Imagining A Day with God

When talking to God have you ever thought about asking Him how His day was? What would a day in the life of God look like? If He were to open up to us about His day what would He say? How would He even begin?

Maybe He would start with His closing words of the bible, “Yes, I am coming soon.” In this way He would acknowledge that He sees, hears, and experiences the pain that we feel, but make clear that this hurting and these tears will not last forever.  Perhaps He would start with the closing sentence of the Signs of the End of Luke 21:28, “Stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near." Whatever He may say must be understood through the paradigm that He is able to sympathize with our weaknesses. He is a God who is Himself familiar with pain, and that He is not only loving, He is Himself the very essence of love.  If we were to listen what might we hear?  How does God relate to suffering, and what emotions does He have when humans blame Him for it?  How does it feel to be so misunderstood?  If given the chance how might He respond?

Consider the following stats. And think about them from the perspective of God, who is Himself intimately connected with our pain. According to January 2011 statistics there is an estimated 6,928,198,253 people in the world. How many of these people have been to a funeral? Know someone who has cancer? Experienced the pains of divorce? Or have themselves been touched in a way that no little child should ever be touched.

According to 2009 stats 53.4 million people die each year.  146,357 people die each day.  6098 people die each hour.  102 people die each minute, and almost 2 people die each second. Imagine God’s interaction with this plethora of pain. To God these are not stats only understood as data as a result of the latest census bureau report. No these numbers are people, God’s children, who He knows by name! Suffering to God is experienced in a ubiquitous way. The pain we experience in a lifetime, God experiences in a nanosecond (one billionth of a second (10^-9 s). Imagine experiencing the worst day of your life every second of every day.

If God were to talk about His day I don’t think He would dwell on the above statistics. Although never ignorant of them I think He instead might say something like this, "Have you seen my servant Job." He would point out the stories of  the Oscar Schindler's in the world who provide love and refuge in the midst of a Holocaustic storm. The apostle Paul with similar reasoning writes, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Rom 12:21). God is love, and He longs to communicate that love with us “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world”(C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain).

If God were to talk about the earthquake and tsunami that just happened in Japan He would do so with a tear in His eye, but those eyes would nonetheless be hope inspiring. Perhaps he would talk about it in the context of the Signs of the End and say “On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea. People will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken. At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.  When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near” (Luke 21:25-28). But if He were to talk about the earthquake in Japan and the turmoil in the Middle East, He would probably conclude like this, “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” (Jn 16:33)

40 years ago John Lennon wrote a song that envisioned a world in which no God existed. 4 decades later Lennon’s earthen utopia doesn’t have much zing. Humanism is dead and it is humans who have killed it. Reverse the lyrics to that song and imagine there is a heaven, a world to live in filled with peace. Imagine all the people living for that day. You may think that I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.

While on earth Jesus wept. I imagine those emotions that made Him cry then, He still has today. His thoughts may still be “O America, America how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.”(Matt 23:37) or “'As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, O house of Israel? (Eze 33:11). 

If I had a day with God I would want to comprehend the sacrifice, the pain, the why, the love. Imagine the implications of the love represented in this statement from Desire of Ages, “Christ was treated as we deserve, that we might be treated as He deserves. He was condemned for our sins, in which He had no share, that we might be justified by His righteousness, in which we had no share. He suffered the death which was ours, that we might receive the life which was His. "With His stripes we are healed."

It has been said that in prayer we can talk to God as to a friend and that when we pray God does not come down to us but we are lifted up to God. When I pray I want to talk to my friend who understands my pain, and I want to thank Him for the pain that He went through and goes through for me.

O Love that wil not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee;
I give thee back the life I owe,
That in thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be

O light that followest all my way,
I yield my flickering torch to thee;
My heart restores its borrowed ray,
That in thy sunshine’s blaze its day
May brighter, fairer be.

O Joy that seekest me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to thee;
I trace the rainbow through the rain,
And feel the promise is not vain,
That morn shall tearless be.

O Cross that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to fly from thee;
I lay in dust life’s glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms red
Life that shall endless be