We’re Made For God’s Presence

They say nerves that fire together wire together. In other words, when something happens to us that affects us at a deep emotional level, that experience leaves an imprint at a cellular and neurological level. Excessive reactions often point to something within us that needs healing, truth, and redemption.

The good news is, God created our brains with a capacity for rewiring. One moment in God’s presence can do what we could never do over a lifetime for ourselves. Jesus offers us Himself to heal our souls and make us whole.

We’re made for His presence. We have access to the inner throne room of Almighty God, who makes all things new.

Our loving Father often takes us back to certain parts of our stories before He propels us forward into our next place of promise. He helps us to re-story our story. He gives us new experiences and redemptive perspectives. His presence changes everything.

Consider a memory etched in the apostle Peter’s physiology. Peter loved Jesus. Something about Jesus’ presence had captured this rough fisherman’s heart. Finally, the Messiah had come!

But then, years later, evil eclipsed heaven. Peter forgot who he was. Forgot who Jesus was. In the face of terror, Peter’s instinctive response wasn’t a holy remembrance but a fearful reaction.

While Jesus faced His accusers, bystanders warmed themselves by a charcoal fire. Peter tried to blend in. But when others asked if Peter followed Jesus, Peter denied it—three times.

The devil condemningly tries to pull us into our past because he’s terrified of what God has prepared for our future. God lovingly brings us back to our past so He can propel us into our future.

Brain scientists point to Jesus’ purposeful intention of building a charcoal fire on the beach when He reappeared to Peter and the other disciples (John 21:9). Jesus knew Peter’s memory would forever haunt him without a God-encounter around a charcoal fire. So Jesus initiated one.

In John 21:15–17, Jesus asked Peter three times, “Do you love me?” Imagine how Peter must have felt. Hasty, impulsive, brokenhearted Peter.

Picture Jesus’ eyes flooded with love and compassion. He wasn’t there to remind Peter of how he messed up but to recommission him. Peter needed a fresh encounter with God—one that restored and revived his faith. God has such encounters in mind for you as well.