Be at rest once more, O my soul, for the Lord has been good to you. Psalm 116: 7

Presence

You have made known to me the paths of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence. –Acts 2:28

Have you ever silently prayed, "Lord, please be with me"? It's one version of the "Oh, Lord, help!" prayer we're likely to send up while in distress. I mean, I know in my head that God is omnipresent—present everywhere at once—but it wasn't until I was praying through my Scripture cards the other morning, that it suddenly dawned on me that I've been picturing God's help and presence in the wrong way all these years.

So, confession time. When I'm in distress and pray, "Lord, be with me!" I've thought of the answer to my prayer looking like the Lord coming into the room alongside me, or I've pictured one of his angels sort of suddenly skidding into the room, all huge and strong and terrifying to stand behind me and back me up, a celestial bouncer, of sorts. It's a self-serving way of looking at things.

In any case, my childlike (or childish, as you wish!) imagining is a demonstration of faith, and it has comforted and strengthened me to face difficult circumstances many times. In that way, it's not all bad; but it's not wholly accurate. God does sometimes send angels to help humans, yes, but hear what the Psalmist David has to say about the Lord's presence in Psalm 89:

⁷Where can I go from your Spirit?
    Where can I flee from your presence?
⁸ If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
    if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
⁹ If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
    if I settle on the far side of the sea,
¹⁰ even there your hand will guide me,
    your right hand will hold me fast.
¹¹ If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me
    and the light become night around me,"
¹² even the darkness will not be dark to you;
    the night will shine like the day,
    for darkness is as light to you.

When I stand on the deck on a cool morning in spring, listening to birdsong and sipping coffee while I watch the sun rise behind the barn, I am in God's presence. When I drive the winding highway between our farmhouse and campus, rolling along between brown farmfields, disced and ready to receive seed, between rolling hills many shades of green, between rows of leafed and leafing trees, the redbuds all burst into bloom the color of Crayola's Orchid, I am in God's presence. When I walk between the red-brick buildings on campus, dodging buses and bicyclists and skateboarders, I am in God's presence. When I stand behind the podium to teach, or meet with a student in my office, I am in God's presence. And when I come home again, in my kitchen, while chopping onions or washing dishes or watching deer graze in the backyard (and sometimes in my garden, argh!), I am still in His presence. It's His world I'm walking through, His world we are all walking through.

"[B]e content with what you have," the writer of Hebrews says. Why? "because God has said, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you" (13: 5). Physically, on this earth, we walk in God's presence. Positionally, in eternity, if we've trusted Christ, ". . . God [has] raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus" (Ephesians 2:6).

Silly me! I've been picturing it backwards all these years! He doesn't come to me. He's been right here all along. We are small, but He is big. We are limited by space and time, but He is present everywhere at all times. Wherever we are, whatever we're doing, we're always in His presence. I've known this truth for as long as I can remember, but only now am I truly awake to its reality.

Imagine how many other truths there may be to come awake to. . . .

Daye Phillippo

May 2019