Starting From Zero

“If I take one more step, it’ll be the farthest from home I’ve ever been.” That’s what Samwise Gamgee said as he set out from the shire. That’s what he said in the movie anyways. [bradtip text=”In the book ” tooltip=”Book 1, chapter 3 Three is Company. In my book its page 81 but probably not in yours.”] it was more like “Sam stood by him. His round eyes were wide open – for he was looking across lands he had never seen to a new horizon.”

Figure 000-1 Samwise Gamgee Looking Across Lands He Had Never Seen to a New Horizon

That’s how it feels to start a website with nothing but a domain name, an empty canvas, and a dream. That first step, to change the site to a black background with white text and purple headings, is the story of the Hobbit’s journey. It’s the same story that Bilbo passed on to Frodo, which is why Frodo quoted Bilbo in response, “‘It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door’, he used to say. ‘You step out into the Road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to. Do you realize that this is the very path that goes through Mirkwood, and that if you let it, it might take you to the Lonely Mountain, or even further, and to worse places.’”

The day Sam made the choice to step out of his horizon was September 14, 3018 TE. Little did he know that the Road would take him to the very worst places, and by March 25 of that spring 3019, Samwise Gamgee himself would bear the ring along with Frodo, up an active volcano. The act was so brazen against the face of death that it would collapse Middle Earth’s largest tower, bring the Enemy to ruin, and return the King to his throne. The Fourth Age was generally agreed to have begun three years later on 29 September of T.A. 3021. Sam had broken history into a new calendar!

Not all calendars changed on the same day though. Or had the same new year’s day. In fact the years in the Shire Reckoning continued without a reset. The year that Samwise left Middle Earth for the Gray Havens as the final ringbearer was the same year Rose died, and the year he handed off the Red Book to his daughter Elanor . That volume, which began as Bilbo’s diary and includes the six books we know as the Lord of the Rings, was completed in the year 61 of the Fourth Age for the Reunited Kingdom, but Sam thought of it as 1482 S.R. and the majority of the dates describing the War of the Ring (that nine-hour movie everybody loves) were given in the Shire Reckoning.

These calendars are a mess!

So where do we start the counting? What is year zero?

A software engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician walk into a bar.

Figure 000-2 A Software Engineer, a Physicist, and a Mathematician

The software engineer’s got ADHD which is why he’s neither a physicist nor a mathematician, he’s lookin out the window at the house across the street for a good while. “Huh…” he interrupts the other two because they’re boring, “two guys just went into that house a minute ago, but now three guys just walked out.” The bartender elbows his buddy and says “watch this.” Turning to the three, the bartender says “I will give a free beer to whomever of you’s guys can deduce me your conclusion on how a couple of folks went in, but tree guys came out.” Software engineer answers first because he’s been waiting patiently for his turn to talk. “Well I guess I never initialized. Garbage in, garbage out!” because software engineers love saying that. Physicist says “engineer’s just taking bad measurements”, because in theory a physicist is never wrong. Mathematician, trying to keep the two sides in balance says, “Whatever guys, just wait until exactly one person walks into the house, then it’ll be empty.”

Hilarious joking aside, the software engineers are always right about counting, because nobody does it better. I’ve met a lot of software engineers over the last 17 years – these guys have like 15, 20 timers running at any given time. This one time I was building a power system for a naval destroyer and I gave my software engineer a requirement to have this switch open in 10 seconds. That might seem like a long time, but in 2010 we did not have the technology to break 1000A of DC current at 1000VDC. So we used motorized switches, and while they were moving, contactors would temporarily short circuit around them so that nothing exploded <foreshadowing>. Well the software engineer took that 10 seconds I gave him and started chopping it into the time it takes to send, receive and process the command, the time from the motor moving till the end switch opens, the time until the switch on the other side closes, the time to sense that, then command the contactor to open… While he’s doing that, an assembler one day routed some cables through the wrong entrance into the cabinet. The following day during testing, behind a blast shield, I applied the fault and counted to ten. I expected the test to pass because it worked fine yesterday, so for me it was a pretty chill ten seconds. And I can assure you, having written the safety incident report that followed, it was not off by a microsecond…

Figure 000-3 The Aftermath of an Arc Flash Event, and the Reason I Wore a Face Shield When Opening These

If you want to measure time correctly, you have to do what the software engineer told the bartender earlier – you need to initialize. We humans can only measure time as relative, but who decided when t actually equaled zero?

