It's Not Science Fiction, It's Biblical
What if you could travel decades, or even centuries, backward or forward, in a moment? Where would you go? What would you do? Would you go into the past and seek to change decisions or events, essentially rewriting history? Would you remove your own foolishness, hardships, or losses? Or would you gain insights from the future and return to exploit those insights for personal gain, making guaranteed investments or bets? Would you be tempted by knowing the scores of the next ten Super Bowls, the future price of land or stocks, or exactly where a trophy buck would walk on a specific afternoon?
Perhaps those temptations are exactly why we are bound by time. Imagine the chaos in a world where anyone could time travel and change anything in the past or future. One may eliminate a critical assassination in our nation’s history, while another may execute early assassinations of prominent people before they made a difference through discoveries, inventions, leadership... What if a jilted lover rewrote history to be married to your spouse, or a current adversary changed the circumstances that led to your birth? Certainly, time travel for all would be a catastrophe for everyone. Envy alone would prompt someone to rewrite nearly every positive outcome you could orchestrate.
But what if there was only one who could travel through time? What if there was one who could view everything - past, present, and future - simultaneously? What if there was one unbound by time? One who just is, rather than was or will be? What if he was revealed throughout history, over thousands of years? What if, looking back, you could see the fulfillment of his promises thousands of years after he made them? What if the exact details of those promises were precisely revealed in writing and given to you?
What if, while promising to be the embodiment of love, he could see everything you have ever done, are doing, and will do? What if he had gone to such illogical and extraordinary lengths to be reconciled with you, that his actions could only be explained as love for you? What if he could see your future – tomorrow, next year, twenty years from now – as clearly as you can see these words? What if he promised, in writing, specific opportunity in your future? What if part of his promise was an eventual transition from this life to a never-ending life in his presence completely unbound by time?
Would you trust him?
Some would not. They would mistake his ability to see all of time – past, present, and future – and paint him as a puppeteer, pulling the strings, determining the actions of each of us, predestining each toward specific acts and fates. They would limit him to human tendencies and reasoning. Yet that would collide with his expressions of his love for us. Yes, perhaps it’s beyond human reasoning, to think that he could see all of history and allow us to make our own decisions and navigate our own interactions with the rest of the world without controlling the outcomes. But is control an expression of love?
Or could it be love expressed through guidance, rather than control, through a sound, timeless written message and a community of people who trust and love him and one another? Could he love us enough to offer such powerful insight into himself wrapped in swaddling clothes? Might the depth of such love give us a helper or counselor to lovingly nudge us in the right direction without forcing us into compliance?
If we had such a friend, unbound by time, might we ask him to change the events of time in ways that would seem to us, bound by the present, to benefit us and our loved ones? Might we mistrust him when he, seeing all of time and wanting what is ultimately best for each of us, denied those requests in favor of a better good than we can see? Might some mistake his availability to us as servitude, and seek to orchestrate our preferred futures through him? Of course. And yet, how challenging is patience for one so loving and unbound by time?
It’s not science-fiction. It’s Biblical.
Will you trust him?