God with us

I have always believed that God is with us.  After all, Emanuel means just that. Yet, for most of my years, I have prayed, "Lord, be with me; be with this person." During this past year, however, I have finally come to realize that God is always with me. And so my prayer is now spoken as, "Lord, make me aware of your presence; guide me to know You more deeply."

Psalm 139 makes it absolutely clear that whether we go to the heights or the depths, the light or the dark, we cannot escape God's presence.  This week I am reading an excerpt from St. Augustine's Confessions:  "Since nothing that exists would exist without you, does it follow that whatever exists does in some way contain you?...I would not exist, I would not be at all, if you were not in me....To what place can I invite you, then, since I am already in you?"

As some theologians have noted,  "God cannot be absent from creation or creature without both ceasing to exist."  And so it is that, despite our earth bound emotions, we are never alone. He is always with/within us.