This practicing the Presence of God stuff is really great, but only if it emanates from that which is constructed upon a solid foundation of belief in some basics.

Starting with the general and working toward the more specific, we begin with the need to believe there actually exists a transcendent supernatural Being. That this mysterious Being brought into existence the cosmos. The cosmos is the whole body of everything we observe. Existence and reality was brought into being by this Being.

We believe this (our) Creator has revealed itself to us in different ways. We Christians believe the ultimate revelation of Creator is Jesus Christ–the human form of God. So we can actually know what God is like. What is God like? Just like Jesus, the image of the invisible God. Other revelations are Holy Scripture, Nature, and the Holy Spirit, who reveals herself thru a variety of means: people, pain, dreams, books, and on and on. (Tho we can know God partly, we of course cannot comprehend God fully. We can know what He reveals and allows us to see, but the rest is mystery or else not God.)

Getting more specific, and closer to home you might say, we believe this God who has revealed Himself is the very essence of Love itself and desires to be in close conversational relationship with us. This is clearest in the ultimate act of selfless love of Jesus around A.D. 30. God’s desire to be with us culminated in this act of incomprehensible agape. All through history, God communicates with humans, wooing them to Himself to be one with Him.

This all has many implications for what we are to believe about ourselves then.

We are worthy of love.

We are loved right now exactly as we are.

We are cared for by our Creator.

We are worth communicating with.

And all of this just because. Just because you are you and were made for love. God is the great Initiator. We love Him because He first loved us. This is an uber important basic belief: God has initiated relationship with us already, and even has made and revealed the way to Himself so that we may be connected to Him in oneness.

He has already done His part in complete perfection, and patiently waits for us to say yes to Him. And He rewards those who diligently seek after Him. That is a promise.

Will we choose to participate in the Life that really is life which is life lived in His constant loving Presence?

I’ve always been moved by these words by Henri Nouwen:

We’re basically here on earth for twenty, forty, sixty, or eighty years to say to God, “I love You too.”

In the Name of Jesus,
Soli Deo Gloria