How God Counts

God wrote the story that is history and He started like a software engineer – by initializing. The first words given by God to humanity, “In the beginning…” is a definition of when t=0 for us non-eternal beings. Let’s just stop and consider how unfathomable [bradtip text=”El Shaddai” tooltip=”אֵל שַׁדַּי, God Who Is All Sufficient” class=”bradtip-gold”] truly is. We’re all so used to having a beginning and everything we interact with having a beginning, but God has aseity. Aseity (“a Say it E”) is a fascinating characteristic that means God is the only self-existent, self-sufficient being. When you or I talk about time it’s always relative to/from something local like midnight or January 1st. But for God, He was already enough, God had everything He needed when He made the decision to bring the cosmos into existence with you in it.

Figure 000-4 Abstract Representation of God’s Decision to Create a Universe that He Could Share With You Forever

The first verse of the Bible is God defining time as beginning right now. The first chapter is God doing things for one day then counting that one day, specifying there was also one night, and He does this six times. The seventh day He doesn’t work and notice He doesn’t count either. Most theologians will tell you it’s because we were supposed to remain in that seventh day of shalom – rest in the most complete meaning possible – forever.

One other cool thing to look for in Genesis 1 is the first ever poem 3/4 the way down. The entire chapter uses the same preterite tense (wayyiqtol verb form) that Genesis 15 or Exodus 12 or any historical narrative uses, except for the poem. When God wrote His Story, He didn’t go a single chapter without writing you a love poem. You are created in His image and He chose to tell you by switching to poetic verse for a little bit.

 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.  And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. 
And there was evening and there was morning, the first day. 

And God said, “Let there be an expanse  in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” And God made  the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse. And it was so. And God called the expanse Heaven.  
And there was evening and there was morning, the second day. 

 And God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good.  And God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants  yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth.” And it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 
And there was evening and there was morning, the third day. 

 And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons,  and for days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. And God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. 
And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day. 

 And God said, “Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds  fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens.” So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.”  
And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day. 

 And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds—livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.” And it was so. And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.  Then God said, “Let us make man  in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 

 So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
 male and female he created them. 

 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. 
And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

[Chapter 2]
Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.

How Humanity Counts

Humanity got off to a terrible start. Where God had intended us to rule the earth as in heaven, by chapter 3 we chose to rule instead of God, on our behalf, according to what’s in our own heart. Chapter 4 has the first murder and the founding of the first city… in that order. And by chapter 5 human rule has plunged the world into violence and warfare, with kings claiming territories and assembling armies to hold city states. History, instead of being counted from the beginning, from the birth of Adam and Eve, from the garden of paradise, is now being counted by the deaths or overthrows of kings. Imagine being [bradtip text=Abram traveling through Egypt ” tooltip=”When Abram entered Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful. And when the princes of Pharaoh saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh. And the woman was taken into Pharaoh’s house. And for her sake he dealt well with Abram; and he had sheep, oxen, male donkeys, male servants, female servants, female donkeys, and camels.” class=”bradtip-gold”] and asking someone what year something happened and they’re like “the 18th year of the rule of TipTopRa” except he took over in December so really that first year was only a month, but you’re a traveler so you don’t know that. Then you go to [bradtip text=”Shechem ” tooltip=”Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. Then the LORD appeared to Abram and said, To your offspring I will give this land. So he built there an altar to the LORD, who had appeared to him” class=”bradtip-gold”]and the calendar changes to some other guy’s name you gotta remember, plus the guy he deposed.

What Calendar Did Jesus Use?

