2 Peter 3:8-9 | God is Patient With You
2 Peter 3:8-9, “But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping His promise, as some understand slowness. Instead He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”
1) Time on this earth is temporary
The time we have in this life is valuable, and every moment of our lives is very important. We all have our own journey of life that we are traversing, and we all are walking according to the steps we take. The journey, however--no matter how much we may not want to continue sometimes--will proceed despite our feelings. In the grand scheme of life, we each have an appointed amount of time that we will be on this earth, and we all are walking towards that end. The reality of death is sobering, and is something that can either be a source of fear, or a catalyst that instills a fear of God and therefore a source of faith. On the other hand, death is a motivation for some; it is used as an excuse to live without restraint or care. Whatever place you think you fall on the spectrum, the reality is the same: we only have so much time within our lives.
The passage from 2 Peter speaks on this concept of time, and that we have to acknowledge it within these mortal lives we lead. While we are constrained to live in this world for a mere blink of time and trudge on toward our inevitable deaths, God is not. God is El Olam: The Everlasting God; The God of Eternity; The God of the Universe; The God of Ancient Days. He is not constrained by anything; literally all things are possible for this Being. Time is in the hands of the Lord, and as Ecclesiastes 3:1 states, “There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven.” God has each hair on our head numbered, and in every living moment in our lives, He is. God simply exists, and when we eventually meet our end on this earth, He will continue to be. Yet, at the same time, God has placed eternity in our hearts (Ecclesiastes 3:11)...
This concept of God’s eternal existence is placed in the same context as His patience. Your future existence is already accompanied by the Living God; He has already gone before you and I. This enigmatic characteristic of God is important to consider, because--as stated in the passage from 2 Peter--God is patient with us, despite having all time at His disposal. This timeless being is… patient? It is not a coincidence that Peter prefaces the passage with a backdrop on God’s eternal nature and authority over time, and then follows it by acknowledging a characte