There are many reasons we can trust the Lord with our prodigals and many verses of Scripture that reveal God and His plan to save them.

One that often connects me to the Lord powerfully is Revelation 4:8. It is a description of activity in the throne room right now: “The four living creatures, each having six wings, were full of eyes around and within. And they do not rest day or night, saying: ‘Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, Who was and is and is to come!’” (NKJV).

Praising God using the words the four living creatures use ushers me into the presence of the Lord, but I also see promise in the last phrase: “Who was and is and is to come!” Let’s look at the three parts of this phrase for the promises to us.

Was

God was. It’s a simple sentence with a difficult-to-truly-grasp truth. He always was, with no beginning.

He is everlasting to everlasting. Psalm 90:2 says, “Before the mountains were brought forth, Or ever You had formed the earth and the world, Even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God.” The first everlasting speaks to His having no beginning, that He was, and the second everlasting speaks of His living eternally, that He will be. We can fathom the second better than we can the first, because we had a beginning and will live eternally.

Here are some promises of was:

• He created Earth with everything we would need to live and positioned it just right for our survival (Genesis 1).
• We—and our prodigals—were created according to His purpose (Psalm 139:16).
• He created the angels (Psalm 148:5) for the purpose of doing His bidding (Psalm 103:20-21) and ministering to us (Hebrews 1:14).
• He formed His plan for our salvation before we were even born, before we even sinned (1 Peter 1:20; Matthew 25:34).

He was, and He thoroughly laid the foundation for our days. Because He always has been, we can trust Him to take us safely into the always will be. We may not understand all about God, but we must not doubt Him.

Is

The promise of is has to do with His constant presence with us, His omnipresence. He always and presently:

• Rides the heavens to help us (Deuteronomy 33:26).
• Loves us with His everlasting love (Jeremiah 31:3).
• Works all things for our good (Romans 8:28).
• Teaches our hands to war (2 Samuel 22:35; Psalm 18:34).
• Is our Shepherd, including all that goes with it: protection, provision, peace, guidance, discipline, restoration, constant presence (Psalm 23).
• Is our “very present help in trouble” (Psalm 46:1).

There are so many other things He is constantly doing for us, one of which is that He is hearing and answering our prayers: “Then the Lord said, ‘Hear what the unjust judge said. And shall God not avenge His own elect who cry out day and night to Him, though He bears long with them? I tell you that He will avenge them speedily’” (Luke 18:6-8). I really like the speedily part, although answers don’t always seem to come speedily, since we are confined by time, while He isn’t. He truly is our very present help in trouble.

It is very important to believe God exists right now. It is one of the two components to having the faith “to please Him.” Hebrews 11:6 says, “But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him” (emphasis added). We must trust that He is, that He exists, and trust that we find Him when we seek Him diligently. It is one of the promises of is.

Is To Come

Now we come to the other everlasting, the everlasting that we grasp a bit better: the existing from now and forever more.

However, there is a component of is to come that is difficult for us to comprehend: the difference between our existence into the future and God’s is that He is there already, while we are waiting, living to catch up to Him in time. He isn’t limited by time because “He inhabits eternity” (Isaiah 57:15). He exists there—in the future—now.

Is to come supports His being all knowing. He knows exactly what will be for us in our future, because it is already reality when time is taken out of the equation. That’s where our promises come from, and that is one of the reasons we can trust His promises. He never commits to anything that isn’t already done! I personally like to think His longsuffering toward us and toward our prodigals is because He knows we will be victorious in the end.

Let’s look back for just a minute to Psalm 90:2: “Before the mountains were brought forth, Or ever You had formed the earth and the world, Even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God.” Notice Moses said are instead of were. God is, even though in our language He was and is and is to come. Moses chose the correct word. God is. He exists. Period.

God is infinite in all of His ways: knowledge, wisdom, sufficiency, might, power, authority … and existence. There are two names of God that reveal His being everlasting to everlasting: El Olam, Everlasting God; and Jehovah Shammah, The Lord Is There (in all places and all times). He is omnipresent, all-present God. He was and is and is to come. Even though God doesn’t need time, He knew we would. God has always existed, and we can count on the promises we find because He was and is and is to come.