This week’s devotions are adapted from the “Take Hold Of The Faith You Long For” devotional series on YouVersion by Sharon Jaynes
Psalm 145:18 NIV The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.
“If you feel far from God, guess who moved?” is a common saying. But God is not a being who can be moved away from. There is nowhere you can go that is away from His presence. But (and this is a big but) you can feel far from God. The cure for the feeling of farness comes in capsules of praise, thanksgiving, and acknowledgment of His presence. It comes in practicing the presence of God.
We practice the presence of God when we acknowledge His presence in all of life—in the boardroom, our home, and everywhere in between. Practicing the presence of God is the constant awareness of His presence and the attentive acknowledgment of His workings.
We might feel closer to God when we’ve participated in worship music, spent quiet time in the Bible, or gone through a struggle and turned to God for comfort and strength. But when the demands of life get in the way, we find ourselves drawn away from the rhythms that kept us close to Him.
We will always feel far from God when we ignore Him, live independently from Him, or rush about expecting Him to tag along. And while our humanness wavers between spiritual times of plenty and times of want, the feeling of nearness to God is always just a whisper away as you acknowledge His presence with you and in you.
When have you felt especially close to God?
