Learning to Seek God's Presence

In this interview with Rose Colon, we discuss how we can come to know God intimately in our daily life to enjoy a victorious Christian life.

Mike: Rose Colon has joined me in the studio. Rose is the director of Women's Counseling. Rose, it's good to see you again.

Rose: It's good to be here Mike.

Mike: Rose, as we continue our discussions in Living in Victory, today we want to talk about something that ought to be a reality to all of us as Christians. And what we're talking about is seeking, knowing and loving God. It seeks obvious that we ought to know God, but when you really start think about it, it begs the question, "How can we know God?"

Rose: Some of the ways that we can come into a knowledge of God is first by praying. I think about Paul. Paul shared in Philippians 3, verse 10: "that I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death." You see that the desire of Paul’s heart was to know God. We can pray and ask God for that desire to really come into a knowledge of Him. We can be like the saints of old who came into a great knowledge of who their God was, and of what His heart is for people, what His heart is for the world.

Mike: I think of Brother Lawrence when you talk about saints of old. For those who may not know who Brother Lawrence is, talk a little bit about His life, and what we learn from His life.

Rose: Brother Lawrence is really a wonderful example. This is a man that learned to look for God wherever he was. He worked in a kitchen, and he learned to see God in everything that he did throughout the day. He would turn to God in his heart, and he would just worship the Lord, or thank the Lord, or just acknowledge Him in his heart throughout the day. He looked for ways that he could practice being in the presence of God. Whether through worship, through repentance, having a grateful heart, or seeing a bird on the windowsill when he was washing dishes and just thanking the Lord for creation, and how He provides for the birds. You know, he was just in that mindset. To Brother Lawrence God was everywhere, and God was there in Him. He could turn to Him at any time if He wanted to in His heart.

Mike: Yeah, he wrote “The Practice of the Presence of God.” It's not a how to book, but I'd encourage our listeners to read it if they haven’t. It's a little booklet, it doesn't take long to read through it.

Rose: Yes, it's a great book.

Mike: But it isn't a how to book. It's his experience of how he came to know God in his day-to-day life. As we're talking about that, I'm thinking about where we are in our time of human history now. It seems like the greatest tool that the enemy uses against us, is just to distract us from the things of God. He doesn't want us to know God.

Rose: He distracts us with so many things. The cares of the day or with what's going on in the world. Our mind sometimes is bombarded with so many thoughts that you can't find God anywhere. You just see it's a fight. It's a battle to maintain the reality that God is with me. God is present.

Mike: And we have to do practical things in our lives. One thing I’ve done is I’ve bemoaned this fact to the Lord, "I'm not close to you Lord, I just don't feel like I know you very well." I can moan about that all day long, but if I don't take practical action in my life to the extent that we can get rid of those things that come between me and knowing the Lord, then I'm not going to see any improvement in that area.

Rose: Right, we have to do our part. We can cry out to the Lord, and we can make choices throughout the day about what to feed our spirit man with. For example, we can listen to praise and worship. We can get into the word of God and meditate on who God is and His faithfulness. Or we can recount His faithfulness in our lives. I've spoken before about a gratitude book. It means just writing out things that you're thankful for, how God has provided and met your need, or just intervened in some way. These are just little things we can do that help us to get us focused on God and the things of God.

Mike: I know one of my great struggles over the years has been at the end of many of my days, well, I'm just tired. It's so much easier for so many, unfortunately, to go home and just sit in front of a TV. We even justify that. "Well, I'm tired and I just what to relax," we say. But we need to think about not only what are we allowing to go into us by doing that, but that we're missing an opportunity to spend time with the Lord and get to know Him.

Rose: Yes. I think about the Lord, how He must feel. Knowing that He created us to have that intimacy and fellowship with Him, and how He must feel to see us choosing other things. And meanwhile His heart is yearning to be with us, alone with us, somewhere intimate with us! Yet we look to other things, because we think, "Oh, this is what I need right now. I just need to relax, or kick back or whatever."

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Mike: Well, you really are leading us into what we want to talk about next. I'll present it this way in a question. As we get to know God, as we spend time in the Word of God, we learn about who He is, how He is, and how He interacts with His people. You used the word intimate. How does that knowledge become an intimate union with Him?

Rose: One of the things I think we need to realize comes from John 17. When Jesus prayed, He prayed that we would be one as He and the Father are one. Also that we would be in the reality that He is in us, and we are in Him. It's kind of like the intimate union between a husband and wife. That oneness, where there's one will, one passion, one desire.

Mike: At least that's what it's supposed to be.

Rose: That's what it's supposed to be right, exactly. It's a picture of our relationship with the Lord, how God wants to be with us. He wants to be as intimate with us as a married couple are where we're so one with Him. I think of when Jesus was here, He said, "I only think the thoughts that my father wants me to think. I only do what my Father wants me to do. I only say what my father wants me to say" (John 12:49, John 5:19). And that's the kind on union, the kind of intimacy, the kind of knowing that God wants us to have.

Mike: Oh, how I long for that.

Rose: Me too.

Mike: If He would just zap us and make it happen.

Rose: I know, but it seems like the zap's not coming Mike.

Mike: No, but one day I believe it is. We're going to get zapped one day.

Rose: Yeah, we've just got to hold on until then.

Mike: But this doesn't come by just going to church on Sunday or Wednesday.

Rose: No, no.

Mike: If that's our Christian life, we are going to sorely miss this kind of intimacy with the Lord.

Rose: Yes, there's so much more. I mean, I love where I live. Where I live, we have about 10 or 11 acres. And we have a small house on the property, there’s about three acres that are cleared. But I love when the weather gets really nice because we have a deck in the back, and it’s nothing but trees.

Mike: It is beautiful.

Rose: I just love to sit there and get quiet before the Lord whenever I can. Especially when I get restless or busy or maybe I was stressed out all day. That’s a time where I can go and a place where I can go, where it’s just me and the Lord. I think about my husband; he has a spot down in the woods where it’s just Him and the Lord. That’s his place to go. And you need that! I don’t know how you can function from going to church on Sunday, and then getting a fill up on Wednesday, when there’s so many things we go through and pressures throughout the week! We can’t survive or find God or be with God by just giving Him those two days in the week.  We should be looking for times throughout the day where we can steal away to be with Him. Alone with Him.

Mike: Yeah, and I think part of the problem is our perspective on that. As you just said, we look at it too often as, “how do I get through the week?” We live for the weekend in America. As opposed to, my purpose for being on this earth is to know Him, have a relationship with Him, and share that wonderful relationship with others. That’s the way we ought to be viewing our lives, but we don’t see it that way. That’s why we don’t put the effort that we ought to into this relationship with Him.

Rose: Right.

Mike: Unfortunately, Rose, that’s all the time we have for today, we’ll have to finish this up next week. Thanks so much for talking to us about seeking, knowing and loving God.

Rose: You’re welcome Mike.