When I was asked this past week to find scriptural support about seeking the presence of God, a tension formed in the pit of my chest. I have heard throughout my life: Seek the Lord, but seeking omnipresence never made sense to me.
Closing my eyes, Psalm 139 began to play before me:
Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
Psalm 139:7-12
The Saint and Spanish Mystic Ignatius of Loyola taught in his spiritual exercises, we must first recall one is in the presence of God. The haunting truth of this directive is that the undisciplined life is lived without awareness of the presence of God. Sin makes small gods out of fragments of existence and so sinners seek them as though they are hidden among career descriptions, but the Author of all Creation has his signature and speech upon all things.
As Jesus taught scandalously: Heaven is already here. The question for you and me is whether the King of Creation will be received.
In the opening chapter of Luke’s Gospel, Zechariah, the Father of John the Baptist, is punished for failing to obey the presence of God as manifest in the Archangel Gabriel. Zechariah’s tongue is tied until the day his son is born. As he writes on a tablet before family and friends that his son is to be named John, his tongue is freed to sing the praises of the Lord:
Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel,
because he has come to his people and redeemed them.
The opening lines from Zechariah’s Song according to Luke’s Gospel
Today, English Speakers may quote bits of the Psalms when it comes to seeking the Lord:
One thing I ask from the Lord,
This only do I seek:
That I may dwell in the house of the Lord
All the days of my life,
To gaze on the beauty of the Lord
And to seek him in his temple
-Psalm 27:4
And
Glory in his holy name;
Let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice.
Look to the Lord and his strength
Seek his face always
-Psalm 105:3-4
But the word preserved from the earliest canon of scripture and still spoken today is not seek, sequor, but quærite, desire. If one seeks what is omnipresent, the search is over before it begins. Yet desiring the infinite is a discipline that must be practiced again and again.
The life of the lover of Christ is not one of hiding and seeking and Googling. It is a life of desiring a Kingdom and the King of Eternity. As I wrote in On Desire, we are weak at the knees for realities disconnected from truly living.
My desire for God and peace among the earthly things came when I desired his desires for you and me:
I tell you, something greater than the temple is here. But if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless.
Jesus referencing the prophet Hosea from Matthew’s Gospel Account
Our age is an age of scrupulous sacrifice. A cut throat career is an altar where all end up empty of life. More than arms and opioids, men and women take mortgages and die every day in their selfishness. We all are practitioners of sacrificing ourselves and each other. Recalling one is in the presence of God is to remember we too were made to desire mercy.
Then we can begin practicing our devotion with the greatest commandment:
Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength… love your neighbor as yourself.
Jesus according to Mark’s Gospel Account from Chapter 12
Until next week,
-Steven
I don't have the depth of knowledge of scripture that you do Steven but I do know stories.
What popped in mind was a quote from the movie Before Sunrise:
"I believe if there's any kind of God it wouldn't be in any of us, not you or me but just this little space in between. If there's any kind of magic in this world it must be in the attempt of understanding someone sharing something. I know, it's almost impossible to succeed but who cares really? The answer must be in the attempt."
God exists in the space between moments, people, and words.
I see the blanket of God in the interactions I have with people and the depth of study I do. The more I study the world as an engineer or scientist, the deeper in faith I get.
Because I see the pursuit of science not to disprove the existence of God but to improve our understanding of God's mechanisms.
Like studying how a chef crafts a meal, science provides the recipe for us to better understand God.
"My desire for God and peace among the earthly things came when I desired his desires for you and me" - Yes! We hear the Lord speak about creating new hearts... It's a reprogramming of our desires. Your reflection reminds me of this simple prayer: Jesus, meek and humble of heart, make my heart like unto Thine.