"I'm Right Here..."

"In the glory of Your presence, I find rest for my soul. In the depths of Your love, I find peace makes me whole…" from "I Love Your Presence"

After a week of mostly gray, a glorious sunrise followed by a near cloudless sky and warm breeze never ceases to be a beautiful thing. Especially on a Saturday. Everywhere you go, the sun goes—in your face walking, through the open roof on the way to the recycling center, adding golden glows to the emerging colors of fall in the wetlands. And as you go about the day, there is a sense in the back of your mind that the sun is still up there in all of its glory, but as is often the case, life happens and you get caught up in that instead. You forget. You forget that the beautiful thing is still powerfully with you…

…and then, while enjoying a homecoming soccer game, and talking with friends and former classmates about growing up in a small town and the bittersweet of people who have come into our lives and moved on, you stop mid-sentence and grab the back of your neck. It has become really, really, really hot, and you become incredibly grateful that you had the sense to load up with sunscreen beforehand. The sun that you knew was there all along but you had taken for granted, or simply forgotten in the busyness of the day, suddenly grabbed you by the neck as if to remind you: “I am not just up there in the sky somewhere, I am all over you, up close and personal…”

Let's just say that I really needed that type and shadow reminder yesterday, and a whole lot of other days, too—that God’s loving presence that is everywhere, whether we’re asleep or awake, is more than some ethereal, misty feeling without substance. It's a tangible, loving reality that is rooted in the power of His Name, and far more amazing and beyond what my feeble brain can ever imagine or try to figure out.

The great love of the God of the universe is…always…right…here. Dependence, assurance, strength, rest, companionship, and awe are all somehow wrapped into this one mind-blowing, so easily forgotten reality:

“You have surrounded me on every side 

Behind and before me,

And You have placed Your hand gently on my shoulder. 

It is the most amazing feeling to know 

How deeply You know me, inside and out; 

The realization of it is so great that I cannot comprehend it. 

Can I go anywhere from Your Spirit? 

Is there anywhere I can  go to escape Your watchful presence?” 

—Psalm 139:5-7, The Voice

Today, whether at church or a soccer field, or someplace that life has carried us, it's a good time to remember (maybe for the gazillionth time), that for every "God, where are You?" there will always be this goodness reply: "I'm right here."

That even if I feel distant, I can know that He is not.

That whenever I am fearful or unsettled, even in an unexplained way, I can know that He is not.

That when caught up in going through the motions and thinking "there's got to be more than this," His answer will always be: "There is. Come and see."

“God’s omnipresence will comfort you better than your own breath. It will comfort you in your own soul. Your own thoughts are heard by Him just as loud as your loudest shout, because God is as near to you as your own breath, as near to you as your blood, as near to you as your nerves, as near to you as your thoughts and your soul.”

—A.W. Tozer