Although math has never been my forte’, one “number” that’s always caught my fancy was the symbol for infinity: ∞

Maybe that’s because infinity isn’t like other numbers. It has an interesting story behind it because it isn’t anything specific but refers to an amount without limit. If something is “infinite,” one more can always be added, making the amount greater but the number, by definition, still infinity.

If one part is removed from infinity, the result is still infinity. I love that. Such crazy reasoning actually holds up in the precise world of mathematics, and there’s something captivating about that.

But does infinity have anything to do with eternity?

Eternity is something that exists outside of time and space, forever. As Christians, we’re looking forward to our eternity with God in heaven, a place that will exist out of time and space as we know them, though it will probably have its own new-fangled time and space.

As for God, he will exist there, too, but he also has existed throughout eternity past. And this is where eternity and infinity cross paths.

God existed as far back as history goes, whether that’s thousands of years or billions. Think big, and then add one more eon of time. He was alive an infinity before that. For him, the categories of past, present, and future are irrelevant. For us, it’s different.

Our past and present, though brief by the measurements of eternity, are monumentally important to us. The future, always uncertain, is cause for concern, because we wonder how it’s going to go. What will happen to us? How long will we live? What quality of life will we have? How will we die? And though Scripture describes our afterlife as worry-free, that doesn’t stop us from being concerned about our lack of knowledge about it.

Because our understanding is so limited, God offers to come close to help us. He says something like, “Although I exist outside of time and space, I also exist inside them. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be able to relate to you personally as I do, and that’s important to me. I always was and always will be, but I’m also in your here-and-now.”

Because of that, we can know God as our Father and Jesus as our brother, one-on-one, today, tomorrow, and every day after that. And as I’ve been thinking about how we can always add an infinite number of days to our relationship with him, such a wonder is now, and always will be, infinitely and eternally awesome.

“Before the mountains were born, before You gave birth to the earth and the world, from eternity to eternity, You are God.” (Psalm 90:2)