by Dr. Lani Wilson

Good day, silent prayer and fasting warriors. I say silent because ours is somewhat of a solitary pursuit, yet in purposeful wholeness: Petitioning the Only One on behalf of the church body and the world. It seems far-fetched and almost antiquated and quaint until one realizes that ultimately, this is probably the only and most controllable thing we have in our finite human arsenal. Not a small thing and probably the most important thing.

The word is space(s).

The Day the Sky Will Collapse
Don’t overlook the obvious here, friends. With God, one day is as good as a thousand years, a thousand years as a day.  God isn’t late with his promise as some measure lateness. He is restraining himself on account of you, holding back the End because he doesn’t want anyone lost. He’s giving everyone space and time to change.
II Peter 3:8-9 (TMB)

Barclay says,

Finally, there is another echo of a truth which so often lies in the background of New Testament thought. God, says Peter, does not want anyone to perish. God, says Paul, has shut them all up together in unbelief, that he might have mercy on all (Romans 11:32). Timothy, in a tremendous phrase, speaks of God who desires everyone to be saved (I Timothy 2:4). Ezekiel hears God ask: ‘Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked…and not rather that they should turn from their ways and live?’ (Ezekiel 18:23). Time after time, we see in Scripture  the glint of the larger hope. We are not forbidden to believe that
somehow and at some time the God who loves the world will bring the whole world to himself.
William Barclay, The Letters of James and Peter
The New Daily Study Bible, pg. 395

So, apparently, God wants all of us to come to His Throne. That word space can mean so much. I am an inner and outer space freak: The ocean being inner space and the cosmos beyond being outer space. I have recently become enamored with the concept of interstellar space: In interstellar space there are no stars. You are in between star systems. How can that be? How can there be no stars for any object to bump into? In September of 2013, it was determined that that Voyager I and II spacecraft (launched in September of 1977) had entered interstellar space.

Though the spacecraft have left the planets far behind – and neither will come remotely close to another star for 40,000 years – the two probes still send back observations about conditions where our Sun's  influence diminishes and interstellar space begins.
“NASA’s Voyager Spacecraft Still Reaching for the Stars After 40 Years,” July 31, 2017
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-s-voyager-spacecraft-still-reaching-for-the-stars-after-40-years

I know you might be thinking “So what?” Well, the “what” is God: Therein lies God. Therein lies the incomprehensibility of God, and therein lies grace. The same God who created interstellar space and Whom we seek “out there” as scientists seek the facts about how the universe began is the same God who is creating space for the world to recognize and come back to Her. Space is time and place and it is relative.

One of the most surprising features of special relativity is that a number of statements and results which we usually think to be absolute turn out to be observer-dependent. In particular, statements about space and time, distances and duration turn out to be relative.
Einstein online http://www.einsteinonline.info/elementary/specialRT/relativity_space_time

The important word here is “relative” because it refers to the fact that the special relativity of time and space means that it is significant who is doing the observing. We see God’s world through human frames, through our finite humanness. No amount of knowledge or human contemplation can explain the space (time and place) God gives even those we consider the most wicked to come to Him. In our very humanness we really don’t want them to come to Him because of how they have treated other humans. But thankfully, God understands and ignores us. If S/He hadn’t, I would not still be breathing. Therefore, I am grateful for all the space God wants to give me or any other being. I must not focus my gaze downward but ever upward, else I die.

One thing has to be remembered. The whole concept of the second coming is full of difficulties. But this is certain – there comes a day when God breaks into every life, for there comes a day when we must die; and for that day we must be prepared. We may say what we will about the coming of Christ as a future event; we may feel it is a doctrine we have to lay aside; but we cannot escape from the certainty of the entry of God into our own experience.
Barclay, The Letters of James and Peter
pg. 397

For some, Christ comes every day, even through the gloom and even in the sunlight, Christ comes.

LORD Jesus, reclaim us from our lack of vision. Grant us more space, even as we think that only others need it. Remind us that it is Your arrival that changed the world, not Your departure because You returned to assure us that you indeed were alive. It is not some mystical presence or in some transcendent practice that you live. You are alive and if you wanted, would be so in corpus. Give us wisdom to know when we need space, time and place to redeem ourselves back to You by submitting ourselves to You. We get lost in mission, in love, in work, in duty, in want and desire…we get lost. Thank You for finding us when we don’t want to be found. Thank You for hiding us when we cannot be consoled. Thank You for Your patience and your desire for us. You have always loved us more than we love You. Forgive us for that and make us more capable of greater love, a love that requires and is sustained by more space; the incomprehensible, interstellar vastness of Your love for us. We are not able but we will keep trying. Yes, we will. And because we cannot do anything else more meaningful, we will love You and worship You in Your space.

Amen.

Until next week and afloat in God’s Arms, God bless you,

Lani