July 21, 2025

• Being God’s presence in the world

It is the God of strength and humility, the God of insight, the God of love and compassion, the God of supreme presence, that God to whom you pray is always with you. There is a presence that is real.

The presence of God in your lives is real, but we must urge you to understand that there is a presence that exists among and between all people. It is not a skill that is achieved. It is a gift of life that is given to all. One who may seem insensitive to others has within the same gift as someone whose life is devoted to caring for others.

Everyone has the capability, the presence, to be open to others. It is, in fact, a matter of choice. You choose to view another beneath the surface of what is said or behaviors that are observed. You can choose to be Present with a capital P, or you can choose to distant yourself emotionally and spiritually from another. Human life is filled with choices, but as you become more aware of your relationship with the God to whom you pray, you become more aware of others that frees up the power of being present to others which lies within all people.

To understand more fully what it means to be present for another, it is helpful to think of those experiences you have had when others have been present in your life in a way that has special meaning. It is by experiencing that presence from others that you find a path easier to identify through which you can exercise your own presence with another.

So often we assert that every person is a part of God’s response. That response is not from a deity that sits in a place of authority and decides to dole out the blessings of love. No, God’s response really is your response, your neighbor’s response, the response of a perfect stranger. It is through the acts of human beings that God’s presence becomes an important link in the progression of all life.

We can say God cares for the environment, but that obviously does not mean you can ignore your environment because God will take care of it. On the contrary, you are empowered by God and as a hand of God to respond in a way to the environment that serves to care and nurture it. That is God’s response to the environment, and it is that same response to human life.

You cannot just pray to God to help others who are suffering and alone and then ignore them because God will take care of them. If you see a need for others to benefit by God’s presence, that is a recognition of the need for your response, a need for you to be present. That presence may be a physical presence. It can be a presence of energy, thought, or commitment. It can be a presence of teaching, of serving to inform others. There are many layers to that response, but it is in responding that you are giving light and strength to that presence of God.

Your relationship with others serves its sacred purpose through your reflection of God. You interact with others. You interact with those whom you have never met. You interact with those who are not physically close to you. You interact with those whom you have never personally connected with. You interact because you understand that you and others belong to the same entity.

There is no benefit to instructing others to behave in a way that you think is appropriate. Rather, it is up to you to behave towards others, and through your example that sacred presence is felt. It is active, and it is shaping lives. Your true connection to God is defined through your connection with your neighbor, with your friends, with those whom you see, with family, with complete strangers.

Too often it is believed that a connection to God exists only through the act of prayer. While prayer serves a purpose of heightening your understanding and awareness of the presence of God, the true power of that prayer is exercised through how you respond, reach out, embrace, and accept another. Your connection, your responsibilities as it were, toward God are most appropriately directed toward others, for they, too, are a part of who God is. They, too, are part of the love that is God.

Of course, you never feel harsh in your judgment of God although you may sometimes ask, “Where is God’s response?” But that is not a judgment. That may be an outcry of your needs. When you wonder about where God is in the midst of turmoil, in the midst of chaos and confusion, turn to the person next to you and believe fully that that individual is very much a part of God. You are not critical of the God you worship, and you must therefore not be critical of the God who stands beside you, for all people have a sacred reason to be experiencing life. They may not recognize that sacredness. They may not accept the reality that they are part of God, not just a creation of God. They are part of the Creator, but even when they don’t recognize that, you can still embrace God in your life through your response to that other person who appears to have no connection to the loving presence that is God.

Yes, if you want to see God in your life, see your neighbor. See your friend. Really see your family. Be open to a vision of those whom you will never see with your eyes but rather with your heart, through your compassion, through your patience, through your desire for what is best for them. A life that has true meaning and significance is a life that is devoted not to praying to God in supplication but rather living life responding to all that surrounds you in a loving way.

As was brought out in your conversation at this time, you can be critical of behavior but never critical of the person, the person’s value. The little finger in the right hand cannot be critical of the left thumb. They may be very different. They may serve different functions. They may appear differently, and yet both belong to the reality, the presence of the same entity, and for that entity to exist in benefiting others, those parts of the body belong to the shared effort.

We speak so often of a loving heart, but the concept of heart is not only physical but a metaphor for the love that does exist between and within all people. It may go unnoticed. It may be unappreciated. It may be fully unrecognized and clearly not fully understood, but it still exists. This spiritual heart is very much a part of what it means to be human.

We do not speak of the development of soul in human life as an activity separate from that human life and only having meaning in a spiritual sense. No, it belongs to human life because it is a part of human life. Certainly, the spirit is permanent and the physical body is not, but the physical body discovers purpose, discovers function, discovers meaning by way of the spirit. You don’t live either physically or spiritually. It is not one or the other; it is both, and each impacts the other.

When you face challenges of the body, that adds great burden to the perception and true meaning of the spirit. It is easy to believe in God, so to speak, when all in life is going well, but when elements of life become chaotic and profoundly challenging, you frequently ask, “Where is God in this? If God were present, this would not happen.” The truth, of course, is that God is always present because you always have within you that presence, an ability to be comforting and strengthening. You have within you the capacity to be more loving, to listen more carefully, to seek to understand and not merely to hear. The truth is in times of crisis and suffering, others reach out to embrace, to comfort, to encourage, to minister as needed. That is where God is at times of greatest need. Where is God when all lacks hope? God is present because you, all human beings, are present.

We hear reference so often to the admonition to listen to the still voice within. There is much truth to that because your ability to be present is only really found when you allow yourself to be still, for when you are still, you are open, and when you are open, you are the presence of God. You do not hear that still voice within when you are calling out as loudly as possible. It is only when you calm yourself that you will know how to be present. You will know how to be God’s hands, God’s heart.

When you experience times of great stress, that is the opportunity to step back and be quiet in mind so you can hear that voice within. It is in hearing that voice that you exercise the true presence of God. Seek out your opportunities to be quiet, to be present, to be open. Seek opportunities of being a listener to the spirit that lies within all. It is in your listening that God speaks. It is in your openness at all times that God’s presence is always revealed.

You are blessed as you seek that stillness. You are blessed as you seek an openness of heart. You are blessed in the presence of others and in their gifts of love. Be strengthened by those gifts and let them give you strength of faith to be God’s hand in the world.

Amen.