God Is Nearer Than We Think

Most, if not all of us have experienced times in our lives when God can feel far away—perhaps absent, but more likely distant, just out of reach. We seem to be speaking into silence and waiting for something that doesn’t quite come. Several years ago, I was desperately seeking God’s presence. I felt blocked.
My distress actually got in the way of realizing God’s presence, masking my awareness. My silent and shouted prayers and devotion eventually awakened me to God’s presence. Waiting is hard. The Spirit’s work is frequently quiet, gradual, hidden, and in it’s own time.
I have since learned that God is not a feeling. Our culture trains us to equate reality with feeling, but the New Testament does not. Our Christian faith is not “you will feel Christ,” but to know that “ Christ is within you, indwelling.
Our two scriptures from Acts and John speak to these times. The Word is both gentle and bold
In Athens, Paul preaches to people who are seeking the divine. And Paul notices something—an altar inscribed, “To an unknown god.” He doesn’t mock it. He doesn’t dismiss their searching. Instead, he begins there, as though to say: you are closer than you realize. “What you worship as unknown,” Paul says in our scripture, “this I proclaim to you.” .

26 From one ancestor[a] he made all peoples to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, 27 so that they would search for God[b] and perhaps fumble about for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us. For “in him we live and move and have our being….

We are alive IN God. This is difficult to comprehend. Being alive in Christ means allowing Jesus to live through you. Again, “In him we live and move and have our being,” Paul says. Not far away. Not confined to temples. Not dependent on human effort to be found. God is already here, the very ground of our existence.
And yet, even so, God appears to remain unknown to us. There is a strained inner conflict. God is near, and still we do not always see. God is present, and still we search as though reaching into the dark. How can this be?
The transition from a God who is "not far" to a God who "dwells within" is a central theme of the New Testament. Which is why the words of Jesus in John’s Gospel feel so intimate, so necessary. The disciples are facing the loss of his physical presence. They walked with him, listened to him, leaned on him—and now he is telling them he is going away. He reassures them with a promise of presence.
16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you for ever. 17 This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.18 “I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you.
The Spirit is not simply comfort for difficult times, as though God sends reassurance from a distance. The Spirit is the very life of Jesus continuing among his followers. (LTJ) “I will not leave you orphaned.” Jesus is not stepping away and leaving them to manage on their own.
In Acts, God is already near, even when unrecognized. In John, that nearness becomes something known, lived, and experienced through the presence of the Spirit. The distant-seeming Creator becomes the One who makes a home among us.
And perhaps that is where this message hits home. Because we, too, live somewhere between those two realities. There are parts of our lives where we are still searching, still naming things “unknown,” still wondering where God might be found. And there are other moments when we have known God’s presence so clearly that we cannot deny it—moments of peace, of love, of quiet assurance that we are not alone.
Hear the promise of Jesus. “We will come to them and make our home with them.” Not visit. Not appear occasionally. Not check in from time to time. Make our home. God’s presence is not fleeting or fragile. It is not dependent on our ability to hold onto it. It is an abiding, a life that takes root within us and among us.
Our God is the source all life and lives within us every day through the Holy Spirit. If that's the case, then people's views change—even if it's just a little. Everyday things start to mean more. Places you didn't really notice before suddenly matter, and moments that used to seem unimportant can turn into chances to learn or grow. There is nowhere we can go that is outside of God’s presence.
As I preached in the last few weeks, this does not mean life becomes easy or free from trouble. Jesus is clear about that. But he offers something deeper than the absence of difficulty. “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you,” he says. A peace that comes from knowing that God is here, that God remains, that we are held within a presence that does not let us go.
I invite you not to strive harder to find God, as though God were hidden away, but to become more aware of the God who is already near. To notice, in your ordinary daily life —in a quiet morning, a conversation, even in a moment of uncertainty—that “in him we live and move and have our being.”
And perhaps, too, to be honest about those places where God still feels unknown. Not to hide them, but to name them, trusting that even there, God is not far away.
And when the day feels heavy, when strength feels thin, remember that we are not left to manage life on our own. The Spirit has been given—not as an idea, but as a presence. And so even a small prayer becomes enough: “Spirit, be with me here.” The Spirit will come. And at the end of the day, let go of what was done or not done. Return again to Jesus’ promise: “My peace I give to you.” Not earned. Not achieved. Simply received. So go into this week living as though God is already here. Because God is. Amen.