As I was pondered my question about how to access Jesus’ treasures of wisdom and knowledge, it became so obvious to me that the answer was friendship. Jesus himself was the way I was seeking.1
Direction is a person, I realized. Direction is a real, tangible, palpable place. Whatever I am doing, wherever I am, I am His locality at this present moment. If I struggle with how to move ahead in life, with hope, or with peace… the way I desire to go, the truth I need, and the life I seek is with me now. His name is Jesus, and He loves me.
To be in the same place as Direction, I began to cultivate an awareness of His presence with me, enjoying His friendship by becoming aware of him with me in every facet of my every daily life, not just in a building or at a set time, but everywhere, all the time.
I started by asking. “Holy Spirit, let me become more aware of your presence! Let me experience the glory of your goodness!2”
He answered immediately. I felt His love bubbling up in my heart, washing away pain, accompanied by a physical heat, and a cool, refreshing presence resting on my body, like snow on a tree in winter. I was thankful! This overflow of the moment was a state of being; not a word was spoken, and He knew.
In this moment of gratitude, I found Him manifesting His love and presence in me even more powerfully! I was overwhelmed with delight! How wonderful it was, experiencing His love! The feeling itself was God loving me! The sheer delight I had was itself an ecstatic overflow of praise, and Jesus met it with a further intensification of His love, ushering me past His courts into His most intimate counsel – it was as if I was in the bridal chamber of the Lord himself! I didn’t know what to do! What a gift!
A tear of His love became a stream, and that stream of His love became a torrent sweeping me out into the ocean of Jesus’ unending depths.3 I was lost in Love! Undone by Goodness! He is glorious!
This happened at work, with people around me!
With thanksgiving we come into His presence. Praise ushers us into His courts.4 A life of perpetual gratitude towards Him naturally overflows into praise, locking us into God-consciousness and a deep, continual experience of His present with us.
The good news is, we are always in His presence because we live and move and have our being inside of Him.5 There is no “work” we can do to “earn” God; we cannot “get ourselves into His presence.” No one can boast in Love being something attained to!6 The only thing that can be boasted in is God Himself,7 who loves us and gave Himself for us.8 He permanently joined humanity to Himself in Jesus!9 Look, if He is the vine and we are the branches, how can we possibly not be with Him?10
As I began cultivating this awareness of the Lord, I found that He was absolutely delighted I was coming to Him in such a continual manner, especially at work! He loves being a part of our everyday lives!
Jesus began teaching me how He would prioritize tasks at work,11 and with Him I began to enjoy and have fun with what before was both a boring and laborious job. It was much easier than when I was unaware of Him. Joy radiates from Jesus.12 I found His joy to be a grace that strengthened me and made me happy.13 Who doesn’t like being around genuinely cheerful people? His joy is our strength!14
In the midst of this newfound happiness in my work-life with Emmanuel,15 I opened a podcast and found an insight into the Gospel that took me much deeper into His answer to my question than I expected.
“The Spirit searches even the depths of God,”16 and He was taking me down deep. At least, deeper than I had ever been!
“He opened their minds to the scriptures….”17
A Prayer:
“O Father, my Father, let me become more aware of your presence, and let me experience the glory of your goodness, here, now, within and upon me.”
Footnotes:
- John 14:6
- Holy Spirit, song by Bryan and Katie Torwalt https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0q47ZL-YIs
- Jeanne Guyon, Spiritual Torrents
- Ps 100:4, 95:2
- Acts 17:28
- Eph. 2:8-9
- Jer. 9:23-4
- Gal. 2:20
- 1 Cor. 6:17
- Jn. 15:5
- Is 48:17
- Ps. 45:7
- Ps. 16:11
- Nh. 8:10
- Is. 7:14
- 1 Cor. 2:10
- Lk. 24:45
