The Presence of God

And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said, Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not. GENESIS 28:16

Jacob’s words at Bethel might stand as a summary of the human condition as Tozer saw it. God is here. He has always been here. And we did not know it. The whole purpose of the spiritual life, in one sense, is to wake up — to become aware of the God in whom we already live and move and have our being, and to live the rest of our days in the conscious enjoyment of His presence.

Everywhere present

Tozer began with the doctrine of the omnipresence of God, which every orthodox Christian confesses. God is not located in one place and absent from another. He fills heaven and earth.

Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. PSALM 139:7–8

That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us: for in him we live, and move, and have our being. ACTS 17:27–28

This, Tozer insisted, is not merely a doctrine to be believed but a fact to be enjoyed. The God who is everywhere is near to every one of us — nearer than our own thoughts. There is no need to travel to find Him, no need to climb up to heaven or to go down to the deep. He is here.

Present and manifest

Yet if God is everywhere, why do so few people know it? Tozer answered by distinguishing between the presence of God and the manifestation of that presence. God is always present. He is not always perceived. The difference lies not in God but in us. In The Pursuit of God he argued that the soul has faculties by which it may know God — capacities for spiritual perception as real as the eyes and ears are for the physical world — but that in fallen man those faculties lie dormant and dulled by sin. The work of the Spirit in regeneration is to awaken them, and the work of a lifetime is to exercise them.

But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. HEBREWS 5:14

The manifest presence of God, then, is not a special visit from a God who is usually absent. It is the believer becoming aware of a God who was there all along. Moses would not go forward without it.

And he said, My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest. And he said unto him, If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence. EXODUS 33:14–15

The veil

What hinders that awareness? Tozer’s answer was characteristically searching. It is not, in the first place, God’s distance, for He is near. Nor is it the barrier of guilt, for in Christ the way into the holiest has been opened. The veil in the temple was torn from top to bottom when Christ died.

Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh. HEBREWS 10:19–20

The hindrance, he argued, is another veil, woven within us: the self-life, with its self-regard, self-confidence, self-pity, self-admiration and all the rest. It hangs between the believer and the conscious enjoyment of God, and it is not removed by instruction. It must be brought to the cross. Tozer did not pretend that this was pleasant. He spoke of it as something that hurts, because the self is not a garment we wear but a part of us, and its removal is felt in the living flesh. But he believed that on the other side lay the thing the heart was made for — an unclouded fellowship with God.

Practising the presence

Tozer loved the old writers who had learned to live with God through the ordinary hours, and he often commended them. Among them was the seventeenth-century Carmelite lay brother known as Brother Lawrence, whose little collection of conversations and letters, The Practice of the Presence of God, taught that the kitchen could be as holy as the chapel for the one who did everything for the love of God. Tozer’s own counsel was similar. Cultivate a habit of inward attention. Turn the heart towards God often through the day. Do not wait for the special hour. God is here now.

I have set the Lord always before me: because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. PSALM 16:8

Weighing it

This is the chapter in which the reader must attend most carefully to the mystical streak in Tozer’s thought. He drew freely on writers of many centuries and traditions — medieval contemplatives such as the anonymous author of The Cloud of Unknowing and Nicholas of Cusa, the Englishwoman Julian of Norwich, the French quietist Madame Guyon, the hymn-writer Frederick Faber and others. Late in life he compiled an anthology, The Christian Book of Mystical Verse, from such sources. He commended them because they wanted God as he wanted God, and that was a real and genuine kinship.

But these writers carry with them doctrines and practices that Tozer did not share and did not always flag. Some spoke of union with God in language that blurs the distinction between Creator and creature. Some taught methods of prayer that aim at emptying the mind rather than filling it with Christ. Some placed private experience above the written Word. Tozer read them as a discerning evangelical, taking what he found true and leaving the rest. Not every reader who follows his recommendations will have his discernment.

The safeguard is simple and scriptural. The presence of God is enjoyed through Christ, by the Spirit, according to the Word. It is not reached by technique, and it does not require the believer to empty his mind or leave his theology at the door.

For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father. EPHESIANS 2:18

Read Tozer on the presence of God with gratitude; he awakens a hunger that is right. Read the mystics he commended, if at all, with the Bible open and your eyes wide.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Wherever you are as you read this, stop and say aloud: Surely the Lord is in this place. Sit quietly for two minutes with that truth.

2. Choose three fixed moments in your ordinary day — a meal, a journey, a task — and use each one to turn your heart deliberately towards God.

3. Ask God to show you one strand of the self-life that stands between you and a conscious sense of His presence. Bring it to the cross.

4. Read Psalm 139 slowly, and give thanks that there is nowhere you can go where God is not.

5. If you read devotional writers from other traditions, test one of them this week against Scripture, and note where you must part company.

A PRAYER

Lord, You are here, and I have not known it. You fill heaven and earth, and I have lived as though You were far away.

Thank You that the veil is torn, and that through the blood of Jesus the way is open. Take away the veil of self that still hangs in me.

Awaken the eyes of my heart. Teach me to turn towards You through all the hours of the day.

Let Your presence go with me, and give me rest. I do not want to go anywhere without You. Amen.