Quotes about God's presence

Our feelings of separation from God will diminish as we become more childlike before Him. That is not easy in a world where the opinions of other human beings can have such an effect on our motives. But it will help us recognize this truth: God is close to us and aware of us and never hides from His faithful children.

It is not so much adverse events that make you anxious as it is your thoughts about those events. Your mind engages in efforts to take control of a situation, to bring about the result you desire. Your thoughts close in on the problem like ravenous wolves. Determined to make things go your way, you forget that I am in charge of your life. The only remedy is to switch your focus from the problem to My Presence. Stop all your striving, and watch to see what I will do. I am the Lord!

Many people turn away from Me when they are exhausted. They associate Me with duty and diligence, so they try to hide from My Presence when they need a break from work. How this saddens Me! As I spoke through My prophet Isaiah: In returning to Me and resting in Me you shall be saved; in quietness and trust shall be your strength.

Prayer is not informing God of something unknown but drawing oneself in the divine life of the Trinity and into the very mission of God in this world — this God loves us and invites us into his presence with our petitions.

You cannot be in the presence of God and be bored at the same time. For that matter, you cannot be in the will of God and be bored at the same time.

Love is the essence of God.

Evil is the absence of God. This means that in the space between Man and God, evil exists. And this space is necessary because God had to give us a choice. He had to give us space to choose to love and obey Him.

The events of the past year had drawn him out into lonelier and more dangerous theological territory, but there was a newfound freedom and a faith that bloomed in this situation. He knew that God was with him in a way he couldn't have known before, so his fear of Rome, if ever any had existed, had vanished.

Where God tears great gaps we should not try to fill them with human words. They should remain open. Our only comfort is the God of the resurrection, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who also was and is his God. In him we know our brothers and in him is the biding fellowship of those who have overcome and those who still await their hour. God be praised for our dead brother and be merciful to us all at our end.

God left so many fingerprints at the scene of Creation that you wonder — does He want to be found, or does He want to be stopped?

Before the heart unlocks itself for the world, God wants to open it for himself; before the ear takes in the countless voices of the day, it should hear in the early hours the voice of the Creator and Redeemer. God prepared the stillness of the first morning for himself. It should remain his.

My feeling has been that once we're actually in God's presence, we will never return to earth again, because it will be empty and meaningless by comparison.