Okay, I didn’t graduate with an aerophysics degree, but try this.
Go outside and wait for a jet airplane to soar across a clear sky overhead. Now, in your line of vision, take your fingertip and put it on the plane. You’re looking at your fingertip and the plane at the same time, in the same spot.
Move your finger away from the plane at a speed of about 3 miles per hour (average walking speed). Whoa! Your finger outraced the plane, traveling at 575 miles per hour! Wait. What?!
Why do planes soaring across the sky seem to be moving so slowly? Additionally, if you’re actually a passenger on a plane way up in the sky, and you look below to see a bunch of land, why do you seem to be moving so slowly?
4 word scientific answer: no independent reference point. 1 word simple answer: perspective.
It’s why your plane does feel like it’s going fast when it’s roaring down the runway for takeoff. You can compare the plane to an immediate reference point nearby like the runway, the grass or lights. They zip by quickly.
Sara Nelson, Director of the NASA Iowa Space Grant Consortium at Iowa State University, tells about a trick that passengers can use to determine how fast their plane is traveling. If you can spot the plane’s shadow moving along the ground, that will show you how fast the plane is traveling.
Why? Immediate, independent reference point.
Enough aerophysics. That’s really just a setup for something more astonishing: why God can seem to be moving so slowly.
4 word theological answer: no independent reference point. 1 word simple answer: perspective.
Psalm 40:5 says that nothing can compare to God. So, how can there be a reference point with which to compare God accurately? There cannot. But yes, we try.
We compare God to our schedule for the day, our seasons or weekly routines, our expectations of response time, and anything else that we understand well. It is then that God seems to be moving s-o-o-o-o-o-o slowly. But he’s not. We think we’re outpacing him at 3 miles per hour but he’s actually moving at 575 billion miles per second.
“With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day” (2 Peter 3:8).
If God is too slow, or too fast, or waiting too long, or not acting quickly enough, or taking forever to give you an answer, just think of an airplane soaring through the sky. At your fingertips, it is slow.
So don’t measure God by your own fingertips. He soars. Nothing compares.
PRAYER: God, you soar more quickly and save more speedily than the fastest airplane. Definitely faster than it seems. Shape my perspective to trust you too much to keep you at my fingertips. Amen.
TAKE IT DEEPER: Please DO NOT allow anyone to use 2 Peter 3:8 (quoted above) as proof that it took God thousands of billions of years to create the universe. The Bible says 6 days. Some use this verse to support their idea that a day doesn’t mean an actual day. But this verse doesn’t say that. It’s a simile, a figure of speech. “A day is like a thousand years.” Like a quick, mini parable. See how I did that?