Jesus [bradtip text=”lived ” tooltip=”…and died and lived again and went somewhere with His regenerated body …”] during an extended period of Jewish exile in which they had no monarch to count their years from. What we call the beginning of the 1^st century was for them the beginning of the 5^th century of waiting on [bradtip text=”mashiah” tooltip=”Khristós (Χριστός), the Chosen One” class=”bradtip-gold”]. Jerusalem had been [bradtip text =”destroyed horrifically ” tooltip=”2 Chronicles 36:15-21 The LORD, the God of their fathers, sent persistently to them by his messengers, because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place. But they kept mocking the messengers of God, despising his words and scoffing at his prophets, until the wrath of the LORD rose against his people, until there was no remedy. Therefore he brought up against them the king of the Chaldeans, who killed their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary and had no compassion on young man or virgin, old man or aged. He gave them all into his hand. And all the vessels of the house of God, great and small, and the treasures of the house of the LORD, and the treasures of the king and of his princes, all these he brought to Babylon. And they burned the house of God and broke down the wall of Jerusalem and burned all its palaces with fire and destroyed all its precious vessels. He took into exile in Babylon those who had escaped from the sword, and they became servants to him and to his sons until the establishment of the kingdom of Persia, to fulfill the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed its Sabbaths. All the days that it lay desolate it kept Sabbath, to fulfill seventy years.” class=”bradtip-gold”] – the walls, the buildings, the temple, the holy grails, all the gold in Israel’s treasury, and all the people inside – by Nebuchadnezzar in the year 586 Before Christ. That is a long time to wait. Imagine if the attackers on 9/11/01 had taken all the money that was in the trade center towers before they fell and it took the United States hundreds of years to save up enough wealth and manpower to rebuild a tower in lower Manhattan. [bradtip text=”How badly ” tooltip=”Jeremiah 50:17 Israel is a hunted sheep driven away by lions. First the king of Assyria devoured him, and now at last Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon has gnawed his bones.” class=”bradtip-gold”] would you want the Son of David to return to the throne of Zion!

As Hellenized as they were during that first century, the chosen people of Yahweh still retained a unique calendar. Their calendar defined t=0 as the Exodus. They are, after all, the only nation that has ever [bradtip text=”annihilated Egypt militarily” tooltip=”Then Moses and the people of Israel sang this song to the LORD, saying, I will sing to the LORD, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea. The LORD is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation; this is my God, and I will praise him, my fathers God, and I will exalt him. The LORD is a man of war; the LORD is his name. Exodus 15:1-3″ class=”bradtip-gold”], and that was back when Egypt had sole superpower status in the world and took what they wanted from Persia every year. [bradtip text=”Israel” tooltip=”יִשְׂרָאֵל which probably means something like contends with God (El)” class=”bradtip-gold”] achieved ultimate victory without any losses, and without having weapons, armor, or horses. This clearing of the Red Sea for a new nation [bradtip text=”carrying literal plunder ” tooltip=”Exodus 3:20-22 So I will stretch out my hand and strike Egypt with all the wonders that I will do in it; after that he will let you go. And I will give this people favor in the sight of the Egyptians; and when you go, you shall not go empty, but each woman shall ask of her neighbor, and any woman who lives in her house, for silver and gold jewelry, and for clothing. You shall put them on your sons and on your daughters. So you shall plunder the Egyptians.” class=”bradtip-gold”] was one of those history-shattering moments that deserves a t=0 reset and a brand new calendar, so that’s the calendar Jesus used.

What About Creation?

If I was still waiting for Messiah, I would prefer a calendar that begins at the very first day, the day that was [bradtip text=”brought forth by the Word.” tooltip=”In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. ” class=”bradtip-gold”] As an engineer it makes all the sense. It’s like using Kelvin instead of Celsius. Let’s start at zero degrees so we don’t have to add more steps to our math. The Jewish calendar does this actually, and I just love the idea of it. Right now it’s the year 5784 because that’s how old the earth is. It’s the simplest way to measure something. Same thing you would do if I handed you a tape measure right now – start at zero and count.

However, when you look at all of history in three acts, which we’ll do in the second post, numbered 001 of course, it makes sense that we would start a new calendar for the Third Era, just like the Fourth Era of middle earth began with the Birth of Eldarion, son of King Elessar of the Reunited Kingdom of Gondor and Arnor and Queen Arwen.

The bottom line is King Jesus broke the Story of History between act 2 and act 3, and with it, the calendar! Praise God that Emmanuel has come down to earth to redeem [bradtip text=”those who the Father has given Him” tooltip=”I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” class=”bradtip-gold”]. Of those, He said, not one is taken from his hand, [bradtip text=”except for Judas” tooltip=”While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled.” class=”bradtip-gold”] because that was part of the [bradtip text=”plan from t=0″ tooltip=”I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.” class=”bradtip-gold”]. We now live in an era known as Anno Domini, the year of our Lord. If you ever hear someone, usually an academic, trying to called it 2024 CE, that means “common era” and you know there is nothing common about resetting the calendar to t=0 in nearly the entire world!

