Is God Here or Not?
You want to know something really funny?
Like….LAUGH OUT LOUD….funny?
A father with a full-time job and two kids under the age of five who still thinks he can find the time to write a blog post….(insert comedic punchline drums).
It has been a very “full” season of life.
I’ve learned that “full” is the word that Christians use to describe their season when they don’t want to say, “busy,” “overwhelmed” “utterly disoriented” or “drowning in responsibilities.”
So, yes. Our season has been quite….“full.”
And, truthfully, there have been stretches where I have gone an entire day without coming up for air to take stock of what I’m even doing or why I’m doing it. And on a deeper level, it has been equally hard to have even the briefest of moments with God. Everywhere I look there is someone or something that is demanding my attention and action. The best word I can think of to describe that state is “disoriented.”
It’s a word to describe how you feel when you’ve been knocked into the middle of nowhere. You have no idea where you are. You have no frame of reference.
I was born and raised in Las Vegas. I currently live in Southern California. This means I have lived my entire life with at least a few mountains to orient me to which direction I am facing. Even if I lived in a time before GPS and Smartphones, I could find Red Rock Canyon in the distance and know that I was now facing west.
Last month I visited Wichita, Kansas for the first time. The moment I got off the plane I thought, “How do people get anywhere around here???” No mountains. Not even the faintest excuse of a large hill. No frame of reference. Just horizon all the way around.
I was completely disoriented. If not for airplanes and Google Maps, I would’ve had absolutely no idea where I was.
So, why does this matter?
When you no longer know where you are, then you no longer know how to get home.
And that’s what we want most. We want to go home.
Ironically, many people who spend a lot of time in their homes, who work from home, who are home-makers, can still feel so far away from home as someone who travels halfway across the world.
In other words, it’s possible to be physically in our homes and still feel far from Home.
Have you ever felt like that?
You can be doing laundry, washing dishes, changing diapers, participating in a 2-hour Zoom call, prepping dinner, all within the confines of your house, condo, apartment, and still have the overwhelming sense that you have drifted away from your Home.
As the old hymn goes…“Prone to wander, Lord I feel it…”
More like, “Prone to be slowly pulled further and further away from Home….Lord I feel it.”
So what do we do? How do we get back Home?
For me, tiny phrases, questions, or mantras have been incredibly helpful lately. I’ll just recite them throughout the busy-ness of the day….
“The Lord is my Shepherd”
“I am one in whom Christ dwells and delights”
“Don’t put your 4-year-old up for adoption”
And the other day, when things seemed exceptionally “full,” a little question swept over me….
“Is God here or not?”
It’s a question that I needed to come to terms with. And how I answered that question would determine how I would address all the “full-ness” in front of me.
C.S. Lewis pointed out that,
“Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.”
I began to apply that same logic to my day-to-day activities. If God is not here with me, not accessible, and not willing to help me, then my day-to-day activities truly don’t matter. If he is, in fact, with me, near me, available to me, and desires to help me, then my day-to-day activities matter more than they have ever mattered before. But the only thing they cannot do is only mildly matter.
Either God is not here at all, or He is here in a way that will change my life, alter the way I see the world, and infuse purpose and meaning into everything that I do today.
But the only thing God cannot be is kinda sorta here.
American Theologian Michael Hines wrote, “If God stopped loving anything, it would cease to be.”
What a profound thought.
God’s love is the lifeblood of all living things. If God stopped loving a sunflower, it would wither. If God stopped loving a porcupine, it would disintegrate, quills and all, into nothingness.
Well…..have you ceased to be yet? Have you stopped breathing? Have you shuffled off this mortal coil? If not, then I imagine that must mean that Someone still loves you. And if that Someone still loves you, then that must mean that He still wants to be with you, communicate with you, and draw you Home.
I love the way Jesus, in John 14, describes how God comes to us…
“Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.”
Do you see the stages there?
The first stage is that you open yourself in love and trust to the Triune God, who also loves you.
The second stage is that the Triune God approaches you (perhaps a light ‘knocking on the door’).
The third and final stage is that you surrender yourself to God in a way that He becomes your Home and you become His.
This is the gospel, isn’t it?
The good news is that I don’t need to wait until Sunday to go to God’s House. As it turns out, I am God’s House.
God’s desire is to dwell with me and in me, and He longs to work together with me on whatever is on our agenda today.
He will never force himself into my House, nor coerce me into His.
But if the answer to the question, “Is God here or not?” is a resounding “Yes,” then that means that God, my Home, is always nearby no matter how disoriented or discombobulated I may be in the present moment. My Home is never far away.
So, when you feel you’ve lost your way today…
“Is God here or not?”
When you feel anxious, overwhelmed, or utterly drained….
“Is God here or not?”
When everyone and everything is pulling you in a million different directions, and all you want is to come Home….
“Is God here or not?”
May that be your question for this month, and may you discover that, even in the “fullest” season imaginable, the God who loves you is continually drawing you Home, and the door is always open.
P.S. …..
If your answer ends up being “Yes, God is here,” I want to offer you a little prayer from a monk named Brother Lawrence centuries ago. I offer it to you to read, pray, and perhaps even wake up reciting every day before you tackle the “full-ness.”
“My God, since You are with me, and since it is Your will that I should apply my mind to these outward things, I pray that You will give me the grace to remain with You and keep company with You. But so that my work may be better, Lord, work with me; receive my work and possess all my affections.”
