Eternity

I believe God is eternal but I have a hard time grasping or picturing this concept with my finite mind. I have been reading a book on philosophy and read an extremely good explanation of this concept. Unfortunately the initial concept, while revealing, has opened up even more questions in the end!

Imagine your life is a movie. From the time the piracy warnings, copyright infringement notices, and studio logo appears all the way to the last roll of the credits and what record label the soundtrack can be found on: that is your life. Every second, every minute, every hour, every day, every year; every beat of your heart and every breath you take; every failure and every success; every relationship, every job, every friend and every enemy. All of this is contained in one giant biopic movie produced, directed, and edited by.........God.

We are earthly beings contained in time and space. If we were to sit down and watch this movie in our realm of existence we would watch this movie one frame at a time. Our viewing of this movie would be linear in nature. We can’t view minute number 89 until we have watched the previous 88 minutes. It makes sense right? Now imagine God viewing this movie. God exists outside of the constraints of space and time so when He watches our movie He sees every frame at the same time. From God’s eternal perspective every moment in time occurs at once.

Now here is a mind bender for you....

If God already knows if I am going to get up and go to church or not tomorrow, where does that leave my choice? Where does my free will and freedom of choice fit in all of this? If God knew that I was going to fail in certain areas of my walk with Him today than what would have happened if I made a different choice along the way? Could I have made a different choice? Where do our prayers and petitions fit in?

Is God orchestrating what we think and feel in our hearts and minds so that we make the right decisions and pray the right things in order to match up with the final cut of the movie? Does He even have to? As producer and director hasn’t He already made all of these decisions already? Hasn’t He worked all this out in pre-production, while filming, and again in postproduction and editing?

Herein lies my question(s):
Do my choices determine God’s knowledge of what I will do?
Does God’s knowledge of what I will do determine my choices?

OR......
Because God is eternal are my choices and His knowledge simultaneous??

OR.......
Maybe the future isn’t set. I believe the final outcome written in the Word of God is the truth. But maybe how we get there isn’t set but “always in motion” depending on the choices we make. (I don’t like this theory. It puts too much power on us and takes some away from God.)

Think about it. Get back to me with your thoughts.

Have a great day. God bless.