What Is This Website?

Welcome! I don’t have any theological credentials whatsoever. I’m just a dude that has been reading the Bible my whole life, not as a book but as a volume of collected manuscripts across hundreds of years, 40 or so authors, 3 continents and 3 languages compiled into a work of literature that can never be matched in beauty nor brilliance. The only way to explain its invincible endurance and indestructible cohesion is that it is God’s Word given for us. And I’m going to keep reminding you that the Bible wasn’t written to you, it was written for you. Context matters. Usually if you flip back a bit, any text will tell you who it’s being written to.

Scripture teaches that creation itself is a second revelation to us about who God is. I believe that the purpose of animals clearly goes beyond their utility and they are there to be looked at, amazed by, studied, and learned from. I do all of those things here, particularly regarding dragonflies because they are the best animal aerobatically speaking and because I think they make a great symbol for ADHD. I do the same for plants, bacteria, the heavenly bodies, and the laws of physics themselves, like electromagnetism. Light waves are literally made of electricity and magnetism swapping energy back and forth a bazillion times per second at 90 degrees from each other and from the direction they’re both traveling? What does that even mean, Mr. Maxwell?

Testimony

This site has tales of:

amazing adventure and fantastic failure
high school hijinks and the lessons learned
marital madness mended by miraculous mercy
miracles such as suicides that weren’t allowed to succeed. Yes, plural stories
woe and whoah! Or both like the time my buddy Joe got shot in the back with a shotgun while sitting right next to me
the other two times I nearly died, once from drowning and once from flesh-eating bacteria
Naval, Air Force, and Army military hardware on the cutting edge of technology
I’ve cared for dogs, dairy cattle, and goats

Mental Health

Between them my wife and daughters have experienced:

3x Massive Depression, Non-Psychotic, with Suicidal Ideation
2x Clinical Anxiety
Autism
A sexual assault/battery and two childhood molestations

I keep in stock, supplied by a pharmacy inside a helicopter factory:

Trazodone, sertraline, hydroxyzine, zolpidem, venlafaxine, lorazepam
For me, atomoxetine
My wife and my goat have both been administered ketamine. Not at the same time, or for the same reason.

Music

Because [bradtip text=”Jesus ‘the Lion of Judah’ is worthy” tooltip=”And I began to weep loudly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it. And one of the elders said to me, ‘Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.’ Revelation 5:4-5″ class=”bradtip-gold”] of all [bradtip text=”glory and honor and praise,” tooltip=”Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice,
‘Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!’” class=”bradtip-gold”] this website also has Youtube playlists with names such as:

Christians Know They Are Loved
Excited About the Kingdom on Earth as in Heaven
Christian Encouragement From Brothers and Sisters
Deep in the Peace (Shalom) of Father
Christian Playfulness
Christian Music for ADHD
a lot more playlists, at least a thousand songs, endless hours of praise

I’m not all that good at prayer (more on that below) but I do feel completely comfortable praising Abba with my singing and dancing. If you’ve ever struggled with knowing Father, or if you just envy the people who seem more intimate with Him, the best thing you can do is switch 75% or more of your music listening time to these playlists. There are a number of songs that describe whatever it is that you’re going through today. I will guarantee that changing the music you listen to will change your relationship with God noticeably within 90 days.

Appendices

There are excellent Appendices if I dare say so myself, with names like Table of Parables of Jesus and Every Time the Bible Mentions the Will of God.

Prayer

If you’re anything like me, and I assume that’s why you’re still here, I have difficulty with prayer. It doesn’t make any sense to me whatsoever, so I do it as an act of faith believing that there’s something in it that gives God extra glory and gives me extra faith. So whenever I was praying on a stage with a microphone, I would always write out the prayer ahead of time. Since I have a website now, I gathered them up. Sometimes they’re helpful for me (under construction).

