Time and place and transience
Part 5: We are the apple of God’s eye
You see why I am so keen for God to actually exist, rather than just being an idea that is useful to us humans in getting through life. If God does exist, and if we take seriously what God must be like, then God is the repository for everything that ever happens. The events of our lives in time and space, so utterly transient, are, in fact, never lost, and never insignificant, for they contribute to the reality of who God is. God himself changes and grows in response to the living of our lives. In the same way that my life is richer because I experienced my daughter’s 3rd birthday, so God’s life is richer – both because he experienced it in his own right, and he experienced it through sharing in my daughter’s experience of the event, and through experiencing it through my experience of it.
I don’t think we are making God subject to us (or maybe we are – and which is better?) as though he is dependent on us for being who he is. God does not need us, as he is complete in himself. His character and his will do not change, because he is perfect in himself. Nevertheless, in the practicality of living in a material universe, God does indeed “grow” through sharing in our lives. Some of the philosophical problems are solved through the concept of timeless God (admittedly a mind-stretching idea!) in that, while we experience our lives getting richer as time progresses, as God is outside of time, he has already experienced all that will ever happen, and continues to experience everything in his timeless present. To that degree, creating creation did not “make God bigger than he was before” because he always contained within himself the effect of what would happen if he created a universe. Nevertheless, it is an awesome thought to acknowledge that, yes, God himself becomes richer because of our lives. This must be so. If we take seriously the idea of God sharing our lives with us, and take seriously the concept of a real relationship of love between him and ourselves, then God cannot be unmoved by the experiences he shares with us. So, in God’s mind, it’s not even just that our experiences live on, but God’s response to those experiences, and the mutual relationship that we shared with him, all these things are relived as God holds them in his mind. Surely, this gives the events of our lives, and the whole of our lives, ultimate and absolute value, for they literally exist forever. Timeless God is always living the events of our lives, and he also has the ability to “bring to mind” in the manner of how a memory relives those events (perhaps God has no need of memories as he is simultaneously experiencing everything is a timeless present moment, but God must have the ability to remember too). God “right now” (timelessly really, all language that is time related does not really apply to God, but it’s helpful for us to think in this way, as we have to progress along the time line from then to now to the future) is living (“reliving” from my point of view) my daughter’s 3rd birthday, and my sharing of it with her, and he is living her 10th birthday, and he is living her 30th birthday – which hasn’t actually happened yet from my point of view.
So, everything that we ever do permanently lives forever in the mind of God. I am alive in him. Both now and forever. Nothing that we ever do is ever lost. Everything enriches the whole, with God, who is the whole, growing richer in experience through our lives.
Spiritual Devotion 