WONDER - Exploring the Mysteries of Encountering GodSample

  

MANIFEST 

C. S. Lewis said, “We may ignore, but we cannot evade the presence of God. The world is crowded with Him. He walks everywhere incognito.”[1]

God is indeed everywhere because He is omnipresent. He fills heaven and earth. He fills past, present, and future, all at the same time. One cannot ever leave or return to His presence. He is always everywhere.

Yet the Bible tells us that after Adam and Eve had sinned, they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. If God is absolutely everywhere, how can one hide from His presence behind a tree? There must be another dimension of His presence. The Hebrew word for presence here means “at or to the face.” It is a greater level of intimacy.

Adam and Eve hid themselves from the face, or intimacy, of God. Adam and Eve hid from the manifest presence. This is God’s revealed presence that is revealed in a certain place and time. It is the evident essence: His presence made visible and discernable. Though God is everywhere, He is not evident everywhere. The manifest presence is the touchable and tangible essence of God. 

God has indicated in His Word how His revealed presence can be found. It requires effort to find God’s presence in your life and in your worship. We are to search for the Lord and seek His face all the time, Psalm 105 says. Because the word “presence” is translated “at the face,” the Psalmist is encouraging you to get up close and in the face of God.

You will seek Me, inquire for, and require Me [as a vital necessity], and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart, the scripture tells us. You must be proactive to search for and seek God’s presence. It is essential for a worshipper to have a passion for His presence. 

Whoever would come near to God must [necessarily] believe that He will reward us with Himself.  When you persistently pursue the Lord’s presence, you will find Him and know Him. As a God-seeker you will become a God-finder. 

Pray with me: Heavenly Father, I passionately pursue You and want to know more of your manifest presence in my life. I will search and seek for You so that I will be able to come into your face and commune with You in awe and wonder. Teach me how to be an authentic God seeker. In Jesus’s name, Amen.   

 [1] C.S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer (San Diego: Harvest, 1964), 75.