Time

This week we move onto the next pair of things Paul talks about as having the potential to separate from the Love of God.

Romans 8:38….. neither the present nor the future,…

Here Paul confidently states nether the past nor the future can separate us from the Love of God.

We are people who inhabit time and space, and we are very aware of this, a lot of our thinking is spent trying to manage our navigation through this arena. For instance, we make plans to visit friends and we have to work out both a good time to meet and work out how to be in the same place at that time.

Our past also affects our future, for instance we know very well that in the past things have sometimes gone badly for us, and we can therefore predict that in the future given a similar set of circumstances things could go badly for us again. You could say that our memories of our past control our ideas about the future. Both of these things can have a big impact upon the present moment and how you feel about life.

Our current state of mind, our expectations of the future are therefore coloured by our past experiences, and we can spend a lot of time dealing with these issues. There is much to consider here and probably some deep psychology which may be needed but I am not qualified to write about that. But it is important to think about these challenges and not allow them to separate us from God and his love even if we need help to unravel it.

What I would say is that when Jesus and Nicodemus in John chpt 3 talked about being ‘Born Again’ we have a powerful way of seeing how it is that God can take us and remake us whatever our past history.

How can time separate from God, well when we say that we will be blessed in the future but not now, when we say that in another time then we will have time to pray, then we are allowing time to separate us. Now is the only moment we have control over, the past is fixed and the future is unknown, but now is the moment that is for us. I would like to say that God is imminent for each one of us, it is a wonderful mystery that our God can be with us always and at all times. We don’t have to wait while he is finishing up with the previous client before we have His full attention.

I chose the word ‘imminent’ because it has the meaning like immediate of ‘about to happen’. I like the idea that our connection with God is not a static thing we watch impassively but it is something that happens. Being connected to God’s Love is an event and it changes things.

This great mystery is I believe an important part of the kingdom of Heaven that Jesus brought when he came to earth. When we say the kingdom of heaven has come down to earth we are talking about this connection with God that cannot be broken. It is not a kingdom in a political sense it is something else, less tangible maybe but just as exciting.

Jesus came at a fixed point in time and demonstrated that by living in a fixed time and place it was possible to fulfil the purposes of God and to defeat the evil that tries to hold us captive. By accepting the challenge of being present in a fixed time he was then resurrected to become present again for all of us in all our times.

There is no time like the present.

Summary

The past can affect the present moment

The past can affect the future

The future can be ‘born again’

God is imminent or present for us and this is the Kingdom of God Now

Ps. I love the fact that the word present refers both to a point in time and place and a gift. We have been given the present of the presence of God in the present moment.