God Omnipresent

By-and-large, people in our world are isolated from one another.

It sounds crazy to say that. Just to be transparent, here are a few tidbits from my “connected” life: I monitor (as best I can remember) four email addresses (that’s down from eight a few years ago). I used to have a plan for my cell phone that allowed for 200 texts—per month. And that was plenty. I used to laugh at teenagers that sent and received 3000+ texts per month. I don’t laugh anymore. I have Facebook and Twitter and Instagram. (Somehow, I’ve avoided other social media platforms.) I spend, according to Apple, somewhere between 8-10 hours daily on my phone, computers (desktop and laptop), and tablet. Anecdotal evidence says my life is pretty typical.

But never have we been less connected and satisfied with our relationships. In a connection climate, many people sit at home alone, disconnected, friendless, and discontent.

As one secular writer noted a few years ago, “…if you’re an average American, you’re not nearly as connected to the people around you as your parents or grandparents were.… You don’t vote as regularly. You don’t join clubs as much. You don’t entertain at home as often. Chances are, you spend more time each week watching ‘Friends’ than making them.”

That will be the reality for many of the people that come to us for counseling. Ask them who they interact with at church worship services and you will get a blank stare. Ask them when they last had someone in their home for dinner and they will gaze at the ceiling and scratch their heads while they try to remember. Ask them who would watch their children in an emergency and they will shrug their shoulders. Though connected by social media, too many are disconnected in social reality.

And this is exactly where the truth of God’s character should dramatically and radically intersect our lives. He made us for fellowship with Him, and nothing should delight us more than His presence with us.

But if we are going to be honest, though, we know that the revelation of God’s attributes has been given to us as a comfort, but sometimes what God tells us about Himself does not seem to be so terribly comforting to us. And the presence of God may be one of those very truths. The truth that He is ever-present everywhere should be a rich encouragement to us; yet sometimes it seems (as it did to David) to be a damper on our desires. His omnipresence is only a hindrance to us because we have failed to understand its significance and its purpose.

In Psalm 139, David applies the infinitude of God to His presence and leads us to understand three truths about God’s omnipresence. These realities will be a comfort to your counselees when they are alone.

Because God is Omnipresent, You Cannot Run from Him (v. 7)

David asks the question, “where can I go…or where can I flee from Your presence?” With those questions, David connects the reality of God’s omniscience (vv. 1-6), and in particular God’s knowledge of him, to God’s omnipresence. That is, “If I attempted to get away from God’s knowledge, where would I go?” There was nowhere to go in that situation. For God to know about David meant that God was always present with David.

It is notable that the word “flee” is used frequently in the Old Testament. Generally, it refers to fleeing from others in fear (e.g., Hagar fleeing Sarah; Jacob running from Esau to Laban, and later from Laban to Esau; David fleeing Saul and Absalom and others; Absalom after killing Amnon; and Jonah attempting to flee from the Lord). 

In this verse David clearly understands that he couldn’t outrun God (which makes Jonah’s little trek to Tarshish interesting!). Even increased speed wouldn’t help him, as he notes in verse 9 that even if he runs as fast as the speed of light (“the wings of the dawn”), God is there when he arrives.

J. I. Packer noted, “Man…is always in God’s presence; you can cut yourself off from your fellow-men, but you cannot get away from your Creator.”¹

Everything that exists was created by God—including every location. Before creation, there were no locations. God did not need a “location” in eternity past in order to exist, and He does not need a location now. He is not simply larger than any location; He is transcendent over every location. If there is a place to be, then God is there. 

For many, this reality is something fearful, as David intimates when he asks where he might run to get away from God. But the presence of God should be a comfort to David and us. Wherever David might be, the Spirit of God was there to assist and guide him (v. 7a). Wherever David found himself, God was present there so that David was never alone and isolated (v. 7b). If David was pursued by enemies, if David was friendless and alone, if David’s family turned against him, he was never alone. In Jerusalem, in the wilderness, in the Temple, or on the run, God was alongside David to serve and help him. And the same is true of our counselees who find themselves alone. 

