God is always present—but are we living with an awareness of His presence? In Part 2 of When God Feels Far Away, we move from understanding this truth to learning how to experience it in everyday life. Join us as we explore practical ways to cultivate a deeper walk with God and discover the peace, joy, and stability that come from living consciously before His face.

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Welcome to the Fortifying youg Family podcast.

It can be daunting to navigate through an anti marriage and family culture.

Our teacher will expound biblical principles to help fortify our families and keep these sacred institutions strong.

And now, here's this week's teaching from Sam Wood.

So I want to share with you.

I'm going to call these three pillows practicing God's presence.

The first one is awareness.

Setting the Lord always before you.

Awareness.

So this verse that I Read in Psalm 16:8 is a verse I've memorized because it's been so special to me where David said, I've set the Lord before me always because at his right hand I shall not be shaken.

Wow.

David said, I'm going to set God, his awareness of God before my eyes all the time because if I do at his right hand, I can't be shaken.

That's a powerful truth to embrace.

And so David shows us that awareness of God is not accidental, but it's practiced in life by setting God before us so our awareness of God grows.

I'm going to say first through scripture saturation.

Scripture saturation.

And that would include memorization.

The more I set my mind or saturate my mind with the word of God and memorize it, the more the Holy Spirit brings the Word of God to my mind and the more I have an awareness of God.

The more I practice memorizations, saturating my mind, my heart with the Word of God, the more I enable the spirit of God to bring that same word back to me in every situation.

I think that's so good.

You know, I think it was a few years ago when I was.

I was visiting.

Is it the Doyles, Becky's dad and mom.

And he had memorized just several.

A lot of scripture, you know.

And I sat there and I was talking to him and I thought, wow, that's impressive.

I haven't done that.

You know, kind of.

It was very convicting, you know, because you in front of somebody, he said, man, I'm not just memorizing a few verses, I'm memorizing books.

And I think I got this from him.

The Versify app.

Is that.

Did he use that or do you know?

Yeah, Versify.

It's called Versify App.

It's an app you can get on your phone.

I start using that from that Point.

And I memorize Scripture, but I start using that to memorize more scriptures.

A great tool to do that, to keep the word of God saturated in my heart.

Guys, I highly recommend if you want to practice the presence of God in your life, that you take time, you find scriptures that God points out to you, and you start memorizing those scriptures and it'll be there with you continually, all the time.

It's not that hard.

I found myself when I downloaded this app.

I had some verses and sections of scripture that I wanted to memorize.

And I found myself if I was waiting in a doctor's office, pull my phone out and I just start memorizing verses.

You know, you can do it so many times places you can do that, you know, so it's very, very good.

So we awareness grows not only through scripture saturation, but also through seeing God in everything.

I love this.

Seeing God in everything all the time.

I think we should strive to continually see God around us, in all things that exist around us and in all events that happen to us.

Scripture says that we live not as those who are without God in the world, but we are taught by the Scripture to recognize our Father's loving, all pervading presence in everything.

I love what Spurgeon says about this, he eloquently states how Jesus is our example of this.

He says Jesus looked upon the mountains and the sunlight on their brows and said it was a smile of His Father.

He saw the plains and their harvest where his Father's.

He said the plains and the harvest were His Father's bounty to Him.

The waves of the sea were tossed in tempests by his Father's breath or calmed by his Father's whisper.

He fed the multitude, but it was with his Father's bread and he healed the sick.

But the Father did the works in all things about Him.

He continually and distinctly recognized the active presence of the Most High.

This is Jesus, the Son of God.

Other men remarked that the ravens were fed, but he said, your Heavenly Father feedeth them.

Other men noticed that the lilies were fair to look upon, but he discerned that God so clothes the grasses of the field.

The Heavenly Father was in every place and in everything that Jesus saw and did.

Everything in the temple of nature speaks of his glory, but our ears are dull of hearing.

Spurgeon says everything from the dew drop to the ocean reflects the Deity.

And yet we largely fail to see the eternal brightness.

And men, may God help us by his spirit.

That we may always be sensitive to to the presence of God in everything and in everywhere again.

David said, I've set the Lord always before me.

The women met last night, and Debbie talked to them.

And so I had a few hours by myself, and I went by, got a cup of coffee, got in the car, and I said, I just want to get out and get with God.

And it was a beautiful time for me just to, since it's so close, to go down the.

The national park, Joshua national park, and drive in there, pull on the side of the roads and look at the different trees, the rock formations.

Different.

It's so different than Kentucky, right?

You know, and.