YouTube Page

This YouTube page is full of videos of dogs, goats, possum, tarantulas, other spiders, lizards, snails, and what have you. That’s the animals; then you’ve got plant facts, particularly how they tend to branch using the golden angle, grow flowers in Fibonacci numbers, and often approach the golden spiral.

Randomness

There is a randomizer button (under construction) for those of us who thrive in chaos, knowing we can control nothing. That’s probably three books of the Bible right there. Gambling is obviously sin, because it feeds the flesh and destroys families, but casting lots… that’s an interesting question. The Bible has a surprising amount of lot casting, in fact [bradtip text=”that’s how Yahweh gave the tribes of Israel their land.” tooltip=”The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, ‘Among these the land shall be divided for inheritance according to the number of names. To a large tribe you shall give a large inheritance, and to a small tribe you shall give a small inheritance; every tribe shall be given its inheritance in proportion to its list. But the land shall be divided by lot. According to the names of the tribes of their fathers they shall inherit. Their inheritance shall be divided according to lot between the larger and the smaller.’ Numbers 26:52-56″ class=”bradtip-gold”] It’s never said exactly what casting lots means, whether dice or a flat disk or sticks of differing length. I have from time to time flipped open the Bible at random and had it land on something I really needed to hear. The [bradtip text=”Holy Spirit does whatever He wants” tooltip=”Who knows the thoughts that another person has? Only a person’s spirit that lives within him knows his thoughts. It is the same with God. No one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.” class=”bradtip-gold”], so if you push that button, you might just be falling backward into faith in the Spirit of Jesus. The worst that happens is you’ll read something you don’t like that much for five minutes.

Does Our Calendar Have an End?

You betcha! Ours ends in fire! Jesus told Peter about it:

 For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.  But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.  The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.
Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.

Imagine a quarterback so confident and powerful that he announces the play before the snap. Literally, Jesus told the entire world [bradtip text=”what He’s going to do when He arrives” tooltip=”And he said to me, ‘These words are trustworthy and true. And the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, has sent his angel to show his servants what must soon take place.’” class=”bradtip-gold”]. That’s what the word Revelation means, it’s the partial lifting of a veil that stands between heaven and earth for now. Jesus gave this epic history spoiler to his closest disciple, John Bar-Zebedee. Have you ever wondered why 11 of the disciples died for Jesus but John never did? Is it because he wrote his five books of the bible so beautifully and Jesus wanted to give him more time for that? Was it because he was still [bradtip text=”taking care of his ima, Mary” tooltip=”So the soldiers did these things, but standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, behold, your son!’ Then he said to the disciple, ‘Behold, your mother!’ And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.” class=”bradtip-gold”]? Was it because He wanted John to be an old man when he saw the future because old men are better at understanding? Or was it because Jesus just couldn’t bear to watch one more gruesome death? Legend has it that John was on the exile island of Patmos to begin with because he had been thrown in boiling oil and had survived unharmed.

Anyways the calendar, you remember earlier when you read “And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years,”? Well Jesus made it clear we won’t use those kinds of calendar anymore.

And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, and its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there. They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. But nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb's book of life.

Living life without Mondays is gonna be so great! Not worrying about sunburn anymore, looking forward to that for sure, but there’s a part of the creation story that is missing from Genesis 1. Remember earlier I said that Yahweh knew you were in His universe with Him eternally before he started making it? I never gave you a scripture to back up that claim. One place that says that is Ephesians 1, and since this is the apostle Paul the run-on sentences are going to be epic! Only Paul would tackle a subject as deep as the Will of God in his opening greetings:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known  to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. 
 
In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee  of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

That is astonishing to think about, that your inheritance is guaranteed by the Holy Spirit, but your adoption was actually guaranteed when you were chosen for adoption, and that happened before God poured the foundation on space, matter, and time.

There is one more mystery that is revealed in Revelation that I get real excited about too. When your predestined adoption took place, Father, Word, and Spirit set aside a small white stone that has your name written on it. Theologians are unclear on exactly what the white stone represents, but universally agree that you want one of these. This name is not the one your parents gave in the language you speak. It’s a name your parents don’t know yet, and neither do you. But Jesus told John to tell you that when you arrive for the Wedding Banquet of the Lamb, He’s going to hand you the white stone with your new name.

Revelation 2:17  He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it.’