How we Christians imagine God’s presence.

OMNIPRESENT ɑm.nɪ'prɛ.zənt adjective. Everywhere at once. Ubiquitous.

[Omnipresence ɑm.nɪ'prɛ.zəns noun.]

We Christians believe God is everywhere. Not just that he sees everywhere; Ps 33.13-14 he literally is everywhere. And not that kind of “literally” which doesn’t really mean he really, truly is: God isn’t limited by space. Nor time; he fills all of time too, and everywhere also means every-when. Jn 8.58

The way David ben Jesse put it, God has no limits when it comes to place and time.

Psalm 139.7-12 NLT

7I can never escape from your Spirit!

I can never get away from your presence!

8If I go up to heaven, you are there;

if I go down to the grave, you are there.

9If I ride the wings of the morning,

if I dwell by the farthest oceans,

10even there your hand will guide me,

and your strength will support me.

11I could ask the darkness to hide me

and the light around me to become night—

12but even in darkness I cannot hide from you.

To you the night shines as bright as day.

Darkness and light are the same to you.

But even though Christian theology affirms this, and many a Christians will say this and preach this… we Christians will sometimes use language which indicates we don’t wholly believe this. We think God’s not everywhere. We talk about his presence not being in a particular place, and when we do this, it implies he’s not really here. Physically, perhaps. But his mind is elsewhere, like a semi-senile grandpa who’s consciously aware, on some level, stuff is going on in the room. Once we call upon him—“Hey grandpa!”—he snaps out of his reverie and interacts with us. If God’s presence isn’t here, we don’t have his attention. Something else in the universe does.

Now, is any of this really how God is? Nope. Not even close.

When the scriptures talk about God’s presence, the Hebrew word we usually translate “presence” is פָּנֶה/panéh, “face.” As in “the LORD’s face,” or “the LORD’s presence,” or “before the LORD.” It’s found all over the bible. Ge 19.13, Ex 6.12, 1Sa 26.20, Ps 34.16, 1Pe 3.12 And no, it doesn’t mean a literal face. God didn’t really have one till he became human. Hence “presence.” And our word omnipresence means God’s panéh, his face or presence, is actually everywhere.

But we humans can’t wrap our brains around this idea. You know how when you hear a voice and can’t see it, you look around till you know where that voice is coming from—and which direction to face? Psychologically, we need a direction to face. We need a focal point we can interact with. If we don’t have one, our mind will invent one for us. God’s gotta be in some direction, relative to our location. Up, down, in front of us, behind us, in the direction of Jerusalem, wherever. We need to know where his face is… so we can face him.

But he’s everywhere.