Ps 139:7-10
7 Where can I go from Your Spirit?Or where can I flee from Your presence? 8 If I ascend into heaven, You are there;If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there. 9 If I take the wings of the morning,And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, 10 Even there Your hand shall lead me,And Your right hand shall hold me. NKJV
For me prayer used to feel like I was trying to get the attention of a very far away God. This struggle is very common and makes perfect sense. God lives in heaven and heaven is “up” there somewhere, a far away location in some remote part of the universe or in some unaccessible dimension of reality. Right?
Of course I also had been taught that God is omnipresent, he’s everywhere at once. This truth is of course completely incongruent with the idea of a far away and difficult to get in touch with idea of God. But somehow I managed to believe both.
How did I picture this idea of omnipresence? I think I kind of viewed God like an invisible gas, evenly diffused throughout the universe. Yes he’s everywhere, but in whatever sense I have contact with this omnipresent God, I only have contact with a very small bit of him, for most of him is elsewhere, because most places are elsewhere, and he’s in every place.
I’m often amazed at how messed up my thinking about God can be. You see the challenges I was facing don’t you? I had two completely incongruent ideas about God’s presence, neither of which was biblical or helpful. In my attempts to relate to God, I was either trying to communicate with my far away version of God (because that’s the only way I could picture him as a whole, as a person) or I was trying to talk to the tiny bit of invisible gas that happened to be floating in my small location of the universe. Prayer was really a struggle.
The truth is that God does live in a heavenly realm but that realm is not far away. One of Jesus’ primary messages to us was that the Kingdom of Heaven was near, at hand. God’s space is accessible to us. Secondly, God isn’t spread throughout the universe the way we spread peanut butter on bread. All of him is fully present everwhere and I have full access to his presence because of Jesus Christ. This reorientation of my thinking about God has really helped my prayer life. Maybe it will help yours too.
6 Comments
I think I thought of God as someone who loved all people but to get His attention on me, I’d have to do something either really good or really bad.
I knew I was a sinner, wasn’t ‘saved’, and I thought that was the only reason He even bothered with me. Once I was ‘saved’ it was like His focus was on the others who weren’t, and I was now safe therefore He wasn’t really concerned about me.
It wasn’t until I learned about and received the baptism of the Holy Spirit, that my reality of God completely changed and my understanding that the Holy Spirit is with and in me. Learning to be sensitive to His presence, guarding my words, listening, I could begin to hear Him speak. He truly is a person and friend. My prayer life became not one of a religious tradition but an adventure with someone who was interested in me.
Great post Alan, making me remember His presence!
The Kingdom of God is at Hand. That is a truth that has set me free. It was so abstract to me at first, I had to really meditate on it… But then – the Light of that realization came into full view and I was set free.
I have also learned to talk to God like He’s never heard my story before. Not that I believe He doesn’t already know, but that I believe He wants to Hear It From Me. Love that.
The God I related to was a far off distant God most of my early saved/adult life. But in the last eight years, He’s become vividly real and alive to me I never dreamed possible. Thank you for this excellent reminder of what God has been teaching me along the way. It’s a blessing.
Michelle,
I love what you said about God wanting you to tell him your story. He wants to hear it from you! Amazing.
For me, the kingdom of God and therefore God, is in me. The bible says my body is His temple and that I am seated with Him in the heavenly places. So God is very present for me.
It hasn’t always been that way. When I was first saved, I met HS and have communed with Him ever since, but God the Father was a distant and forbidding person, who only loved me because I was now part of Jesus’ bride. I didn’t understand that the love of God the father was for me too.
Praise Him all has changed and He is by me, in me and with me in all things. I can only pray that God will allow me to help others understand that they can know God always.
Luke 17:20-21
20 Now when He was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, He answered them and said, “The kingdom of God does not come with observation; 21 nor will they say, ‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’[d] For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you.” (NKJV)
I just love that verse – it was one that made me say, “wow”. It still does. And wonders never cease: Alan has unknowingly allowed me to contemplate this special verse on his blog. I think this verse is a nice compliment to this “God is Near” blog entry and Ps 139:7-10.
Not all translations use the phrase “the kingdom of God is within you”. For example, the New American Standard translation is: “…the kingdom of God is in your midst.” To me, the word “within” possesses a different (and better, for me) connotation: God’s kingdom is, by definition, always with me – even inside of me, to use the physical analogy. It’s then up to me to decide to keep His kingdom in focus and in within my awareness. Unfortunately for me, I lose that focus all too frequently and forget that the grace offered me is to be reflected outward. A daily life story of frequent renewals…
During the invite to join the GW Equip class blog (for a recent class this past Feb), I was excited about the possibilities that GW church was maybe moving into the “new(ish) media” with blogs to bring the message of freedom in Christ to – literally – the entire globe. Alas, it was not meant to be. However, my new prayer is that Alan’s blog here could be the genesis of a new outreach. It is men such as Alan who have that rare ability to captivate the reader and transform lives with words. God’s brilliance AND humility can be experienced, if only through his children.
Alan, thanks for all you do in His name – it affects many of us.
Thank you for making all of this much simpler to understand. I sometimes wonder if I am the only one to think these thoughts. Your explanations give me comfort in the truth.