In Your Presence

by Mathew Block

You’re at a church event when suddenly everything seems to change. You become captivated. Your heart beats fast. The air seems thick and heavy—almost suffocating. You seem to feel God all around you. “Surely,” you think to yourself, “the LORD is in this place, and I did not know it…”

Experiences like this catch us by surprise. You’re sitting in the pew one Sunday morning, and suddenly everything the pastor says sounds as if it were intended just for you. Or you’re singing in church—perhaps a favourite Christmas carol—and you suddenly find yourself with tears in your eyes. Or you’re reading your Bible at home, and suddenly you’re overwhelmed with the understanding of God’s love for you. It’s as if God were right there with you; His presence feels almost tangible.

Moments like these can be deeply moving. We seem to perceive God’s presence surrounding us, and we are overcome. We cry out with David: “In Your presence, there is fullness of joy!” (Psalm 16:11).

But then the sermon ends. The hymnbook is closed. You put down the Bible for the day. And the feeling gradually diminishes. A day—maybe just an hour—later, it’s mostly gone. The spiritual high is followed by a spiritual low—one that seems to go on and on. You can be left feeling like God has abandoned you.

Our problem here is that we fail to distinguish between the presence of God on the one hand and our perception of His presence on the other. God’s presence isn’t dependent on feeling Him near us.

Faced with this situation, people respond in different ways. Some people, as C.S. Lewis reminds us in The Screwtape Letters, keep trying to recapture the emotion of that experience—to chase the feeling of the presence of God again as if they could simply will it back into being. Others begin to doubt the reality of the entire experience; they tell themselves that they must have been mistaken—that God was never really there at all.

Our problem here is that we fail to distinguish between the presence of God on the one hand and our perception of His presence on the other. God’s presence isn’t dependent on feeling Him near us. In fact, He is always near us. Scripture tells us that God is present everywhere at all times (Psalm 139:7-11). Jesus has further promised to be with His Church always (Matthew 28:20). And He has given His Holy Spirit to stay with us forever—to dwell not only with us but also within us (John 14:16-17).

These things remain true whether we sense God’s presence or not. That is, after all, what faith means: “the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). In fact, it is through faith in the unseen Christ that He comes to dwell in our hearts in the first place (Ephesians 3:17). We may not see or feel His presence but that changes nothing; He is not limited by the state of our emotions.

Emotions are good, then, but they must not be confused for something more than they are. They are not proof of God’s presence, though they are sometimes a gift which accompanies it.

Of course, that does not mean it is wrong to have an emotional reaction during worship or in private devotions. God created emotions! He thinks they are good! It’s not surprising then that encountering Him in His Word sometimes elicits this kind of response. We experience sorrow over our sins when confronted by the Law; like the crowds at Pentecost, we are “cut to the heart” (Acts 2:37). The proclamation of the Gospel, meanwhile, results in joy; when we hear that Christ has brought salvation to the ends of the earth—that He has brought salvation to us—we are like the Gentiles at Antioch, who “began rejoicing and glorifying the Word of God” (Acts 13:48).

Emotions are good, then, but they must not be confused for something more than they are. They are not proof of God’s presence, though they are sometimes a gift which accompanies it. They can even become a source of idolatry if we look to encounter God in our emotions rather than in His Word. The fact is, our emotions are fickle. They are easily manipulated. Simply “feeling” the presence of God is no guarantee that’s who we’re dealing with; Satan, after all, “disguises himself as an angel of light” (2 Corinthians 11:14).

But if we’re not supposed to look to our emotions for evidence of God’s presence, where should we look? In this issue, we consider how God is present among us today. Rev. Joel V. Kuhl reflects on what it means that God has made His dwelling among humanity—and how He continues to be present with us today through the life of the Church. And not just at church; Jane Jacob helps us to see the presence of God at work in our daily lives too. Rev. Michael Schutz, meanwhile, invites us to consider what “presence” even means in a digital age.

The good news of Christmas is that God has come to be present with us. He is with you even now—no matter what you feel, no matter what you experience. He has claimed you as His own. And He will stay with you forever.

“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” – 2 Corinthians 13:14

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Mathew Block is editor of The Canadian Lutheran and the Communications Manager of the International Lutheran Council (ILC).

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