Here, There and Everywhere!

“Here, There and Everywhere” is a song by the English rock band the Beatles from their 1966 album Revolver. But we also use this phrase to describe a person’s frequent movement…a person who happens to be in most of the places for different occasions. However, a person may be very free with his movement and participation but he can only be at ONE LOCATION OR PLACE AT A TIME!

But this is not so with ‘OUR AWESOME GOD’. The Bible teaches us that GOD IS PRESENT EVERYWHERE AND HE IS NOT LIMITED BY SPACE AND TIME. The words that are used to describe this attribute of God is: God is Infinite and Omnipresent. We learnt last Sunday that God Is Spirit…Therefore, He is not constrained by time and place. He is in Kolkata as much as He is in Japan, Russia, Germany, Canada, & USA at the same time.

In Jeremiah 23:23-24 God makes this truth very clear – “Am I a God who is near,” declares the LORD, “And not a God far off? “Can a man hide himself in hiding places so I do not see him?” declares the LORD “Do I not fill the heavens and the earth?” declares the LORD.

Yahweh is the one who speaks here. He asks three rhetorical questions, each of which anticipates a negative response. First, Yahweh is not simply a local god who is concerned only with Judah. God is also far off—transcendent—concerned with all of creation. Second, there is no place where we can hide that is beyond Yahweh’s seeing. Third, Yahweh does fill heaven and earth. The God who is revealed here is both immanent (present with us) and transcendent (completely beyond us—unknowable except as he chooses to reveal himself).

The people of Judah take great comfort in the covenant that Yahweh established with them, and think of Yahweh as their God and nobody else’s. Yahweh dwells in their temple in their city of Jerusalem. These verses call them to a broader vision of a transcendent God who is present everywhere, not just in the temple—and one who cares for all people and not just the people of Judah.

Our view of God really matters! The atheist wrote: “God is nowhere,” but his little daughter read it: “God is now here.” May we never forget that God’s presence is not only here with us but lives in us and goes with us where we go. Let us not take His presence lightly and for granted.