Everyday Omnipresence

About a year ago I wrote a blog post about God’s omnipresence and how comforting it is to know that God is always with me, wherever I go. But a few weeks ago, God touched my heart with another aspect of God’s omnipresence from that very same passage.

Last time, I focused on the fact that God is present everywhere, all at once. But God isn’t just present in every place: He’s also present in every moment of time. The omnipresence of God is inseparably entwined with His eternality.

You and I experience time moment by moment, because we live within it, but God exists outside of time, which means that just as there is no place beyond His reach, there is also no moment in which He does not see, hear, and understand everything perfectly.

Psalm 139 gives a full picture of God’s omnipresence, but read through these first five verses of the psalm, noticing especially all the different details of life God is present in:

“O Lord, thou hast searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off. Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word in my tongue, but lo, O Lord, Thou knowest it altogether. Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid Thine hand upon me.” (vv.1-5)

When we sit down, God is there. When we stand up, God is there. When we are thinking or speaking, God is there and knows all our thoughts and words. When we walk, God is there. When we lie down, God is there. He is behind and before us, and has His hand on us at all times.

This is both comforting and convicting. On the one hand, it is a sobering thought that God is present always: we can have no secrets from Him. No part of our inmost thoughts and feelings is hidden from Him.

On the other hand, we can take comfort in the fact that He is with us in every moment: the joyous and the tragic. When we feel most alone, God is there. When we are longing for a loved one who is gone, God is there. His hand is on us at all times, not just to restrain us from evil, but also to comfort us in our sorrows.

And God does want to comfort us. It is part of His very nature to comfort. 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 puts it this way:

“Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of all mercies, and the God of all comfort; Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.”

Notice that God is the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulations. No matter what we are going through, the God of all comfort is right there with us, ready to comfort. But notice also that there is a purpose: God comforts us that we in turn might be used to extend His comfort to others, and He uses others to extend comfort to us. 1 Peter 5:6-7 tells us to:

“Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time: Casting all your care upon Him; for He careth for you.”

I think sometimes we miss the comfort God wants to give us because we are too prideful to let Him (or those He sends to comfort us) see that we need comforting. We like to think we are self-sufficient, and can handle just about anything, but the fact that the two verses above are connected is no accident. Comfort can only be given when we are humble enough to receive it.

Since God is present in every moment, we have constant and inexhaustible access to His comfort, wisdom, protection, and love. A verse that has challenged me over the years is Jude 1:20-21

“But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.”

There is much more to the context around this verse, but the basic thought I so often come back to is the idea of keeping myself in the love of God. That word keep literally means to watch, guard something from loss or injury by keeping one’s eye upon it, to hold fast.

I have found so often that when I take my eyes off the truth that God is always with me, I tend to forget that I am in His love. I begin to look to friends, family, or other things to fulfil my heart, but as real and as permanent as loneliness feels, the only true remedy is to get close to God, and to fill my heart with the love of God.

The love of God is technically a different attribute from His omnipresence and eternality, but our great God is more than just a sum of qualities. Each of His attributes is intricately and inseparably woven together with the others. Consider Romans 8:38-39

“For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Dear reader, take time today to bask in the faithful presence of God with you. Then go about your everyday life in the knowledge that His presence is unfailing and constant in every moment.

“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me.” Psalm 23:4