But when you look at that, you begin to say, wow, what a God that he.

God loves diversity.

He makes us all look.

We look different here today.

He loves diversity in nature.

And I look at that and say, we ought to see God, everything around us, continually, all the time, if we are aware to look for that.

And so I had some special moments last night, just pulling on the side of the road and reflecting on this and looking at the trees, different trees, the cactuses, the rocks.

And, you know, everywhere you go around this country, I've been all around the world, and it's a different beauty, we might say a different glory that's displayed in nature.

As we look around and see how God displays his glory in creation.

So our awareness of God also grows through recognizing God's providence, recognizing his providence.

You know, Joseph had experienced betrayal by his brothers, false accusation by Pharaoh's wife, but he saw God's hand working in everything that happened to him.

So he said in Genesis chapter 50 and verse 20, he said, as for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good to bring it about that many people should be kept alive as they are today.

So Joseph looked back and he said, all this stuff that happened to me, you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.

This was in the sovereign will of God.

He says that many people might be kept alive as they are today.

Well, he saw the providence of God working in.

In his life.

He was recognizing the providence of God.

And so I ask you, do you see God's providence and his hand working in and through your life?

You know, Pastor Casey mentioned, we just went to Belize, and I thought, when I was thinking about this, I thought, how did we end up in Belize?

I never, you know, I was going regularly.

We've been all over the world, really.

Been to Philippines, been to Trinidad and Tobago, been to India, been to several countries in Africa.

And when Covid hit it, kind of shut that down.

Traveling and all this stuff.

And so after Covid, I kind of prayed and say, God, I don't want to just go somewhere, to go somewhere.

Show me.

I want.

I want to know.

This is you.

So my son in Mississippi, who I'm thankful is a very godly young man, has a friend that has a ministry called Para Ministries.

And he ministers, comes beside pastors, Central America and helps them, equip them and helps them in discipling them and equipping them and whatever the needs may be in Central America, he has real heart for that.

And so he was talking to my son and said, I really need somebody who can come down and train these pastors in family ministry.

They desperately need that.

And so my son obviously just piped up and said, well, that's exactly what my dad does, you know, mom does, you know.

And so he got in touch with me.

We ended up going to Belize, and this all happened.

Was that an accident?

No.

You can look in your life just like what I'm telling you.

And you can see how God works in so many different ways.

If you look, if you look, if you take time to look.

He is working continually in our lives.

And so it's so important that we have this awareness of God that by recognizing his providence.

Let me say fourthly, by delighting in the word, delighting in the Word.

I'm going to add to that through meditation.

Meditation in the Word that leads to delighting in God.

I remind you of the verse in Psalm 1:1 says, Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scorners.

But his delight is in what?

The law of the Lord.

And on his law he meditates day and night.

Notice that this man's supreme pleasure, the supreme delight of his heart, is not in sports.

I love sports.

But his delight is not in sports.

It's not in movies, it's not in recreation, it's not in money.

It's not his career.

It's not in anything of this world or what this world offers.

Where is his pleasure?

What does he delight in?

He delights in the law of the Lord.

The law of the Lord mentioned here is not just the Ten Commandments, it's the word of God.

And we say meditating.

He talks about meditating.

He says, and on his law he meditates day and night.

What does he mean by meditating?

And we could spend a whole nother session just talking about that.

But I love what Matthew Henry says.

About this.

He says, to meditate in God's word is to discourse with ourselves concerning the great things contained in it, with a close application of mind, a fixedness of thought, till we will be suitably affected with those things and experience the savor and power of them in our hearts.

That's a lot to say.

Let me say that one more time.

I think that's so good.

To meditate in God's word is to discourse with ourselves concerning the great things contained in it, with a close application of mind, a fixedness of thought, till we be suitably affected with those things and experience the savor and power of them in our hearts.

This is what Spurgeon says about meditation.

I love this too.

He says, reading the word reaps the wheat.

Meditation threshes it, grinds it, and makes it into bread.

I thought, boy, that's only said as Spurgeon can say it.

I like to say that meditation is when I have had the word of God on my heart so much.

I like to say it's when I began to own it, when I began to lean into it.

When men meditate on God, his greatness begins to humble them, his faithfulness begins to steady them.

His mercy melts them, and his sovereignty certainly strengthens them.

This brings us to the second pillar of practicing God's presence.

And the first one was awareness.

And this one is affection, affection, affection.

And I think affection starts even as David said.

I'll go back to the Psalms again, as David said in Psalm 27:4.

It starts with God being your one thing.

David said this in Psalm 27.

