Adventures in Religion
W. Carl Ketcherside
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The spirit is timeless and designed for timelessness. It is only as it dwells in the fellowship of the Eternal One that it experiences that state in which it thrives. While we are in the body there are limitations of time and space and these cannot be overcome during our sojourn in the flesh. Man can free himself from the pressures of weight by launching into space but he is only one place at a time and his fellows can time him at that place. He will always displace a given space and do so at a specific time while he is in the body.
But we must not assume that because the spirit is temporarily imprisoned in the flesh it is powerless to experience any sense of timelessness, or eternal life. "Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage." The spirit is still spirit even while enshrouded in the tent. It may rise above the flesh, in a sense, and repose in God. When it does so it experiences in such a fellowship that eternal life which is invested in the Eternal One. "We here declare to you that eternal life which dwelt with the Father and was made visible to us. What we have seen and heard we declare to you, so that you and we together may share in a common life, that life which we share with the Father and his Son Jesus Christ" (1 John 1:2, 3).
The flesh conspires to make us feel that it is in gratification of the physical that we really live. When we taste the heady wine of the sensual and are momentarily transported outside of self in a grand paroxysm of forgetfulness, we are apt to call that living. But we return to the realm of the prosaic with the realization that "desire shall fail and man goeth to his long home." It is in the encounter of the soul with God where each awakening is to a brighter prospect and a more glorious aspect that the true adventure lies.
In the physical relationship called marriage, two persons "are no more twain, but one flesh." They are together in the relationship, yet there are moments of great intimacy to which the apostle refers as "coming together again" (1 Con 7:5). They do not live constantly in the throes of ecstacy. These constitute the climactic periods heightened by expectancy and sanctified by abiding love. Thus it is in the relationship of the spirit, for "he who links himself with Christ is one with him, spiritually" (1 Con 6:17). There are those moments of encounter with the Spirit which leave us exhausted with the very thrill of the experience and which constitute a foretaste of the delight which awaits us over there. Life takes on a whole new meaning, phrases from the sacred word leap forth in nobler perspective, the burdens of the world pass from us as the world itself shall some day pass.
The timelessness of God is beautifully expressed in 2 Peter 3:8, a passage which begins with the admonition that we should not lose sight of its content. I am persuaded that many have not yet caught sight of its meaning. "And here is one point, my friends, which you must not lose sight of: with the Lord one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like one day." This is not just two ways of saying the same thing. These are wholly different things. In this figure of speech, to say, "A thousand years is like one day" is the ultimate in con-
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It is a source of comfort to know that with the Lord a thousand years is as one day. This is a pledge of the inviolate nature of the divine promises. There can be no forgetfulness because with God there is no past, only an eternal present. But the expression, "one day is like a thousand years" contains a promise in itself. To him who enters into intimate fellowship with God in a transcendent spiritual experience it is like living a thousand years in a single day. With the tug of the flesh and the demands of our nature it is doubtful that many of us will share in a full day of superlative encounter. But a thousand years is 365,000 days, and if each day is like that, then even a minute projects itself into a thrilling occurrence.
The secret of the timeless experience is utter loss or surrender of self and complete identification with God. There is a sharing in the divine purpose and through it a participation in the divine nature. Selfless consecration to the vocation which is known as "the high calling" will make possible a mountain-top communion with the divine. God is met at different places by different persons. It may be the encounter will come when one resolves to take the good news to some blighted region of the earth, or when he resolves to lose himself in an unstinted effort to answer the prayer of the Savior for unity. It may occur when a Christian woman resolves to devote herself to cheering the last days and final hours of cancer-stricken patients in a large city hospital, or when a high school girl interests her friends in devoting a part of their vacation period to working in a children's ward, not for spending money but for spreading happiness.
A group of young people who visit the aged, infirm and shut-ins, to sing for them, will have a rewarding experience. It is not uncommon to hear such unselfish ones declare that a day spent in such a fashion is the finest of all days. Why should it not be, seeing that it is projected into a thousand years, and that angelic hosts, although unseen by human eyes, join in praise for such a noble effort. One may rise above himself as he gazes at purple mountain majesties, as he walks on a lonely beach where white breakers foam out their dying efforts, or as he sits in a shady wilderness grove with only the sounds of the bird songs about him. But one may also experience such an encounter as he sits on a tractor and watches the cool brown loam turn up behind his plow while blackbirds dart down into the furrow to pick up worms and beetles. Or a housewife may know the encounter with God when she watches the school bus recede into the distance bearing her children to a place of educational training. On such occasions high resolves are made and promises given.
"The Word was made flesh and lived among us" (John 1:14). He was no less the Word when he was flesh than before. He shared our flesh that we might share his glory. To effect this our transformation is as essential as was His. As he was the Word translated into flesh, so we in the flesh must be translated into the Word. When this happens we will be partakers of life and light eternal life and light. "In him was life and the life was the light of men." To become a sharer with God, a partaker of the divine nature, a partner in the purpose of the ages, this is the supreme adventure of all. We should keep our eyes alert and our hearts open to find God and to experience His presence.
Does not Heaven begin that day
When the eager heart can say,
Surely God is in this place,
I have seen him face to face
In the loveliness of flowers,
In the service of the showers,
And His voice has talked to me
In the sunlit apple tree.