Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Omnipresence

There are three "omni" words traditionally used to define God: omnipotent (all powerful), omniscient (all knowing) and omnipresent (all present).

For most people who subscribe to a belief in the God of Christianity the first two are not that hard. It is pretty easy to believe that God is all powerful after taking in a waterfall or seeing a violent storm. And it is pretty easy to subscribe to the notion that God is all knowing when we see how things turn out in our life and in the lives of others mostly for good.

We tend to have more of a problem with this God being present everywhere thing. I mean it is easy to affirm and say that God is everywhere but we often forget this truth. Or, we simply do not believe it. Or, we believe that God is only present in the four walls of the church. But God is everywhere and that is what omnipresence is all about.

For most of us though we do not stop long enough to see God's presence among us. We don't see God as we rush from appointment to appointment, errand to errand, soccer practice to ballet, email to cell phone and more. How many times do we walk by, drive by, and pass by the presence of God because we are elsewhere?

God is present and working in all the places we find ourselves in. True enough, God is most powerfully experienced through Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit when the community of faith gathers and breaks bread together, but he is also present in all other places.

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