God's sheet of paper.

"Almost certainly God is not in time. His life does not consist of moments one following another...Ten-thirty-- and every other moment from the beginning of the world--is always Present for Him. If you like to put it this way, He has all eternity in which to listen to the split second of prayer put up by a pilot as his plane crashes in flames."
— C.S. Lewis (Mere Christianity)


I always remembered this quote a little different, or maybe the sentence before this is what I remember, and I don't have the book here to look it up in!  I remember  C.S. Lewis saying something like: "While we see time as moving along a line, from point A to point B, to point C, and so on, imagine that line being drawn on a sheet of paper, and then realize that God IS the sheet of paper."


I have been thinking about that concept the past few days - praying and thinking about how God brought me to this point (maybe point E or so, I hope)  and I feel like I am already searching for the next point.  And it's awesome to realize or remember that my line on God's sheet of paper allows for God to know the in's and out's of my life, to completely contain, complete and hold my life together.  But today - something hit me about this  - -  there must be a whole lot of lines on God's sheet of paper.   And, maybe that is why we have a hard time seeing the points coming?  

I drew these lines (during my second grade class, where we are discussing the different types of lines) to represent "God's sheet of paper." (His would, no doubt, be infinitely larger than this one)  When I look at it - I really want my line to be the yellow one in the middle.  Yea, the big yellow line with the really big points marked out.  But, I think my line is actually one of those crazy jagged lines that goes all over the page, you see, the ones where you could never predict where they would go next.


But, we all know that if all the lines were the same - this drawing wouldn't be very interesting, if it was all thin blue lines, it might be mistaken for a sheet of notebook paper.  If we were all jagged turquoise lines; or art teachers in Africa - we wouldn't ever be able to  learn about history or science or math in school, maybe not even have a school in the States, there wouldn't be restaurants to eat in, or even have food to eat!  It's fun to think about all the different lines we represent, and all the intersections that happen between us.  Sometimes the lines change each other's color, sometimes they resist each other, sometimes the lines go straight through each other, not changing either one of them.   Think of all the people we encounter each day, that God has planned it all out -  right there, on His sheet of paper.


"The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance." Psalm 16:6