LIVING IN THE PRESENCE OF GOD

One of the mistakes I make most frequently is forget that i'm living in the presence of God. As a matter of fact, I have filled my phone wallpapers with icons of the Christian faith to remind myself of this fact all the time. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work.

We tend to live life in a dualistic fashion; God is up there in the sky, sometimes interfering in the affairs of men, but essentially absent. Meanwhile I’m down here living my life, doing the "mundane" things; gong to work, eating, drinking, and occasionally loving those around me. The only times that these two realms intersect is when we are in the mode of worship or prayer, when we feel a presence or heightened emotions.

In actual fact, we serve a God who fills all things and encompasses all things. We learn that Jesus sustains all things by his powerful word and all things exist in him (Colossians). We are perpetually swimming in the ocean of the divine, we are drowning in the presence of God.  There is a scene in Erik Guzman's beautiful book "The Seed" where the Man is dying of thirst and hunger, while surrounded by clear beautiful water flowing from the root of the Christ figure. But his mind has been so warped by the distortion of Sin that he doesn't see this water, All he sees is this black soot. So while the woman is scooping the water and literally drinking in the Holy Spirit, the man is disgusted and cannot bring himself to drink the water/soot. That is the predicament of the Human race. Even we who believe are not always aware of the presence of God. We are too weighed down by the darkness, too invested in our self dependent life that we have forgotten to refresh ourselves in the waters of the Holy Spirit. We have even forgotten that the Holy Spirit is present, that we are in Jesus and he is in us and that we belong to the Father. In actual fact, as much as we would like sometimes, nobody can escape from the presence of God; not even the dead

“if I were to climb up to the highest heavens, you would be there. If I were to dig down to the world of the dead you would also be there” Psalm 139:8

.   And why would God be absent? He is the one who provides us with our emotions, gifts and the activities we like.  We like the things we like because he first liked them. We enjoy the company of our friends because he enjoys the company of friends. This is the beauty I try to remind myself of at all times. That in all activities, he is there with me. I don’t have to beg and scrape for him to come down. I don’t have to drum up spiritual energy on my own in order to do the work of God. Neither do I have to perform some rain dance or debase myself in a fashion that impresses him enough to come down and give me his blessing. He is always present, always blessing and always supplying everything we need for every challenge and every endeavor.