I hope, in all certainty, that we can agree that there is indeed a God who is omnipresent, everywhere at all times. Well, as it turns out, that’s the easy part. The harder part is actually realizing it and living it out as he were consistently behind you and within you; watching every action you make, listening to every word you speak, guiding your every step, reading into your very deepest thoughts. Nowhere is safe, not even the darkest recesses of your past sin. They cannot be hidden; they must be taken away, because God can surely see them.
But how can we practice the presence of God? We are merely humans. We can hardly grasp the concept of such a big being; but God did give us an imagination. As Brother Lawrence practiced, “Sometimes I imagined myself standing before him as a poor criminal at the feet of the judge. At other times I beheld him in my heart as my Father and as my God. I worshipped him as often as I could, keeping my mind in his holy presence and recalling it back to God as often as I found it had wandered from him.” This is indeed quite a feat to accomplish for a day, let alone a habit to maintain for a lifetime.
What I often attempt to do is picture Jesus, God in the form of man (to better make his presence realistic to such a rationalistic and skeptical mind such as mine), like a parent behind my shoulder, spying on my every move. Is this the right way to go about it? It might stop me from saying that hurtful joke, or stop me from making a silly mistake, but is it really practicing God’s presence? “I have found in many books different ways of going to God and many different practices in living the spiritual life. I began to see that this was only confusing me…Thus, I resolved to give my all for God’s all.” I think Brother Lawrence got it right here. To practice God’s presence, we must discipline ourselves into a mind set of an omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient God who loves us and deeply longs for us to return it.
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