many. Would I have wanted my life to go this way? No. Yet, I know, absolutely, that the life He has given me is perfect for the purposes He has for me.

He, even though I didn't get what I want out of life, favors me.

"How did you know?"

Because I understand what I just wrote about Him. He taught me. He teaches me. He has shown of Himself, areas He obviously hasn't done for most of everybody.

If you meet someone, and they show you a side of themselves that they rarely reveal, well, you are special to them.

Yes, special indeed.

This is all basic, biblical stuff. Yet in thousands of years, man, refusing to see it, because He doesn't want them to, will come up with the most bizarre ways to answer the questions I have posed.

One of my favorites is "God's permissive will".

It's like God's will only applies by permission, otherwise He let's whatever happen because of freewill and all. Yet, even there, freewill isn't free if God still can supersede it!

None of these ideas make any sense. Scripture makes sense. Paul is very clear in Romans 9.

God is Good. God is in control.

"So how can God judge us?"

Simple, because He can do whatever He wants. If He is in fact good, then what He wants, is good. It's completely logical.

"So why are children trafficked!?"

I don't know, but I know God is good. What if, say, the best way for one individual to grow in faith, and in understanding of Him, is in fact a life of abuse?

An eternal, wonderful life in exchange for 60 years of aweful? It seems like a really good trade to me.

"Sure, He could have done it all another way, couldn't He!"

Really? You, being a time-based life form could think of a better way than the One who has always been outside of time...because He made time?

My simple understanding is that no, God doesn't need to restart from a saved place. He gets it right perfectly the first time. He never needs to backtrack...never.

Life is hard. Life is short. Faith is clearly what He wants. Faith only comes by getting to know God, and accepting Him as He is. Eternal life, a really good life as promised, comes by trusting Him in this very short hard life.

Can you accept that?

Can you handle that?

Your going to have to...because you can't keep going back to a saved point.

That, only happens once.