Understanding the Truth That God Is With You

During Bible class two Sundays ago, our teacher suggested an exercise for us to do during the week to prepare for a guest speaker that would be coming the following week. We were to take fifteen minutes to meditate on the truth that God is with you.

And the miraculous thing is that I actually did the exercise. Typically I am a person who will hear a suggestion of a spiritual exercise like this one and will nod along in agreement, yes that is a fantastic idea, we could all use focus like that, absolutely… and then when my free fifteen minutes rolls around during the week, my intended meditation will go something like this…

"God is always with me. God is with me now. God will be with me when I run my errands later. Errands to Target and Kroger and I really should also go to the bank but ugh to get baby girl out of the carseat again sounds terrible, I really need to clean the carseat, I really need to clean this room too, I really need to clean the floors, but ugh I loathe cleaning the floors more than I loathe yard work, I really need to get John to do some yard work, I wonder what our yard will look like in the summer, I cannot WAIT for summer, what is the weather like today, oh look a text message!"

Very easily derailed.

But for this exercise I managed more than my typical measly 30 seconds and ventured into the realm of minutes. Not fifteen, but enough to be substantial. And I realized as I am dwelling in the truth that God is always with me that I don't always believe that truth. I believe that God is with me when I am thinking about God being with me. Like he is a genie and I summon him to me when I call on him. But I do not prepare myself to continue believing that he is constantly there with me, even when my mind is not there with him. It's fairly easy for me to conceptualize that God is all around me all the time, in nature and strangers and good food and laughter. But to think that God is with me, actually with ME all the time is possibly the most humbling thought I have ever had. That the king of glory chooses to walk around with me while I stroll my baby and pick out groceries and complain about my ever-looming floor cleaning duties- the very thought of it infuses each of those tiny tasks into something potentially meaningful and worshipful, except the complaining which now seems like an act of ingratitude and selfishness instead of the harmless venting I once thought it was. It gave me perspective outside of myself and into the kingdom of God, perspective that I often long for and easily forget.

I can't shake the impact this had on my soul, and I can't get the idea out of my brain. It has infiltrated my very being. It has left me hungry for more. Fifteen minutes changed me. For two weeks the thought has been looming in my mind, and isn't it an amazing idea to have a positive thought looming instead of a deprecating lie? I hope you will take fifteen minutes this week to think about the truth that God is with you. Because he is.