For one thing have I asked of the Lord, that I will seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.

David in Psalm 16:8, says that he has set the Lord always before him, as we've said.

And here he says, the one thing I desire more than anything else is to dwell in the house of the Lord.

Dwelling in the house of the Lord is to continually dwell in God's presence.

That's what he's saying.

David knows that if he sets the Lord before him always, and God is his one thing, one thing have I asked of the Lord, he says, and I'll seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.

David knows if he sets the Lord before him and God is his one thing, he cannot be shaken by anything.

Wow.

And as men of God, we need to not be shaken because we have set the Lord before us.

Because God is our One thing.

And David continues in Psalm 16.

I read it a while ago in verse 11, and I love this verse too.

He says, you make known to me the path of life.

You make known to me the path of life.

In your presence there's fullness of joy.

At your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

You hold my right hand, you guide me with your counsel, and afterward you receive me to glory.

Whom have I in heaven but you?

And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.

There is nothing on earth that he says I desire besides you.

You are my one thing.

This affection is not emotional hype that he's talking about.

It's truth ignited by the Holy Spirit of God.

Jonathan Edwards said this.

Religious affections arise from clear apprehensions of truth.

A true sense of the loveliness of Christ is the spring of all holy affection.

I love that.

Edwards relentlessly argues that orthodoxy without affection is dead and that the Spirit awakens the heart to delight in God's beauty.

Augustine said it this way.

You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.

You.

Calvin then said.

He said, we shall never properly worship God unless we have been persuaded that he is a fountain of all goodness.

Then I love this, what Tim Keller says.

He says, knowing God is when the truth overflows the mind into all the rest of you, your rationality goes ballistic.

You can't keep it inside of you.

The truth moves you from something you understand to something you stand under.

Knowing God is truth becoming radioactive.

Then Keller says, you don't really control your life by willpower.

You control it by what you love.

You are what you love.

It's so important we have that affection for God.

Christian growth is not merely learning to obey God more consistently, but learning to love him more deeply.

For what captivates your heart ultimately will command your life.

So not only do we practice the presence of God through awareness of him, through affection for him, but also thirdly through action, obeying God in the moment.

Awareness and affection must eventually lead to obedience or they remain incomplete.

Joseph fled temptation from Potiphar's house because he knew in practice God's omnipresence.

Genesis 39:9 says, he is not greater in this house than I am.

Nor has he kept back anything from me.

Talking about Potiphar, he's there.

And when he's being tempted because you are his wife, how then he says to Potiphar's wife.

How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?

Proverbs 15 in verse 3 says, the eyes of the Lord are in every place, keeping watch, keeping watch on the evil and the good.

I love what AW Tozer says.

He says the most profound word in the dictionary is God.

The most profound fact God is.

The most profound experience is, God is here, guys.

God is here.

Right now.

God is here.

It's not enough to be deep in theology and distant in experience.

Every temptation should be a reminder God is here.

Every frustration should be a reminder to us that God is here.

Every conversation with your wife or someone else should be a reminder to you that God is here.

Every parenting moment should be a reminder to you.

God.

God is there.

He's here.

Every thought, every click, every desire is a reminder God is here.

So important.

So important.

I thought years ago, how do I impress this upon my kids?

I've got four sons.

Hard to believe.

My oldest is.

Will be 45 years old this year, and my youngest will be 39.

And I told my son, I can remember Josh when he turned 16 years old.

And I was thinking to myself, how can I impress upon him God is here?

The omnipresence of God.

And he got his driver's license.

And I said, josh, listen.

I said, I can't be with you everywhere you go.

I said, I won't know everything you do, but I know someone who sees everywhere you go.

And I know someone who sees everything you do.

And I have asked God to reveal to me everywhere you go.

And I've asked God to reveal to me everything you do.

He said, dad, that doesn't sound fair.

Sounds like you're using God as a peeping Tom.

I said, I'm just trying to let you know that God sees everything.

And I can remember in.

In months after that or something, he would go somewhere.

Never did anything that bad, but he'd go somewhere maybe he shouldn't have went or do something he shouldn't have done, and God would reveal it.

And I was trying to teach him and impress upon him the fact that God is here.

And everywhere you go, everything you do, God is there.

That's so, so important.

The fear of the Lord.

There's great confidence.

The Bible says, and this is part of walking, certainly a big part of walking in the fear of God, practicing God's presence.

I would call it integrated holiness.

Living rightly, because God is here.

So what are some habits?

I wrote down some habits that I've tried to have for practicing God's presence to implement what I'm sharing with you here this morning.

