“O that I knew where I might find him, that I might even come to his dwelling” – the words of Job, as he sought comfort from God in a time of distress. It’s a plea that many will identify with from their own experience when, in the words of a prayer, “the world seems empty of [God’s] presence, and no word comes to reassure our hearts”. It poses a question: does God exist or does he just go missing?
Sunday’s readings assure us neither is the case. Psalm 139 tells us that God is ever-present and available at all times: “Where can I flee from your presence… If I make the grave my bed, you are there also. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, your right hand hold me fast.” The author goes on to state his belief that God is not only present everywhere but that s/he has detailed knowledge of his every move: “You mark out my journeys and my resting place and are acquainted with all my ways.”
The Old Testament reading Genesis 28 makes a similar point in the story about Jacob who realises that even when he was in a deep sleep, God was up and doing: “Surely the Lord is in this place – and I did not know it… This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”
It is difficult at times to believe that a God exists who has global knowledge of billions of people, where they are and what they are doing. We find that hard to believe while quite happily putting our trust in manmade gadgets such as satellite navigators that can do just that and more. The only thing required is having the right connection and an accepted need for guidance. What driver using a satnav and having taken a wrong turn has not been immediately alerted with the word “recalculating”?
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God’s presence is so much part of ordinary everyday life that we can overlook it so it is worth giving even a little time each day to be reminded that every moment of our lives, waking or sleeping, is lived in the presence of the God who is love. This is what the saintly 17th-century Brother Lawrence did to an extraordinary level over a humble lifetime attending to the needs of his superiors in a monastery kitchen: “The time of business does not with me differ from the time of prayer; and in the noise and clatter of my kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for different things, I possess God in his great tranquilly as if I were upon my knees at the blessed sacrament.”
Such an approach suggests a less formal approach to spirituality, less burdened with rules about whether to sit, stand or kneel or what words to use if any. It enables us to experience God in the everyday things of life as imagined in this hymn: “Fill thou my life, O Lord my God, /in ev’ry part with praise, /that my whole being may proclaim /thy being and thy ways. /Not for the lip of praise alone, /nor e’en the praising heart, /I ask, but for a life made up /of praise in ev’ry part.” (Horatius Bonar)
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In his book, the Christian Situation Today, the Anglican priest and theologian Norman Pittenger suggests that such an approach has implications for the way we bear witness to our faith to others: “The French religious writer Père Jean de Caussade insisted, in one of his discussions of Christian prayer, that we are to find God in the ‘sacrament of the present moment’. That is, we are to find him when we are confronted with the demands of life, given the opportunity to make our response to those demands, and enabled to labour responsibly for God in the place where we are.”