Download Forever? Good Morning I55 Sisters: An idea struck me this week

Forever?
Good Morning I55 Sisters:
An idea struck me this week about the concept of “forever.” What does that word really mean? Well, to most of the
people I know, it is a term to be bandied about when the task before them is taking longer than they anticipated,
whether it is being kept on hold on the phone, or waiting in rush hour traffic, or standing in a long line at the checkout
counter. “This is taking forever!” But that is not really what is meant by forever. Do we not, as humans, tend to take
real concepts like this and make something small and tangible out of what we cannot possibly comprehend? How can
we know what forever actually looks like?
To a secular humanist or to an evolutionist, forever might embody the time between humans roaming the earth and the
time prior to man’s emergence, when, they envision, small, one-celled amoebic creatures began to make their way
onto dry land and gain arms, legs, and intelligence. Billions of years, after all, must be close to forever, right? Also,
to a person who rejects God, forever just might be the time they think they will spend in the ground, once this life is
over and done. After all, this life is all there is, isn’t it?
Father God, how do I explain to people like these that forever is Your idea, that You created all things, and that You
have ordained that life will extend infinitely beyond this one?
What is it about the concept of forever, Father God, that we can actually understand? You, of course, have always
been, so “forever” is inherently in Your makeup. You tell us in Your word that You have been, You are, and You
always will be, but as we live this life and watch loved ones die and leave us, life on a human scale seems finite and
terminal, not unending and ongoing. How do we grasp something like this that You already know so well but that
appears so foreign a concept to us?
The scripture verse that came to mind at that point was:
“When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;
What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?” (Psalm 8:3 – 4)
Being a mathematician, I began to look at the distance from our planet to our sun, an average of 92,960,000 miles.
Then I compared that distance to the nearest star outside of our solar system, Proxima Centauri, an average of 4.243
light years. A light year is approximately 5.88 x 1012 miles, or 5.88 trillion miles because a light year is the distance
that light can travel in one year, and light travels at a speed of 186,282 miles per second. (There are 31,536,000
seconds in one year; multiplying 186,282 by 31,536,000 yields 5.88 trillion.) So, Proxima Centauri is approximately
24.949 trillion miles away from us, and it is the closest star to our own. Then there are, astronomers speculate, some
400 billion more stars in our galaxy, the Milky Way. Beyond our galaxy, astronomers also hypothesize that there are
more than 170 billion galaxies with billions, even trillions of stars of their own. We have spotted galaxies smaller
than ours and those that are much larger. How many are there and how far does the universe extend???
God says quietly to me, “Now you are beginning to see what forever just might look like - !”
Let us contemplate this week how long we will have to spend up close and in person with Jesus, with God the Father,
with loved ones of ours who love Jesus, both in this life and forever beyond it. How marvelous to think about days
and days, years and years, centuries, eons and thousands, millions, trillions more, stretched out way beyond present
time that God has been so gracious to give to us to enjoy life and health and relationships. We will be experiencing
©2014 Isaiah55 Pray-ers. Used by permission.
things that are totally new and exciting with new bodies and no old worries. We will have work to do and people to
see and all the time we want to talk about ideas and concepts that will stump us no more. We will see God and know
Him as He now knows us. What a marvelous future awaits those who love Him! Forever begins now, ladies, and
goes on, and on, and on! Contemplate this week the distance and magnitude of the starry host and the Creator who
flung those stars out beyond our imagination to give us a picture of “forever.”
“O LORD, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens.”
(Psalm 8:1)
In Him,
Dianne
©2014 Isaiah55 Pray-ers. Used by permission.