Because God is Omnipresent, You Cannot Escape Him (vv. 8-10)

Getting away from God is not a matter of finding new location where He might not be. It’s tempting to assume that God might be absent from some places and circumstances.

A family was about to move to a distant city. On the night before they left, their young son prayed, “I guess this is goodbye, God, because tomorrow we’re moving to Cleveland.”

David corrects that child’s theology when he reminds us that whether in the heights of Heaven, or the depths of Sheol (death or hell), God is already there (v. 8). And whether riding the wings of the dawn in the east, or going to the remotest part of the sea in the west, God is already there (v. 9). East to west, God is present in every place.

And even more, wherever one goes, he not only finds God already present, but he finds, as David did, God’s guidance—“Your hand will lead me” (v. 10). In the same way that God led Israel through the wilderness and leads individuals (Psalm 23:3) with His wisdom (Proverbs 6:22), God will lead and hold David (Psalm 73:23-24).

Surveying the rest of Scripture, we find that God is present in different ways. In some places, God is present to judge and pour out His wrath on His enemies (e.g., Amos 9:1-4). In some places, God is present to sustain His people and creation (e.g., Hebrews 1:3; Colossians 1:17). And in some places, God is present to bless His people (Psalm 16:11; Hebrews 13:5; 1 Samuel 4:4; Revelation 21:3). 

For our counselees who are not believers, or who are believers in rebellion against God, the presence of God is a warning to them—He sees all they do, He is present in all their rebellion, He will help and guide them if they repent. And He will punish or discipline them if they do not repent.

But for our counselees who are believers, the presence of God is a great comfort. God is always alongside them. He sees that they are alone. And His presence with them means they are not actually alone. They have a Comforter, Father, Friend, Savior, Advocate, and (loving) Master with them at all times.

Because God is Omnipresent, You Cannot Hide from Him (vv. 11-12)

When our children were little, they liked to played hide and seek with me. I acknowledge that I didn’t always play fairly with them: after they would check a location, I’d sneak out of my spot and hide where they had just looked. Sometimes we may think, “If I could just do that with God I might get some relief from Him or my circumstances.”

But David notes that even if he could find darkness so oppressive as to crush (overwhelm) him, God would see him (v. 11). The infinite God who is not dependent on any part of creation transcends night and day just as much as He transcends time and eternity. There is never a time or place where we can absent ourselves from Him.

It has rightly been said, “Because God is always present with His people, we are never alone and we are never without the resources for life and ministry. If we are in the will of God, we will never lack the provision of God. It has well been said that the will of God will never lead us where the grace of God cannot keep us.”²

That leads to an important distinction that should be made about solitude. Scripture regularly points to those who are alone; their solitude is an objective fact and reality—there is no one else with them in their particular circumstances. For instance, Adam was genuinely alone in the first moments of the created world (Genesis 2:18). And Noah alone (with his family) was righteous on the earth, which led God to protect them from the flood (Genesis 7:1). The messengers who came to Job with messages of disaster were solitary survivors (Job 1:16-18). And Jesus isolated Himself from the crowds and the disciples that He might fellowship alone with His Father (Matthew 14:23).

But the reality that people are at times alone is different from loneliness. The feeling of loneliness is an interpretation of circumstances in which one says, “I feel alone and abandoned.” They may or may not actually be alone, but they evaluate their situation as “loneliness.” It should be noted that the English word “lonely” appears only four times in the Bible (NASB). Perhaps Psalm 25:16 is the clearest example: the psalmist says, “Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted.” He asks for God’s help in his “loneliness.” And we know that this loneliness is his interpretive response to his situation because in the next verse he says, “the troubles of my heart are enlarged.” In other words, he meditated on the big problems in his life and that led him to feel lonely (though he may actually not have been alone).

The good news is that the omnipresence of God counteracts both our objective aloneness and our subjective loneliness. In reality, we and our counselees are never alone. God is always present. Because He is present to guide, comfort, strengthen, and equip, no one needs to experience “loneliness.” And we should intentionally direct and guide our counselees to rest in and be comforted by the infinite presence of God. Even when alone, they need not be lonely.

¹ J. I. Packer, Knowing God.

² Warren Wiersbe, Meet Yourself in the Psalms.