Genesis 1:1a

In the beginning God…

There was a beginning, and science has come around to agreeing with the Bible. Scientists now say that the universe began with a bang—the big bang.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang

But there’s another big agreement between science and the Bible—one that may be more profound. Both say that time itself also had a beginning.

http://www.hawking.org.uk/the-beginning-of-time.html

This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, — 2 Timothy 1:9b (NIV)

If God created time, He has dominion over it. That makes Him more powerful than we can imagine. Give me dominion over time and a Swiss Army knife, and I can defeat every army that has ever marched.

Furthermore, God has unlimited do-overs. He can fix any mistake (not that He ever makes any).

God doesn’t need to use His do-over power because He is also infinitely wise. Still, the existence of this option (along with all the other implications of His dominion over time) undermines many simple perspectives on predestination.

This is not something we’re wired to understand, but any theology that limits God’s power is flawed.

Then what is prayer? God knows what we’re going to do before we do it. So, why pray?

Because He told us to. Regular cause and effect work the same as we always thought they did. You can’t stop praying (or doing anything else) just because God is sovereign. He created cause and effect too.

This raises a lot of tough topics. It’s good to let them challenge us and to seek understanding, but we shouldn’t let our limited understanding get us down. These topics are basically beyond human understanding. We can’t do much more than get comfortable with them.

Ask God for help in this. The goal is to get to a point where tough issues don’t interfere with worship and service. It’s good to ask for understanding, but we must avoid getting greedy about it.

Ultimately, we’re asking for patience and humility. We need to get comfortable with who we are and with who He is.

God understands the things that we don’t understand and cannot understand (this side of eternity anyway).

We should count our blessings that we get to connect to Him.

To forward this devotional, see the link in green below.

These weekday DEEPs are written by Mike Slay. Saturdays' by Matt Richardson. Subscribe here: https://www.ailbe.org/resources/community

The weekly study guides, which include questions for discussion or meditation, are here: https://www.ailbe.org/resources/itemlist/category/91-deep-studies

Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. ESV stands for the English Standard Version. © Copyright 2001 by Crossway. Used by permission. All rights reserved. NIV stands for The Holy Bible, New International Version®. © Copyright 1973 by International Bible Society. Used by permission. All rights reserved. KJV stands for the King James Version.