Time-Space

Then the Lord said to Ananias, “Get up and go down to the street called Straight, and enquire at the house of Judas for a man named Saul from Tarsus. At this moment he is praying and he sees in his mind’s eye a man by the name of Ananias coming into the house, and placing his hands upon him to restore his sight.” Acts 9:11,12

The Book of Acts comes back to this time and again, both in Chapter 10 and across Paul’s missionary journeys throughout the rest of Acts, but here we get to see one amazing instance of an amazing facet of God's will. It’s the fact that, in our embracing the full mystery of the mission we’ve been given by Jesus, you and I get to transcend the three dimensions of our physical reality; that we are invited into the space-time construct that lives within the mind of God; that our lives grow fluid with the Holy Spirit’s fluidity. (Does that sound crazy enough for you?) Well, here what I mean:
 
In this particular Chapter 9 moment, there are two three-dimensional men – with height, width, and depth – living in the midst of normal human time, going about their two independent respective days. And yet – AND YET! – into those two realities comes an outside spiritual force, One who dwells outside the movement of what we call time, and He paints for both of them – one verbally, one visually – AT THE SAME TIME – a picture that is not-yet-real in time- and physical-space, and yet which is the EXACT, PERFECT will of God for both these two lives and the historical movement of the Gospel.

​Ananias’ visit to Saul exists already in the timeless, four-dimensional (or more?) mind of God even before he takes a step toward the street called Straight…
 
THIS, my friends, is how we’re meant to be living, making plans, doing ministry and missions, raising our families: in a posture of three-dimensional waiting and listening and watching for the moments when the supernatural reality breaks in. Had you asked Ananias how to reach into the life and heart of Saul of Tarsus, he would’ve had his own best guesses... bounded by all normal human constraints. The Lord Jesus, the Holy Spirit, know no such constraints; their imagination should form the basis of all that we dream of doing.