ALREADY THERE—ETERNITY, TIME, AND THE BETTER-THAN-IMAGINED HOPE
There is a conviction that has settled into my mind—not as dogma to be demanded, but as hope to be held gently; when we die, we do not drift into a long hallway of waiting, nor do we wander in some dim in-between—we step into eternity itself. And if eternity is not bound by clocks and calendars, then those we love who have gone on before us are not “ahead” of us in any meaningful sense; they are already there—and, in a mystery deeper still, we are already there too.
The Bible tells us that God is not measured by time as we are. “With the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (2 Peter 3:8). This is not a math equation; it is an unveiling. Time bends before Him. Moments do not line up in a neat row when they stand in the presence of the Eternal One. What we experience as sequence—before and after, waiting and arriving—may dissolve when we pass beyond the veil.
Jesus Himself spoke of death not as delay, but as arrival. “Today you will be with Me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43). Not after a long pause. Not after centuries of waiting. Today. Paul echoes the same confidence when he writes, “To be absent from the body [is] to be present with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8). Presence—not postponement—marks the believer’s hope.
Here is where even modern science, without intending to preach, quietly humbles us. Einstein showed that time is not absolute; it stretches and compresses, slowing as one approaches the speed of light. At light-speed—at least theoretically—time ceases to move forward as we know it. While we cannot turn physics into theology, the implication is sobering and beautiful: time is not the unbreakable law we once assumed it to be. It is part of creation—flexible, contingent, and limited.
If time itself can bend within the created order, what must it do when creation gives way to eternity?
We speak of “going to heaven,” as though it were a destination on a future calendar. But eternity may not be later—it may be other. When death loosens us from time, we do not step into tomorrow; we step into the now of God. The risen Christ calls Himself “the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End” (Revelation 1:8). In Him, beginnings and endings are gathered together. What we call future is already held, already complete, already alive in His presence.
So perhaps our loved ones are not waiting for us in line; perhaps they are welcoming us from a fullness we cannot yet describe. And perhaps, when we arrive, we will discover that the reunion was never late—only hidden.
And if this personal conviction proves incomplete—if the reality of God’s design unfolds differently than my imagination allows—I rest easy still. The Word of God has already prepared me for that surprise with this lifelong principle: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him” (1 Corinthians 2:9).
Whatever eternity looks like, it will not be thinner than our hope—it will be fuller. It will not correct us downward—it will overwhelm us upward. If my understanding of time and eternity is imperfect, then the correction will not be disappointment, but astonishment. God has never been less generous than we imagined; He has always been more. What waits for us beyond death is not colder, not lonelier, not smaller—but brighter, deeper, and truer than anything we have known here.
We will not arrive late. We will not arrive alone. We will arrive home—into the presence of Jesus, where love is complete, time is no longer a tyrant, and every separation finally makes sense. When you cross over, you will not be leaving anything behind. You will enter into a whole new dimension where you are immediately in the presence of Christ and all of your loved ones, past and present. That is my personal view. You don’t have to hold it. But I can say this confidently: if I’m wrong, it will be even better than that.
_________
Lord Jesus, You who stand outside of time and yet stepped into it for us—steady our hearts when we think of death, and soften our fears with hope. Whether we understand eternity rightly or only dimly, we trust that what You have prepared is better than we can imagine. Hold our loved ones in Your presence, and when our time comes, receive us with joy. We place our hope not in theories or timelines, but in You. Amen.
BDD
