Linear or Non Linear?

Have you made the move from linear to non linear?

I am digitizing some of my cassette library at present which prompted these thoughts.

This is not about video or sound editing but uses those mediums as an anology.
It may appeal to those of you who are tech heads.

When I was a lot younger, 1960's,  I was into the pop music of the day.
I loved that music and still do.

Along with the Beatles and all the others I discovered I could make my own recordings from the radio and record players on reel to reel audio tape decks.

I spent many hours with my finger on the pause button so I could cut out the radio station ads and make my own "best of" compilations.

Strangely I still have a lot of those recordings.

Then came cassette recorders where we could do the same thing but take up less space.

Then came  equipment to copy them with.

A fun time.

There were complications though.

If you dropped a reel to reel tape it wasn't much fun trying to respool them again with tape unravelling all over the floor.

If you wanted to find certain tracks for replay then you had to do a lot of rewinding and fast fowarding.

 If you were repairing a broken cassette tape and dropped it that was even harder to recover and repair.

If you got your tapes too near a powerful magnet you could wipe them out.

 Editing tapes could be done from recorder to recorder but using what we called the linear method.

Much stopping,starting, rewinding, fast forwarding.

I was into 8mm home movies and there you had similar limitations.
You literally had to cut and paste movie film to do any editing.

When video tape movie cameras came along you still had to edit using similar methods as audio tape editing.
Setting up in and out points on your editing tape deck etc.

Then along came digital.

Cd's, DVD's, Mini DV tapes,computers,macs,Final cut pro,garage band etc.

The world of technology had gone non linear.

Instant location of a track of a cd or movie file at the touch of the mouse.

Amazing!

So I said there is an analogy here!

Well here is my simple thought.

From the minute we are born, we are receiving information and experiencing life, good and bad experiences constantly.

They start off being recorded in our conscious mind and readily recallable memory.

This all happens in real time.

Some memories stay instantly recallable,  but many experiences are pushed down into our sub conscious or our  brain's archives if you like.

Some of this stuff is what psychologists and psychiatrist like to explore with us.

Some of what they may do may be helpful.

It may take a lot of unravelling and is difficult to repair.

Many things can trigger off memories of bad experiences, some we don't remember at all.

They lurk below causing us all sorts of problems,

Enter our non linear Saviour, Jesus Christ.

Jesus has a time line that is eternal;

He is not bound by time,

He can instantly touch our souls at any point in our past or present.

He can touch us through prayer and the work of His Holy Spirit.

The great thing is we can also enter His non linear world while we are still living.

That is very liberating.

Before we become Christians we are locked into a linear experience.

We are born, we live , we die,

The Bible talks of us like this as being in "Adam."

We share the same linear, lineage as Adam, the first man.

You mat not believe Adam in the Bible was real, but commonsense tells us there was once a first Man or Human.

But----- when we are born again, become Christians, we are said to be "In Christ" .

We have joined the timeline of Jesus,

We are no longer "in Adam"

In Ephesians Chapter 1 we have this amazing statement:

Spiritual Blessings

^"3 All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ. ⁴ Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. ⁵ God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure. ⁶ So we praise God for the glorious grace he has poured out on us who belong to his dear Son.^{[b] 7} He is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his Son and forgave our sins. ⁸ He has showered his kindness on us, along with all wisdom and understanding.

⁹ God has now revealed to us his mysterious plan regarding Christ, a plan to fulfill his own good pleasure. ¹⁰ And this is the plan: At the right time he will bring everything together under the authority of Christ—everything in heaven and on earth. ¹¹ Furthermore, because we are united with Christ, we have received an inheritance from God,^[c] for he chose us in advance, and he makes everything work out according to his plan."

We are already in Heaven with Christ even though for a time we are still experiencing the linear world,Adam's world, and watching our bodies slow down and disintegrate.

The Bible tells us many are called but few are chosen.

Only God knows who is going to respond to His call.

He wants all of us to hear that call and have opportunity to respond.

When you do He can touch you in any area of your life, past, present and future and bring you healing and joy,

will you respond to His call today?

are you hearing His call?