Outside of Time

    Four about a month now, I have been pouring over the book Mere Christianity by C.S Lewis. There are so many ideas outside the "normal Christianity" box, that are really challenging and cause me to think long and hard about what I have believed, what I am beginning to believe, and what I see myself believing in the future.
    I hesitate to bring up ideas like this because so many people do not like their boxes to be torn apart, and I'll admit that most of the time, I am that person. If I've been taught something, whether I have done my research or not, I will hold it to be true because that is what I have always known. This is a seriously flawed way to approach a system of belief, but it is comfortable, and that is what we like.
    The idea most fresh to my mind is the that of God's place in time, or rather out of time. Being of a human mindset with an inability to fathom the idea of eternity stretching in both directions, I have always assumed that God travels through time as we do. Though I could never understand the concept of God existing forever before I got here, I nevertheless established in my mind that that fact was true and moved on to the notion that when God decided to create the world that we became a point on God's timeline that would continue with him through the rest of eternity.
    This idea causes a lot more confusion when we think about God being able to listen to every single prayer being prayed to him at the same time, and that he is able to concentrate on any single being. While God is above anything we could ever imagine and we cannot begin to understand him, which means that this idea could very well be true, I find it a lot easier to believe that God is outside of time.
    The idea of God being outside of time is another mind blower, but in my head I see it like this: many many TV screens stacked one on top of the other. God sees them and has access to them all. While on one He sees me sitting here typing this post, but on another screen he sees Steven sitting at his computer. To us, our lives our continuing in time, but to God who is outside of time it is not. He could hit the pause button on any of our screens and come back to us later while he goes to check out a starving child in Africa. Does that make sense? I hope so, because I'm about to add more.
    Now imagine, because God is outside of time, that he not only sees me typing this post right now, but he also sees me making lunch in an hour, giving birth to my first child, and my death. So it isn't that God is traveling along our timeline and can see into the past and the future, but God is currently IN the past, present and future. CRAZY!
    This also helps me to understand the idea of free will. A lot people say well if God knows what is going to happen in the future why doesn't he just stop it? Well, because it isn't in the future to Him. He is already in the future watching us make our choices. God has given us free will and at the moment he created us and gave us that ability to choose, our entire lives were already being lived out before God's eyes.
    To me, this idea adds a whole other dimension to prayer. When I pray something like "God, please keep me safe this week as I got to work," I can immediately praise Him and thank Him for doing so, because He has already done it. My prayers are immediately answered, but because I am in time, I don't get to see the answer until my week is over.
    This is only a short glimpse of one of the ideas I have been thinking about, but even just this small portion is a lot to chew on. I share this in large part for myself so that my thoughts are written and I am able to come back to read it later, but also because I hope in some way it is encouraging to you and helps you to step outside your box.. As a fellow box lover, I encourage you to step outside!