Dear Reader,

Last year I had the opportunity to drive the Skyline Drive through Virginia. I ended up stopping at nearly every pullover to take a picture of the view and admire the beauty of God's creation. One time, weary from my stop and go, I sat and considered the bees busily working on the flowers.

Another time, I took note of the mountain range I could see across the valley. Interconnected, they traveled across the horizon out of view. I was struck for the first time just how large the world was as I considered my size and how many people would be able to live in that area.

I have flown all the way across the United States from where I live in Vermont to Washington State, and the USA is huge! Yet I couldn't grasp the size, nor did it sink down how many buildings I flew over and how many people lived in those cities and towns.

Recently, I stopped at a lighthouse on Lake Erie, mostly so I could see the lake. I grew up visiting a small lake which we could see the opposite shore from the beach we visited. But this lake? There was no hint there was an opposite shore. The lake just stretched endlessly before me, yet I knew this was a freshwater lake surrounded by land.

The amazing thing, when these things are considered - not to mention the stars and galaxies beyond - is that God is everywhere all the time.

God is Omnipresent

Who is God? What makes Him omnipresent?

God doesn't travel from one place to another. Nor is He three entities that “divide and conquer” in order to do everything there is. He is one, everywhere all the time.

There have been a few occasions where someone has mentioned they wish they could clone me. As much as I may wish I could be in two places at once, or someone else may wish, I am limited to one place at a time.

From this limited perspective, it is hard to imagine how God can be everywhere all the time. What is that even like? Holding hundreds of thousands of conversations at once? Listening to a billion people pray? Not only that, but God says that in Jesus “all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17). Without God, everything would literally fall apart.

When and/or where do I see evidence of this characteristic in my life?

As all the leaves fell off the trees last fall, I was challenged to understand what was still beautiful about the trees. Their bare branches reach up to the sky splitting up smaller and smaller until they are tiny twigs. God made the whole tree and yet He was so intentional with every twig He placed on those branches.

I like to write, and in regards to storytelling one person explained that if you are going to have a gun in one scene, it ought to get fired in the next. Meaning that if something was not going to affect the story, that thing should not be written about.

However, as I considered the trees and their twigs, I realized God took that concept to another whole level in that everything in our lives - the people, the circumstances we have lived through, our possessions, the place, even the timing of our birth, life, and death - was placed in our lives for a purpose.

I have seen how God has provided for me in some of the smallest and simplest ways, and how events I thought were negative ended up laying a groundwork to bring out a positive result years later.

How does this trait affect how God sees me?

I'm in an odd transitional stage of life recovering from past events and choices while trying to discern what is next. Sometimes decision making processes overwhelm me, add to it the shame of feeling like I missed my chance, if I wanted to I should have done so earlier. As a result, I felt very depressed, reaching a low I hadn't gone for quite some time, even declaring again my hatred of myself.

While entering these bouts of depression is a jarring crash, coming out is a slow process. This time I took a two hour hike just so I could walk and talk with God, basically remembering that even in my pain and struggles, He is with me. He still loves me. He doesn't think any less of me because of my struggles and weaknesses. Rather, He says, as He told Paul:

Because of this perspective, what has God done?

Isaiah 41:10 is one of my favorite verses, it reads:

I looked up the word “dismayed” on Biblehub.com, the definition Strong's Concordance gave shaah - the word used here - was “to gaze.” When I am stressed or worried about something or even struggling through a decision, all I can think about is that problem or choice I have to make. I dive into hours of research, sometimes even looking up how to make a decision. Yet here God is saying, “Don't be dismayed. Don't fixate on your problems.”

Why? Because He is God. The creator of the universe, our redeemer. He is the one who has planned out my days - your days - (Psalm 139:16). He has gone before and set up the good works we would do having designed us specifically to do them (Ephesians 2:10).

How does this new understanding affect my response and how I live my life?

A house recently burnt down along my commute to work. The ruins sit charred, empty, and uninhabitable. Fire consumes and destroys, and all it left behind was memories of what was, broken dreams of what could have been.

I was struck by the similarities with hell. To be there means to be separated from God. God is the source of life, everything new, apart from Him there is no life nothing new. Those who go there will be bound hand and foot, they won't be able to move. Unbearable heat will constantly threaten to consume them while their teeth will never be ground away. All they will be left with is the memories of what was and the broken dreams of what could have been.

The church I attend is learning to take discipleship seriously, and during a small group discussion we clarified and were reminded about what heaven is and the goal of leading people to Jesus is: so they can spend eternity with God.

As I'm reminded of the brokenness in this world, I am challenged by how I can be more intentional about being a light in this world. How can I make known God's availability and desire to be with us?

I wish to leave you with one more thought about God's omnipresence. For He is not only limited by space, confined to a certain area at a time, but He is not limited by time. He is everywhere all the time now, in the past, and in the future constantly. While He is not restricted by time, He chooses to walk through time with us, guiding us in the ways we ought to go, on the path He has prepared beforehand.

Until next time when we look at how God is omniscient.

With love in Christ,

Rachel

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All Bible quotations are from the New International Version (NIV) unless otherwise noted.