The Present Tense

Just as it has for eons past, the new year really doesn’t look any different from the old. One must get used to the idea of rolling the calendar year number to the next digit upwards, and must get used to the idea of yet another year falling away, but that’s all a mental exercise, and not an observation of nature.

Nature, it seems, regards this day as any other. “This is the day the Lord has made.” The emphasis, it seems, is in the here and now. The past is for learning and experience. The future has not yet taken place. Here and now is the time that is of importance.

Recently, I’ve begun to think of the verse of Christian scripture quoted above in a little different light from what I’ve normally thought. What if God continually “unfolds” the present tense to each one of us on a continuous basis? What if God continuously creates a unique present tense for each one of His created beings? What if we can somehow visualize God unfolding or unrolling the present tense before us in real time in an act of supreme and loving continuous creation and renewal?

That notion kind of changes things, at least for me. Gone are the notions that God created everything (or didn’t create at all) and now just sits back and watches what happens. Done is the idea that God doesn’t care about the mundane and routine of my life. Finished is the concept of God taking a hands-off attitude toward His creation.

Now I can better understand passages such as John 5:17 where Jesus says that His Father is working “even unto now”. I can better grasp the idea that God intervenes in the lives of man, and that He causes “all things to work together for the good (Romans 8:28). And it is more comforting to me now when I read that the very hairs of my head are numbered, and that “He cares for” me (I Peter 5:7).

I don’t know if that concept (where God creates and unfolds a unique present tense for each of us) is valid or not. However, I choose to believe it now because of what it does for my faith and because of how that concept brings to life passages of Christian scripture that heretofore have been somewhat muddled and unclear. So when and if you hear me say something about God “unfolding the present tense,” you’ll have an idea what I’m saying and why. And if it helps you in any way, so much the better.