Help, I Don’t Think About God

There are times in life that are special, sacred, holy. The birth of a child. A graduation. A wedding. An extra special sunrise. These times leave us feeling awe, and we tuck them away in our hearts as special memories to look back on with fondness and reverence.

Most of the time, however, life is rather mundane. We go through the rhythms and ruts of our days, waking up, going to work or school, coming home, and having time with family and friends interspersed to break up the monotony. It can all seem rather, well, for lack of a better term, boring. We get wrapped up with day-to-day duties, obligations, and necessities, and sometimes we can go a whole day or more before we realize we may not have even given God a thought.

While there are extra holy moments with God, when we feel the divine presence closer than our breath, the reality is very ordinary most of the time. In these ordinary times, it’s easy to let our thoughts of God get crowded out by the cares of the world, the urgency of what’s in front of us, and the regular interactions we have all day long.

Our spirituality can’t thrive on the sprinkling of intense, supernatural moments we experience throughout our lives. Our faith needs to be fed constantly, and if we go chasing after spiritual experiences and mountaintop moments, we will quickly find ourselves lost and spiritually starving. But if we don’t connect with God throughout our day, we can quickly feel as if there is a distance between us and heaven.

So, what can we do? How can we keep our close feeling with God when ordinary times can leave us seemingly not even thinking about God? How can we take captive our thoughts and keep God at the forefront of our thinking?

Well, maybe we don’t have to.

God’s presence doesn’t depend on our awareness of God. God is always with us, in us, around us. God goes before us, and God is our rear guard (Isaiah 58:8). God is, and since God is with no qualifications or conditions, God is with us.

This is good news for those of us (all of us) who seem to lose that special feeling of holiness that a morning devotion can give us. No matter how we feel or what we are aware of, God’s with us. Paying bills? God’s there. Raising kids? God is there. Going to work, school, bed? God is there. From the rising of the sun to its setting, the Lord is with us.

Now, there are some things we can cultivate to help us remember this reality. They may seem ordinary and not very spiritual, but that’s the beauty about practicing the presence of God: it’s an earthy thing to do, something we do in the reality of our day-to-day, earthly lives. We don’t have to go to a cave in the wilderness or a chapel in the forest to remember the presence of God. We can remember wherever we are because God’s already there.

First, find something that reminds you of God and keep it where you will touch it in your day.
I keep prayer beads in my pocket. Whenever I reach in my pocket to get something, I feel the prayer beads, and they remind me that God’s breath is here, God’s Spirit is in me, and I am walking with God here and now, in the middle of the ordinary.

Second, when you feel crowded, rushed, pushed to the limit, stressed out, take a breath and say the name “Jesus” as you exhale.
It’s a good prayer. This one can take some practice to remember to do regularly, but it’s worth it. It calls to mind the Presence of God in Jesus as the incarnation, helping us remember Jesus brought the reality of God’s presence in a tangible way into this world. God’s presence is still here; it always has been.

Finally, look at people as the image of God.
You interact with the Imago Dei, God’s image, every time you speak, touch, look at, or remember a human. We all have a spark of the holy in us, and God chooses to capture that holy spark in God’s very image. It’s a good reminder that God is near if we see God’s image almost everywhere we look.

Take heart! We all forget about God in our days.
You’re not a failure or somehow less of a saint because your mind gets occupied with things other than God. You are human, bearing the image of God and walking in God’s presence whether you remember it or not. Use these practices to remind yourself of this reality and see if remembering God is with you doesn’t help feed your faith.