Trusting God with Time
We all want to be Dr. Strange.
In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, there are six infinity stones. They are a group of cosmic gems that grant their owner great power. One of these six stones is the Time Stone.
The time stone grants its owner the power to rewind and fast-forward time. Dr. Strange discovered the stone in his origin movie, using it to trap the villain Dormammu in a time loop so that Dormammmu couldn't destroy earth. Then, he wears the stone throughout Infinity War.
But Thanos, a powerful, purple humonoid with superhuman strength and power, "used the Infinity Stones to 'snap' his fingers, which resulted in the instantaneous destruction of half of all life in the universe, effectively wiping out half of all living beings across the cosmos."
As the good guys are fighting the villain Thanos and his army, Dr. Strange tells Iron Man that if he has to choose between giving up the stone and saving the lives of the Avengers, he’ll prioritize the stone. Yet, later in Infinity War, he uses the power of the Time Stone to look into the many possible futures that could play out. He gleans from this knowledge that he will have to give up the stone to Thanos in order for the Avengers to eventually defeat him.
Like Dr. Strange, who wouldn't want to control time? In a way, by controlling time, you could effectively control everything else, because you could leap from from past to present, righting wrongs or forseeing future disasters and averting them.
Yet it is only as we give up trying to control everything, as Dr. Strange gave up the power of the Time Stone to save the universe, that we’ll find a release of freedom to simply trust God and enjoy life here in the present.
As Psalm 90:12 says, "Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom" (NIV).
And as the Lord Himself said, "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own" (Matthew 6:34, NIV).
A Muscle-Bound God?
One of the debates in athletics, especially in boxing, is how much muscle is too much. It is suggested that when a fighter becomes too muscle-bound, their flexibility, quickness, and endurance are all compromised.
In a theological equivalent, some have suggested that there are certain ways that God is limited due to His sovereignty. When you are as sovereign as God, it is argued, you can’t allow others to have genuine free will or allow life to just play out. God is just too sovereign (muscle-bound) to allow such things. But is God really limited by the prodigiousness of His own capabilities? Are His capacities so great that they become self-limiting?
Following this logic, how does God allow anything to exist outside of Himself? Since God is omniscient, does that mean that He can’t allow ignorance to exist? Since God is omnipresent, does that mean that nothing else can fill any part of the same space? Since God is omnipotent, does that mean that only He can wield power? Of course, all of these things are allowed to exist outside of the personhood of God.
Despite this, it is argued that because God is sovereign, He can’t create mankind to have free will. This point of view turns God’s unlimited ability into a limitation, which is contradictory. Isn’t it better to understand that God exercises complete control over His unlimited capacities? Isn’t it more consistent to believe that there is no good thing that God can’t do?
This certainly finds support in the Scriptures which acknowledge both the unlimited nature of God’s divine attributes, as well as the reality of man’s free will.
“Ah, Sovereign LORD, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you" (Jeremiah 32:17, NIV).
The First and Last Letters Matter Most
Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer is at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by istlef but the wrod as a wlohe.
There's a lesson to be gleaned from this little exercise. We must learn to read life the way we read words on a page, resisting the temptation to focus too much on the individual events, choosing instead to take it all in as a whole.
Jesus claims to be the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and End. Among other things, this suggests that the beginning and the end of all things are exactly as they should be.
Unfortunately, it's in the middle where we live, and it's a jumbled mess! But God has not left us to wallow in the chaos and confusion. By making sure the beginning and the end of all things are what they should be, God restores meaning to what's in the middle.
When we read life as a whole, the chaos in the middle preserves its proper meaning.
"I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End" (Revelation 22:13).
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