Watching through the Window of Eternity

Once in a while, I try and explain the amazing perspective God must have on our world. People ask about election- "How can God know who's going to trust him before they actually choose?" Or they ask about prayer, "Why do we pray when we know that God has already made up his mind?" And I explain, "Because God knows that you are going to pray about this one day, even as he is deciding in the beginning of time!"

This evening, I had one of those "Eureka" moments. I'm reading a book called Mission to the Headhunters. In 2002, retired missionaries Frank and Marie Drown published a book about their mission work in Ecuador in the 1950's. Not married that long, and already pregnant with their first child, they were called by God to reach a violent tribe of headhunters, the Atshuara, who shrunk heads and committed mayhem in the rain forests somewhere beyond Quito.

I find myself gasping in astonishment at least once or twice in every chapter. They live in a hovel and must grow nearly everything they eat in a garden they must cultivate and plant. They walk for miles, endure dreadful tropical illnesses, and help Indians erect buildings and construct landing strips in jungles. Their lives are in danger, their motives are misunderstood, and living among these vengeful tribesmen is like being exiled to another planet. The Atshuara routinely murder whole families, fashion their cracked skulls into good luck charms, and celebrate with their children in violent, drunken orgies.

This evening I'm reading about one particularly violent crisis the missionaries worked through. And the date strikes me- 1955. I was a tiny baby back in the United States even as the Drowns' children were growing up amid swarming mosquitoes, suffocating humidity, and ominous strangers armed with knives and deadly weapons. I don't even know these people, and yet from this time and distance I am moved by their faith. I deeply respect these people, and yet I've never met them.

I turn the page and a bush pilot lands with a cargo of life-saving medicine. He's risking his scalp to land his craft on a barely finished, primitive air strip that has never been tried before. There is nothing he won't do to advance the Gospel or rescue a lost soul. I read his name, Nate Saint. I know this man! Well, I don't know him, and yet I do. I know about his family, and that his small plane is yellow. Long before I had ever heard of Frank and Marie Drown, I had been moved and inspired by the lives of Jim Elliot, Nate Saint and their fellow missionaries. They, too, did pioneer missions in Ecuador in the 1950's. They took their wives and children into a world so primitive that most of us cannot even imagine it.

Here's the strange part: I don't know what's going to happen to Frank and Marie Drown. But I know precisely what will happen to Nate Saint and several of his fellow missionaries. I've known the story for years: in January, 1956, Elliot and Saint, and three other missionaries will attempt to reach another violent group of tribesmen known as the Waorani. They will be speared to death beside their plane, in spite of the fact there are guns inside the cockpit which could be used to fend off their attackers and save their own lives. The five men will meet death bravely, refusing to kill people who aren't saved.

I haven't come to that fateful year in the Drown's book yet. It's only 1955 in a story being written in 2001 by a missionary who began his work there in 1945. I'm reading it in 2010, and being moved to tears. And coming across the name Nate Saint, I know what the future holds for him, even before it's written, long after it happened.

I love this guy who shows up in 1955, even though I've never met him- because I know the stand he will take in just one year... and maybe another 45 pages!

I wonder if that's what it's like for God watching from the window of Eternity? In his mind, the story is already finished. He knows the ending, yet it's still unfolding on the Earth. He loves the saints, knowing what they've done, knowing what they're going to do in chapters not yet written, and yet already familiar to him. He knows the price they will pay, the reward they will receive.

Jesus knew it all when he went to the cross. He knew that he was rewiring the future. And he knew it was settled forever, even though the centuries would yet unfold. "It is finished, " he breathed those words with his final breath. And yet, it was only beginning. Earlier, he mystified some Jewish critics when he explained, "Before Abraham was, I am." Two thousand years later, he still is.

God created time, and now he lives above it. My future is all history to him. Much of his history is still future to me. I cannot begin to understand him. That's why grace is such an amazing asset. God arranged it for us while we were yet sinners, centuries before we were born, knowing what we'd need long before we were present to realize it.

Scripture teaches, "Whom he foreknew, he predestined." Long before Nate Saint was born, the Father knew when he would be born again. God foresaw how Nate would live, how he would die, and when he would arrive in Heaven. And long before Nate was born, his Father made sure that on the day he confessed Christ as Lord, he would be sealed and made safe forever. Sin could never snatch him away, and spears could never finish him off. His destiny is much too great for that. And his God is much too strong.