God Is Closer Than Your Think

Frederick Buechner writes, “There is no event so commonplace but that God is present within it, always hiddenly, always leaving you room to recognize him or not . . . because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.”

How close has God come? So close that, as Thomas à Kempis put it, “every creature will be to you a mirror of life and a book of holy doctrine.” So close that, in the words of Jean Pierre de Caussade, “each moment is a revelation from God.” So close that he can flow in and through your life from one moment to the next like a river. So close that your heart will be beating with life because Someone is walking around in there. God is closer than you think.

Set aside for now the question of to what extent any of us is capable of experiencing God’s presence in our current spiritual condition. Set aside your past failures or future worries.

The teaching of Scripture is that God really is present right here, right now. Michelangelo’s picture really does express spiritual reality. The Spirit of God is available to you and me: flowing all the time, welling up within us, quenching our unsatisfied desires, overflowing to refresh those around us. He is at work all the time, in every place. And every once in a while, somebody somewhere wakes up.

Ortberg, John. 2009. God Is Closer than You Think. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.