2 Peter 3:8
But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
2 Peter is not the first place we would normally turn for a subtle metaphysical discussion. Yet here it is. Right in the middle of a letter written, as moderns so often think, by a primitive man with simplistic notions of a God with a big white beard who sits up in heaven on a decorated chair, we suddenly discover the “primitive man” has a grasp of the eternity of God which would do St. Thomas Aquinas proud and would bowl over many a modern philosopher. For the mysterious reality is that, however we may speak of God in human terms as living in time, “foreseeing” this and “remembering” that, the reality (beyond human language) is that God dwells outside time in the eternal now. He has all eternity to hear the brief prayer of man in a car accident. He sees all of history and each of its details in a single glance. It’s enough to make your head spin. But it also means that He sees you and all you love in all your particularity. We don’t have to understand that. But it’s good to know since it means that God’s love can reach every part of life and that all of time, like all of space, is His.
