How is it possible that God has been here forever because it seems like everything should have a beginning?

Yahoo! I love that question because friends ask me that question all the time! I could easily give them the standard Biblical answer that “God has always been here and He has no beginning and no end and He will always be here because He is eternal.” But, I usually get that deer-in-the-headlights look when I say that.

So, here’s my way of explaining it: Imagine being able to go back in time to the days of the pilgrims as they were colonizing this country and trying to explain to them how a helicopter works or how an iPod works. Remember, there’s no such thing as electricity, gas engines, batteries, etc. So, how do you explain how those things work to people that have never seen stuff like that? You see, we’ve grown up with so much technology that we just accept what is there without really trying to understand how it works. But trying to explain something so difficult that we casually accept to someone who’s never experienced would be very challenging.

Let’s apply that thinking to the idea of God being eternal. Truth: God’s eternal power is clearly seen in the creation of our universe but our brains have a hard time wrapping around that idea. And we kind of know what eternity is but we don’t fully understand it. So, what do we do? We try to explain it in terms we can see and understand. But how do we explain eternity to people (all of us) who are stuck in the passage of time? We usually start by trying to simplify the idea!

The Bible is our place to start. The Bible simply says God “is.” Remember Moses? When he asked the Lord God what His name was, do you remember what God said? He said, “Tell them I AM” Exodus 3:14). Revelation 1:8 and 4:8 says that God is, God was and God is to come.

We know tht time is a measurement of physical change. Time, though, has only existed since the creation of the universe. Genesis 1:1, the very first book and chapter of the Bible, says, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” God created everything, so time started at creation.

We also know from Genesis 1:1 that God was BEFORE the creation of the heavens and the earth becuse He was there to create it. That makes God timeless (eternal) because He created time! So, to answer your question in the simplest of terms, God has been here for all eternity and will be here for all eternity.

Thank you for a great and challenging question!