The Gift of His Presence

I often begin my day with a simple prayer: “God, today I pray that you would help me to be aware of your presence.” I find that when I am aware of God’s presence with me, I enjoy a sense of joy and peace despite the circumstances I may be dealing with. I was thinking about this today. Right in the middle of the day, as I was working on a project, I thought about how God is with me. I stopped everything for a moment and just sat still in his presence. I smiled. I love being aware that he is near, that he is with me.

As I thought about this, I was reminded of the prophesy regarding the birth of Christ from Matthew’s account of the gospel. He wrote:

“Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us) (Matthew 1:23, ESV).

The gift that we celebrate at Christmas is the gift of God with us. That is powerful! He is with us. The only question is if we are aware or not. Sometimes our lives rush along at such a frenetic pace that we are not aware that God is near. He is always near but we can miss it in our haste. Today, pray that God would help you to be aware of his presence. Watch for those moments when he reminds you he is near. What an amazing gift!