We are eternal, what does that mean?

Good day children, More thoughts on God.  This note will be short, though the subject is not.  The God that we believe in states that He is eternal.  Before time and after time He exists.  He called Himself, “I am”.  Eternal – what does this word mean, what does it mean to us?

A couple of weeks ago I discussed God’s love letter to us, our Bible.  This letter from God is not infinite, but God is so just how long is the time discussed in the Bible?  The Bible says that “in the beginning, the Word was,” just what beginning are we discussing here?  The beginning of time as we humans know it.  Now, with the science we have today, we have a better idea of just how long the time is, the creation of the universes, and the formation and aging of the planets, ours in particular.  Recent analysis of the helium 3 to helium 4 ratios at Yellowstone and other volcanic hot spots provide some amazing aging data.  So our planet is old, very old.  And the Bible states that God was there and created it with assistance from Wisdom.  So, from before the start of our time or the big bang, or whatever you want to describe it as, the Word of God was there. 

So time is old; that is the past, but how long will time last?  That is in the future.  The Bible describes that in The Revelation to John by Jesus Christ.  That end could be close, as many believe based on a lot of Biblical references, particularly Daniel’s.  But many have felt the end was near many times in the past 2000 years since Christ was born and died and was raised again.  So again, we do not know.  And as opposed to the past, there is no way to measure the future. 

However, the Bible is clear, there was a beginning, there was a past, there is a now, and there is a future.  These are all time elements.  But eternity is not limited by these time elements.  So before time God existed and created other beings and locations, and He also exists in the future when our time will have ended.  So, we humans are also eternal beings.  I can not say we existed prior to our conception by our parents; there is no reference to us having a prior existence that I know of, but there is a lot of details in creation we are not privy to.  However, the Bible clearly states that we are eternal and will continue to exist forever with God.  And forever is like eternal, longer than we can actually imagine.  God painted a magnificent story for us in the Bible, but it is only a picture of our time that we live in, it does not encompass all of His eternity.  Our life here is a preparation for entering eternity as a child of God, or not.  At the end of our time, we will not cease to exist, that is not an option. There are only two options, leave time and go to God, or leave time and go to hell.