At Home in Eternity

Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God. For a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by or like a watch in the night.     NIV

     That’s the difference between time and eternity, the mountains were born, the earth and the world were brought forth, that’s a past tense. But when the psalmist turns to God he says, “From everlasting to everlasting you are God.” Not, “You were God,” but “You are God.” With God there is never a past tense, never a future tense. God doesn’t indwell time; He indwells eternity. Eternity is not just a very long period of time; it’s a different mode of being. It’s something from another world. It’s higher than time. With God it’s always, you are. His name is, “I am.” And from the serenity and the heights of eternity He beholds time.

     The psalmist says that “a thousand years with God are just like a day that’s gone by or a watch in the night.” The night, in biblical times, was divided into four watches of three hours each, so a thousand years with God is just like three hours that have passed in our experience. That’s what it is to be related to God. It’s to have a relationship that extends out of time into eternity, that’s not subject to the changes and fluctuations of time, that’s anchored in the very being of God Himself.

- Derek Prince