Timelessness

By Chaplain (Col) Stephen W. Leonard, USA, Ret.

One of the BIG factors that we never experience until we cross the threshold of heaven is timelessness! From the moment of your conception, you are placed on the hourglass of time, which is like “an ever-rolling stream bearing all its sons away.” 

Once the life stopwatch of time starts for you, it does not stop until you take your last breath. But then you enter a new era of your life, which is never-ending, which is, eternal, and is simply, timeless. 

Those who have entered eternity before us by virtue of their death have no concept of “I have already been here 923 years,” or “I just got here last week.” Their life in heaven, in eternity, is timeless. Tomorrow and yesterday are not. It is only, it is always, today. 

Such does not compute with us now. In this life, you are always thinking about tomorrow. You are remembering yesterday, and last year, and twenty years ago. But in heaven, in timelessness, it is always today.

My late wife pictured it like this: when someone we know enters heaven after we have already been there, say, 30 years, we turn around, see them, and say, “O, there you are.”

You have to really concentrate hard to even contemplate the difference timelessness makes. Our natural instinct in this life is bound to “creatures of time.” Timelessness is not natural to us until we cross over into the existence of heaven. Then, and only then, will we experience what timelessness really is all about. 

When the Bible responds to the scoffers and skeptics of the promise that Jesus will return, and that His return will be soon and quick, it tells you the LORD is not slow as you are wont to count slowness. Rather the LORD is patient, until all the called come to repentance. With the LORD, a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years as a day! (2 Peter 3:8)

Jesus can say to you in this life, “Behold, I am coming soon!” and He is perfectly true. In any case, for all of you linked in your unchanging mind to time, He is never more than one generation away from His constant bodily presence in your life. 

Our attitude must ALWAYS be, Jesus may come tonight or tomorrow. You should never say He will not come in the next fifty, or even a hundred years. The Word of God forbids you to think of His coming in such a manner. When He says He is coming soon, He means it. 

If John can relate to us without error that He is coming soon, he means it, and he is right, because Jesus said it! And within the concept of truth, it is boldly true. We must always have our house in order for the soon return of the Savior!

And we contemplate eternity, and the experience of those in heaven, as a timeless life. Eternity will never be boring because it allegedly lasts a million or ten million years. Eternity has no ending. We live in the timeless wonder of His love. There is never any oldness, or boredom, or weariness of God’s love for His children, or of your love for God. 

Heaven is timeless! Imagine that. Get your imagination working. Such will be difficult for you to focus on this truth, but faith says you can. 

Brother Lawrence wrote, “Practicing the Presence of God.” This is what heaven is all about. Not only practicing it, but always and ever living in His eternal presence. You cannot fathom either God’s beginning or His end. There is none. He is always fascinating, exciting, beyond all depth, higher than you can ever imagine. 

You can be lost in the wonders of God for eternity and never grow tired or less excited about who He is. He never fails. He is forever beyond your finding out. The Love of God and His love for us endures forever and ever. Period!

Encouragement