Finding God’s Presence like Blue Jeans Ripped at the Knees

I can’t tell you how many mornings I snuck off to the back porch. It helps that its stunningly beautiful here. I slip away to my own little world with a cuppa on my best mornings. Hot dandelion caramel tea to keep my hands warm. Blue birds and stellar jays popping from branch to branch of the ponderosa pines. But the best part is when I truly retreat, close my eyes and feel the sun rising on my face. This feels like God’s presence. No matter where we are, we can close our eyes and retreat to the Lord. Our own morning retreat as the sun is rising.

The Presence of God

And the amazing part. This is how I fight my battles too. Often, this is how I wage war. When justice is turned back and no one steps in to fight for the distressed, I worship the Lord. When I’m fried out of my mind, I rest in Him. I mean, sometimes I break down and yell in a pillow or cry out to God in lament. But you know when the battle goes on so long and you have no fight left in you… that’s the place of total surrender where there’s no better option that to just soak in the presence of the Lord. When no one else will act justly, it disturbs him so. And He rolls up his own sleeves and fights for us himself. Read His promises here in Isaiah 59:14-21.

When I don’t know what just happened or which way to go next in life, I find myself get still. Sometimes, I’m still in the grief or the pain. Sometimes, I’m still in the suffering. Sometimes, I’m still in contentedness and gratitude. But always, my favorite is when I’m still with the Lord. He and I. There’s nothing like knowing where or how to find God’s presence. We don’t always have much to say, but I just like being near Him.

Digging Wells

I notice that with memories, the ones that stick the most are either the ones of intensity like intense joy or intense sorrow. Or it’s the memories of total shock, hilarity or out of the norm. But the ones that stick are also just the mundane repeated quiet habits and rhythms.

I’ve never been much of a habit girl though. Everything is new everyday. I always admired the people who got up and got ready in the same order everyday. Or who know what to do and in what order when they came home from work. Or who have a set place where they go to read God’s word and pray. But my Bible is always in all kinds of places in the house like by the toilet, in the kitchen, the window seat, the closet floor, the bedside table. It roams with me to the deck or car or wherever. I don’t have one set place for a quiet moment with the Lord, and I don’t even really think about it. I just steal those away whenever and wherever I can.

Whether you’re a free-spirit roamer or a structured planner, the end destination is the same beautiful place… the presence of God. And these repeated returning to the Lord, no matter if they’re in the same place or not, they dig wells in the Spirit and knock loose the Living Water from heaven.

Ripping Blue Jeans at the Knees

There is something set apart about the places where I returned to over and over for months or years or even decades. Like digging a well in the Spirit. The altar at Glad Tidings. The World Prayer Center. Our closet in Nebraska. Our strip of beach in Destin. This deck in the trees.

These are places I go back to and know there’s a spiritual atmosphere that’s been opened up by repeated prayers. Like how my daughter is rough and tumble in her blue jeans and the denim wears through into holes on her knees. That’s like the spiritual reality of places where we go to pray and breakthrough in the heavenlies like an open door or a thin veil. As I think about my daughter’s jeans, I’ve never once worn jeans in a way that they got thin at the knees and busted a hole through. But she rips through every favorite pair. And I thought, maybe I can’t relate in the natural, but I sure do that in the spiritual. Places where I’ve torn through the veil while on my knees in prayer.

God’s Presence in a Song

Sometimes these thin places between heaven and earth aren’t a physical location. Sometimes it’s a Scripture that instantly brings me in to the courts of heaven. Or a song. Some songs put me right in God’s presence in just a breath. Because I have history of digging wells of faith in the spiritual realm using the shovel and strength of the lyrics of that song. Sometimes, one song on repeat will carry me through YEARS of sorrow or pain or pressing in. Those songs instantly take me to a place where the veil is thin and God’s presence is near.

This is the song I listened to on that deck. It now says there are 10 million views. Half of them must have been me. 🙂

Birds joined the songs. I closed my eyes as the sun rose and rested on my face. Hands warmed by the hot tea. Crisp air and slow breath. Total peace that God’s presence is here with me. My peace had nothing to do with the situations in my life but everything to do with the One I faced them with. When I can’t get to those trees and deck in my reality, I can always go there in my heart and mind. That’s the beautiful thing about closing your eyes to rest in the company of the Holy Spirit. When we close our eyes, we can go anywhere.