Thinking about God, Walking in Love, and Living in God’s Presence

I have been puzzling a lot lately over how I might be in God’s presence constantly because a lot of the time my mind seems apart from him. I’ve got into a daily morning habit of praying and meditating on scripture, which has helped me a lot, but my job involves considerable concentration and focus that seems to block out thinking about God a lot of other times. I might come up for ‘spiritual air’ at the end of the day on my drive home, or very occasionally even during the day; but I have been wondering, and feeling baffled and trapped, as to how I might experience God’s presence throughout the day – while at the same time focusing on the job at hand. So, I have tried using certain techniques, such as thinking about two things at once – the job and God – but this hasn’t worked. I have also tried extending my prayer and meditation time at the start of the day as if this would give more space for God in my life the rest of the day – but this hasn’t worked either.

THEN as I was wrestling with all this in my usual prayer routine, I was suddenly hit with what felt like a deep truth about God and my relationship with him. That experiencing God’s presence was not just a ‘mental thing’ – certainly being mindful of God was an important part of my experiencing his presence, but it was not the only part by a long, long way.

Indeed, being mindful of God and so being consciously aware of his presence was, I saw afresh, the result of us experiencing his presence in a much more fundamental and deep way. In short, it is in our experiencing the being of his Love, which in turn enables us to walk in his love and serve and love others, which most completely opens the door to his presence, and so of him living in us. Therefore, I can do all the single-focused thinking that my job requires without consciously thinking of God but underpinned by my God-given motive to do this job, such that I love others with God’s love. When I got to the bottom of this insight, I was then reminded of the great ‘love letter’ scriptures found in 1 John 4:7-21, and here are a couple of extracts:

4:7 “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.”

4:16 “God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in Him.”

Realizing this very basic truth about having God living in me, and that this presence is summoned by loving others with God’s love for me, felt so liberating. As I could now single-mindedly concentrate on my job at hand, whatever that job may be, while receiving an underpinning God-given motive of accepting God’s love and loving others in response, whatever I happen to be thinking at the time!