You’re our home, Lord.
You always have been.
Before there were mountains,
Before you’d shaped any part of earth,
Before the beginning and after the end of everything else,
There is one solid reality —
You.
You are God.
(Everyday Psalms, Psalm 90, page 210)
My first serious relationship was the result of a summer camp romance. I’d never felt so much emotion before. But camp ended and as my friends and I began our drive from Seattle back home to Los Angeles, I cried. Long distance phone calls were too expensive back in those days, so we wrote letters to one another every day. For a month. But then the distance caught up with us. We couldn’t maintain our teenage passion without proximity. Within three months the relationship was over.
During graduate school at Regent College, my wife and I made friendships with some of the most amazing people I’ve ever met. But as we finished our theological studies, we scattered not just around the country, but around the globe.
After not quite 14 years as a faithful friend and member of our family, we had to put down our dear dog Ebony.
People walk into and out of my life. I go from place to place. No one and nothing is ever-present. The only constant reality is God. The only person who faces me at all times is God. And so I pray, turning my face toward him.
This is both the sad and the beautiful context of our lives. We keep giving pieces of our hearts away to people and places and creatures with whom we’ve made important connections. But death and the lack of proximity frays the strands that bind us together. We simply cannot maintain the connections. And yet there is this stronger-than-steel strand that is woven through them all and is tied to the fiber of our souls: the never-leaving, never-forsaking presence of God.
If every breath is a gift from God. If every breath is a taste of God’s Spirit, the Breath of God.If every breath draws in the life God gives all his creatures (see Ps. 104:29-30). If every breath is somehow a prayer, intentionally or wordlessly so. If these things are true, then we can “pray without ceasing” (1 Thes. 5:17) in the unbroken presence of God.
God is here to us even when we aren’t here to God. Yes. This is true, for Jesus “always lives to intercede” for us (Heb. 7:25). We are always in his presence and he is always praying for us. Proximity, regularity, and intentionality — these are the three essentials to an on-going relationship and Jesus provides them all.
I never step out of the presence of God. In fact, I never, ever stop dealing with God. God is the always-on context of my life. Psalm 139 basks in this truth:
You are in front of me
And behind me,
To my right and to my left,
Above me and below me.
I dwell in the bowl of your hand.
This makes my head ache,
Trying to think of something about me
You don’t know about.
Is there a place I could go to escape your Spirit?
Where I’d be beyond your Presence?
If I rocket to the stars, you’re there.
If I dive to the ocean floor, you’re there.
If I go east to China, you’re there.
If I go west to Fiji, you’re there.
It doesn’t matter where I go,
You’ll still be guiding,
Still protecting me.
(Everyday Psalms, Psalm 139, pages 313-314)
Prayer: Here I am, Lord. But even more importantly, here you are. Your face turned toward me. Your eyes and smile beaming with joy. Your presence closer than air. Unshakeable. Unforsakeable. Breath of God, I breathe you in and exhale my prayers to you. Let me live fully in the proximity of your presence. Let me live toward you just as you live toward me. Make me a living prayer. In Jesus. Amen.
For further listening: “Every Hour Here” on Umbrella by The Innocence Mission.