Back in August I received an email from a gentleman in response to my blog entry entitled "Time Travel." Below is a portion of his email to me, and what follows is the email that I wrote back to him...albeit three months later!
John,I used some of your "time travel" post in the following-- that I sent to family and friends-you will see it below...
Would love to keep abreast of what the LORD's doing in your life. You're a great conversational writer! Pardon my "Southern-ese" in the following, used to get my southern relatives attention...
Peace be with you,
Ray
Subject: A "New Kitten" and Prayer, Time Travel & the Fourth Dimension
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Time travel: well, um-- is it possible, maybe... Theoretically, some think so, although there are certain mathematical issues and practical issues like avoiding blowing up or setting off a nuclear reaction in the process if we ever figured out how. Plus, time travel, from one perspective says, "you can go 'back'
in time, but not 'forward.'HOWEVER, there is one way. One way to travel forward in time is prayer! And YOU can do it!!
YOU CAN AFFECT THE OUTCOME of events by intercession, by agreeing with God's ideas about the matter at hand, BEFOREHAND. IN THIS WAY, YOU ARE TIME-TRAVELING if your prayers are in line with the Father's ETERNAL PURPOSES.
Dear Ray,
Thanks for writing me. SORRY for not replying in, well, almost three months. Like I mentioned in my blog, there's hardly enough time for travel--much less anything else!
I appreciate your insight--how through intercessory prayer we can travel through time and affect the outcome of future events.
I have often thought of prayer as being able to affect past events, too, actually. It usually comes up in the context of praying for a friend. For example, many times I have told a friend I would pray for her so that she might do well on an exam at school. I know that her exam is at, say, ten o'clock in the morning--but by the time I remember to pray, it is already three o'clock in the afternoon! Did I just blow it and miss my chance? I don't think so.
God is outside of time. I understand eternity not as time going on and on without end, ad infinitum, but as being "constantly" in the present. Time, in many respects, is a measurement of change. But if there is no change, then there is nothing to measure, and hence no time. God, theology tells us, is immutable--that is, He doesn't change. God is eternal because He is outside of, transcendent to, all that is created. He is the Un-created One, the Creator. But only that which is created is changeable. God is so vast--infinitely so--that He encompasses everything, so that there is no need for change in Him. All that is, is in Him. I hope this is making sense; I'm not just making this stuff up, but trying to synthesize what I know from my studies in theology.
Anyway, the point of this is that for God, everything is in the present. Our past and our future are all part of God's "present." He sees and knows everything at once, in one act of knowledge. Sooo, at ten o'clock in the morning, when my friend is about to take her exam, God knows that five hours later--according to our way of reckoning time--I will say a prayer for her and intercede for her. Knowing that I will do this--not in God's future, but in my future and in the future of my friend--God takes that into account. Now, I'm not saying I know how intercessory prayer works, but I do know that it does work! So, however God takes my prayer into account, even though it hasn't taken place yet in time, He "applies" it and helps my friend.
So, what is it that I say at three o'clock in the afternoon? I usually ask that God, being eternal, will retroactively hear and answer my prayer of intercession for my friend. My prayer is a real act, a real decision I make with my free will to love another person and to love God, and so it makes a real difference in the world and acts as a "channel", perhaps, of His grace. Why God chooses to "honor" our prayers of intercession is another question entirely, of course, but it shows a bit of His omnipotence that He chooses to allow us to play a part in the drama of events in the history of salvation--even if we never leave our couch.
Interestingly, the same blog entry that you quoted from also contains a short passage about St. Therese of Lisieux, commonly known as The Little Flower. I don't know if you are familiar with her, but she was a Carmelite nun in France in the 1800's, and she died at the age of 24, never having left her convent. But she is the patron saint of missionaries, precisely because through her prayer--at the heart of the Church, she called it, which is love--she could reach out to peoples all over the world. Now, theologically, I think it is quite reasonable to extend the power of prayer not only to all places geographically, but to all times, both in the past and in the future.
Thanks for your email. It provoked some interesting questions!
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