Remaining in God’s Presence

When we make something, it is for a purpose. God, who is the Creator, created us for a purpose. What is that purpose? God loves me and created me out of love. However, He does not merely want us to live as mere objects; rather, He raises us to a higher, supernatural state of being. In short, God wants us to share in His life. He wants us to live His very life: ‘For indeed, divine power has granted us everything necessary for life and godliness through his own glory and his working power. Through this, the most precious gifts have been granted to us so that through them you may enter into communion with the divine nature’ (2 Peter 1:3–4). The Second Vatican Council also states: ‘Man’s greatest dignity is communion with God’. So, God loves us so much that he wants us to live with him. All the gifts of this earth have been granted to us to help us live with God.

Unfortunately, in this world, there are people who live without knowing or realising why God created them. They live without seeking God’s company. There are even some who consciously commit acts that distance them from God. They make a choice, preferring to seek their own satisfaction whilst remaining far from God. Normally, a student who does not prepare at all for an exam cannot pass. We have an exam to sit when we die: the Final Judgement. Those who pass this exam will remain eternally in God’s presence. So, now is the time to seek God’s presence. Yet, when many do seek God, it is mainly to make requests. They want God’s gifts, not the God of the gifts. They are particularly interested in what God will give them, rather than in God Himself; and that is why, when many do not receive what they expect from God, they abandon Him, falter in their faith and give up their Christian commitment.

To seek God’s company, we must allow ourselves to be won over by him, as it is written: ‘You have won me over, Lord, and I have let myself be won over’ (Jer 20:7). There are times in our lives when we feel God’s consolation. Thus, some people could never willingly miss a retreat because God has captivated them and consoles them. When God captivates us, we eagerly seek his company. St Paul, after his experience on the road to Damascus, no longer wanted to live without Jesus. The Letter to the Hebrews says: ‘For we have indeed become Christ’s companions’ (Heb 3:14). We must pray, ask God, and say to him: ‘Please, Lord, captivate me, captivate me again, so that I may fall in love with you, so that I may fall in love with you all over again’.

When we love someone, we seek their company. The lack of a good prayer life among so many today is evidence of a lack of love for God: ‘But I know you; you do not have the love of God within you’ (Jn 5:42). When someone says, ‘I don’t pray any more’, they mean, ‘I no longer love God’; when they say, ‘I find it difficult to pray’, they mean, ‘I find it difficult to love God’. So when I do not love God very much, I get bored in his presence. We normally get bored in the company of a stranger, not knowing how to strike up a conversation with them. But with a true friend, we can spend hours chatting. God’s true friends spend a great deal of time with him without getting bored. If I love God, the logical consequence is that I seek his presence and his company. Not just to ask him for things, but beyond making requests, to seek his presence: ‘The upright shall dwell in your presence’ (Ps 140:14). Anyone who loves God will set aside time for: prayer, adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, meditation on the Word of God, the sacraments, and so on. Jesus asks us to be united with him if we are to bear fruit (Jn 15:5). Sin is the result of turning away from God. The success of evangelisation is assured by the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit works powerfully through a person who prays and lives in the company of God. Pope John Paul II said in his Encyclical on the Holy Spirit: ‘The most common means by which the Holy Spirit manifests himself is prayer’ (Dominum et vivificantem). When internal problems increase within a Christian community, when zeal for evangelisation wanes within a group, this is evidence that the leaders or even the members are no longer praying enough; they no longer seek God’s company to any great extent, but rather that of other people. If we seek God’s company, we are good disciples of Jesus.

Henri Bayemi