The first habit I've tried to implement is practicing the presence of God as the first being the first thing in the morning.

That is Scripture.

Before this, scripture before my phone, scripture before tv, scripture before anything else, I try to make God that priority.

First, I want God to be the first voice I hear in the morning.

And before I go to sleep at night, I want God to be the last voice I hear.

Certainly my wife is going to hear my voice in the morning.

My wife is going to hear my voice at night.

But listen, we can hear the voice of God together, even through praying together before we go to bed and praying together when we get up in the morning.

So important a second habit is practicing the presence of God throughout the day.

And how do I do that?

I try to do something.

I would call them arrow prayers.

Maybe I remind you of 1st Thessalonians 5, 17, where it says, pray without what?

Ceasing.

So I really try to make it a habit throughout the day of continually.

What is prayer?

It's talking to God and listening to God.

Right?

And so I found myself there today.

Lord, I don't know what to do in this situation.

Help me.

I need your help, Lord.

Give me understanding, Lord.

Strengthen me right now, Lord.

Thank you.

I'm so blessed.

Thank you for all you've done.

It's a continual conversation throughout the day.

You may be.

How many of you are familiar with a guy named Brother Lawrence?

Anybody heard of him before?

He wrote a little booklet called Practicing the Presence of God and he was a monk.

But he wrote this little book that has been widely acclaimed.

And he emphasizes the simple, loving attention of God.

Not through long prayers.

He said, I do not pray long prayers.

That's not to say it's anything wrong with praying long prayers.

I speak to God, he says very often, but very briefly.

He described prayer as a quiet, inward look toward God repeated throughout the day, much like glancing at.

At a beloved companion while working side by side.

I love that.

It's like my wife and she's sitting beside me and we just have a conversation continually.

I love my wife.

You love your.

Your wife, you love your.

Your kids.

It's.

It's having a conversation because I love her.

Continually through the day.

I have a conversation continually.

I talk to God, listen to God, and I am continually conversing with him throughout the day.

He described prayer as a quiet, inward look toward God repeated throughout the day.

Again, much like glancing at a companion that you so love.

Another habit is practicing God.

The presence of God in ordinary task.

And again, this is something going back to Brother Lawrence.

He worked primarily as a kitchen assistant, performing repetitive and awful, often menial labor, same things over and over again.

Rather than seeing this as spiritual hindrance, he viewed it as a training ground for communion with God.

He said this while others sought God in silence and solitude.

Lawrence found him while scrubbing pots, preparing meals and serving others.

He insisted that God's presence was as real at the stove as it is at the altar.

I thought, wow.

Brother Lawrence believed that practicing the presence of God is not adding religious activity to daily life, but inviting God into the ordinary moments that already feel life.

I mean, he used the illustration of when I'd wash the pans.

I think about the purity of God and how that we need to be washed with the word of God.

He would bring God into all these ordinary daily tasks.

You know, the workplace, guys in the workplace, in the garage, on the base.

I know many military here, the kitchen, the commute back and forth, become holy ground.

When lived in coram dio, that is realizing God's presence is there.

You can listen if you're a parent, you can change diapers, you can drive to work, you can send emails, you can mow.

Well, you don't mow the yard here, rake the yard.

You know, you can do all these different things for the glory of God.

Another habit is practicing the presence of God through evening reflection.

And I asked myself two questions.

Where did I see God working in my life today?

Where did I see him working in my life today?

Then the second question is, where did I ignore God today?

Where did I ignore him today?

Evening reflection.

I believe practicing these daily habits, or the I'll call them daily rhythms in my life, build a continual awareness of God in my life.

And these, I think this can become very, very practical when we apply it this way.

And I think this matters, guys, because, guys, if you do not practice God's presence, you will drift spiritually.

You'll fall morally, you'll lead inconsistently, you'll become reactionary, you'll live anxiously, and you can become very spiritually numb.

But when you practice his presence, temptations around you lose their power.

Fear loses its grip.

Anxiety fades away.

Courage rises up.

Holiness grows in your life.

Leadership becomes natural.

Worship becomes real.

Family fills your spiritual strength, and you become a God.

Fearing man.

Practicing the presence of God, I believe, is essential to being the man that God wants us to be.

The conclusion in Ecclesiastes of Solomon, he said, I'll give you the conclusion of the whole matter.

He says, fear God and obey his commandments.

Wow.

And that's foundational.

If we want to be the spiritual head of our wife, we want to be the spiritual head of our home.

Anything we do, we definitely need to practice the presence of God in our life.

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