Practicing the presence of God is special and mundane. We do it in church—we all know that. But we also practice His presence every single day of our lives in other ways most especially, with our fellow men, our desires, our work and our affections.
Living presence of God requires prayer and spirituality so that we can have daily encounter with Christ even in the midst of the most material things on the earth and we must sanctify ourselves. If we are not careful, with a lot of work to do we can easily forget to greet Our Lord and our Lady with words of affection. And to avoid this, St. Jose Maria Escrivia suggested the use of alarm clocks, small objects or pictures to remind us of God’s presence always. It is said that a man who is open to the presence of God discovers that God is always around him and this still works today and that is the reason why we should let Him enter and define His work in our lives.
The question therefore is, are we living in the presence of God, do you lack interior life because, if we are living in the presence of God, we will consider other people’s concerns and make effort to see things clearly so that we can make definite resolutions and fulfill them. We must have a supernatural viewpoint in whatever we do, in our studies, work, conversations and our dealings with others.
Are we living in the presence of God? for that is the significance and a manifestation of our prayer. (Furrow, 447). So, we have to pray more not only when we are in difficulty, or during odd moments or when we are taking examinations. We need to pray more, pray between times instead of allowing our minds to wander on silly things. – Furrow- point 449 – St. Jose Maria Escrivia. Whenever we feel in our hearts a yearning to improve, a desire to respond more generously to Our Lord, we should tell Him in prayer to bring word of His unfailing love to us. We should tell Him that we feel blessed each time we lift up our souls waiting in His presence. Because His presence gives us a positive focus about life and when we need a sign or look for something to guide us like, a north star that guides our lives as Christians, the Holy Spirit will remind us of the words of the Gospel that we ‘ought to pray continually and never be discouraged. Prayer is the foundation of any supernatural endeavour. With prayer we are all powerful; without it or if we were to neglect it, we would not only accomplish nothing but will also lose God’s boundless and steadfast love.
Let us cast our mind to the passage in the bible, Genesis 3:8 “Adam and Eve heard the footsteps of God walking in the garden. Knowing they had sinned, the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden”. What it means is that their relationship with God became stressed because they disobeyed His command. So, for us to be in the presence of God, we must endeavour to obey His commandments. The most interesting thing is that the presence of God is not confined to a “religious” building, a temple, or a room. God’s presence just happens to be wherever God is. That’s everywhere, all day, every day, that’s right, and I think this is the important point. Another important point is understanding what it means to practice the presence of God. Remember the idea of special and ordinary. Yes, in Matthew 18:20, we are told that where two or three are gathered, God is in their midst but let us also remember that we can also seek His presence as an individual during our quiet time, our time of meditation. A time when we decide to commune with God, a particular time to just be with Our Lord and talk to Him, one- on- one either in our private rooms or in front of the Blessed Sacrament. The presence of God is not just special, it’s also ordinary because we could feel His presence when we are in the garden turning the soil. Or when we are in our kitchen baking bread or preparing dinner.
So believe me when l say that practicing the presence of God is special and mundane. We all believe that it can happen in church—yes, we all know that. But we can also practice or seek His presence every single day of our lives particularly, if we sanctify our activities to God.
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Beautiful article. Yes we should pray that good Jesus should enlighten our minds with the brightness of internal light, and take away all darkness from the habitation of our hearts. Restrain our wondering thoughts and suppress the temptations which attack us so violently. The beauty of it all is that Jesus can read our hearts, that regardless of how poorly we have prayed, how many were the distractions or wandering of our minds, he takes delight to be with us in stillness. Let us pray always.