Forever
O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever.
Psalm 107:1, NRSV
When our kids were under the age of 10, we would hear the same thing every year beginning in late October. When will it be Christmas? When is Santa Claus coming? No matter how we explained the timeline, their response was always the same whine: “But Mom… but Dad… that’s F-O-R-E-V-E-R.”
I have a clock and calendar on my computer and my phone. I have a wall calendar in the study, another in the bathroom next to my pillbox and clocks are scattered throughout the house. Whether we are under 10 or grownups (or somewhere in between), we live in a world where it is easy to become driven by the calendar and the clock on the wall as we wait for whatever it is that is on our minds. Our lives are made up of time increments: seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years...but forever? That’s a hard concept around which for me to wrap my mind. When I think of long time frames in my life journey, I think of things like my lifespan: I’ve been alive for 73 years, I’ve been married for 50 years and I have had several 30 year mortgages (which seemed like they might last forever). At times, I feel as if my life experience of “time” in the face of forever is like one drop of water in the ocean or one grain of sand in the desert.
The psalmist tells us that God’s love lasts forever or, to put in a more personal vein, God’s steadfast love for you and for me lasts FOREVER. His love is continual, without ever ending, eternal. In my attempt to comprehend forever, I returned to a favorite passage that sheds light on God’s presence in my journey through time, Jeremiah 1:5: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.” My heart leaps for joy as I think that just as God knew and formed Jeremiah, so too God knew and formed me as well.
You and I are so much more than one drop in the ocean or one grain in the desert; we are God’s children, created in His image and my soul soars as I attempt to grasp the incredible wonder of His steadfast love for you and for me forever.
A Prayer for Today
Most gracious heavenly Father, as I go through this day, help me to remember that Your steadfast love never ends, and that You are ever present in my life. Amen.
