I'm THINKING (guessing?) that the problem is multi-faceted and more philosophical than anything else. That is some of the attributes of God are difficult to reconcile with his being in time.
For one thing, as a teaser, time seems to be about measuring motion or change. If everything that is is not changing in any way, how can we say time is passing. And if "before" creation, God is the only "thing that is", is He changing? If not, then no time.
Another way to say it is that time is about things that change, and only creatures change.
When we think not only about a thousand ages being short as the watch that ends the night but also a day's being like a thousand years, we imagine ourselves being able to expand or contract our experience of time. But then WE still change in reaciton to what's around us, what we perceive. So in our imagination we posit a third "time", the short time in which I am as a thousand ages pass, or the other time in which a day is so very long - my eperinece of time as I say, "That was a short time," or "That was a long time."
Further we have to struggle with the thousand ages being like an evening in some respects, but in others, as God sprinkles grace on the mired and slow-moving soul, the complex ALMOST-instant in which the soul turns from doubt to faith, can be imagined as the slow intricate gracious work of God and His angels in the mysterious depths of that soul. So we're going to end up positing an indefinitely (if not infinitely) large array of subjective times for God to operate in as he straightens recalcitrant Mad Dawgs out and keeps them safe and manages the internal economy of the sub-atomic particles in the Magellanic Cloud.
If, on the other hand, we have God outside of time, while the basic notion is incomprehensible, the rest falls easily into place. "Before Abraham was," or, indeed, anything or anyone else, "I AM!" Also during and after ....
Something along those lines.
When we think not only about a thousand ages being short as the watch that ends the night but also a day's being like a thousand years, we imagine ourselves being able to expand or contract our experience of time. But then WE still change in reaciton to what's around us, what we perceive. So in our imagination we posit a third "time", the short time in which I am as a thousand ages pass, or the other time in which a day is so very long - my eperinece of time as I say, "That was a short time," or "That was a long time."
Further we have to struggle with the thousand ages being like an evening in some respects, but in others, as God sprinkles grace on the mired and slow-moving soul, the complex ALMOST-instant in which the soul turns from doubt to faith, can be imagined as the slow intricate gracious work of God and His angels in the mysterious depths of that soul. So we're going to end up positing an indefinitely (if not infinitely) large array of subjective times for God to operate in as he straightens recalcitrant Mad Dawgs out and keeps them safe and manages the internal economy of the sub-atomic particles in the Magellanic Cloud.
If, on the other hand, we have God outside of time, while the basic notion is incomprehensible, the rest falls easily into place. "Before Abraham was," or, indeed, anything or anyone else, "I AM!" Also during and after ....
Does God's "Omnipresence" include time, or just space?
Here's a short thought experiment. Go take a look at post #1 in this thread I had made last May, illustrating God's "size." Now imagine that same concept applied where every moment in time is visible. Now I believe that "time" is a part of His creation, that time itself is a created thing. Because God exists apart from His creation (and is therefore "outside" of it), and because time is a part of the creation, therefore not only does God's omnipresence allow Him to be everywhere at the same time, He is able to be everywhen as well.