The doctrine of God’s omnipresence is comforting and reassuring to believers. We are never left alone. We are always—at all times and in all places—in the presence of God. We can cry out to Him and know that He hears us. We can trust that He is always with us. This truth should make us respond in praise and worship, “Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised, and his greatness is unsearchable” (Ps. 145:3).
As a parent, I am often in high demand. Both my children often need me at the exact same time. Inevitably, when I work with one child on a school assignment, the other child will call for me to come and help him with his work. What’s even more challenging is when both my children need a ride to different places at the same time. I frequently remind them that I can be in only one place at a time.
Sometimes, my children need me and I’m in another part of the house. They call and call my name, but I don’t respond because I simply can’t hear them. Eventually they track me down and say something like “Mom, I was calling for you! Why didn’t you answer?”
There is much in my life as a parent that points me to a truth about God. Sometimes, it’s a parallel truth, such as the fact that I discipline my children for their good, as God disciplines me in my own life (though my discipline is far from perfect). Other times, my life as a parent points to a stark contrast between myself and God, as in the examples above. When I find myself stretched and challenged by the limitations of space and time, I’m reminded of our omnipresent God.
While I can’t be available to both my kids at the same time, God is always present for us.
Ever Present Everywhere
One of God’s attributes is His omnipresence. This means He is present everywhere in all creation. There are no limits or boundaries that restrict Him; God is not confined to any one space or moment of time for He has no physical properties. God is spirit and does not take up space in the way an object or person takes up space. There is nowhere we could go that God is not also there because He fills the heavens and earth.
This is hard for our finite minds to grasp. We have bodies that can only occupy one space at a time. As a mom who is daily tugged and pulled in different directions, I have a hard time imagining that God has no such limitations. We often try to think of God’s omnipresence in terms we understand. We might try to compare Him to something we know, such as a gas that spreads throughout a room, but even that comparison doesn’t express the reality of God’s omnipresence, for gas is a state of matter.
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