Scripture: "Certainly I will be with thee."—Ex. iii. 12.
The first thought of man in his conception of a God is that of power, however limited. The first thought of the true God is His omnipotence: "I am God Almighty." The second thought in Scripture is His omnipresence. God ever gave His servants the promise of His unseen presence with them. To His "I am with thee," their faith responded: "Thou art with me." When Christ had said to His disciples, "All power is given unto Me in heaven and on earth," the promise immediately fol¬lows, "I am with you always." The Omnipotent One is surely the Omnipresent One.
The writer of Psalm cxxxix. speaks of God's omnipresence as something beyond his comprehension: "Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it."
The revelation of God's omnipresence in the man Christ Jesus makes the mystery still deeper. It also makes the grace that enables us to claim this presence as our strength and our joy something unexpressibly blessed. And yet how many a servant of Christ when the promise is given him, finds it difficult to understand all that is implied in it, and how it can become the practical experience of his daily life.
Here, as elsewhere in the spiritual life, everything depends upon faith, accepting Christ's word as a divine reality, and trusting the Holy Spirit to make it true to us from moment to moment. When Christ says "always" (Gr. "all the days"), He means to give us the assurance that there is not to be a day of our life in which that blessed presence is not to be with us. And that "all the days" implies "all the day." There need not be a moment in which that presence cannot be our experience. It does not depend upon what we can effect, but upon what He undertakes to do. The omnipotent Christ is the omnipresent Christ, the ever-present is the everlasting, the unchangeable One. As sure as He is the unchangeable One will His presence, as the power of an endless life, be with each of His servants who trusts Him for it.
Our attitude must be that of a quiet, restful faith, of a humble, lowly dependence, in accordance with the word: "Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him."
"Lo, I am with you alway." Let our faith in Christ, the Omnipresent One, be in the quiet confidence that He will every day and every moment keep us as the apple of His eye, keep us in perfect peace, and in the sure experience of all the light and the strength we need in His service.
