What Does the Presence of God Feel Like?

Let me start by saying that the ‘presence of God’ is a massive topic, and there is no way this 1,000-word devotional in your inbox today can answer this. But, because you signed up, I’m going to attempt to give you what you signed up for and try! 

I hope it is helpful for you to begin to name what it feels like when God draws near (James 4:8).

In order for prayer to truly be a relationship, where we are doing more than talking to but actually experiencing a God who is talking back to us, we must do the work to name: what does God feel like? How do I know that He is drawing near? What does His presence feel like? And can my prayer life move from me talking to the air to a give-and-take where I can feel God responding to me? 

Teresa of Avila describes the presence of God like this:

Love accompanied by delight. As I have read through the heroes of prayer of the past few centuries, one common theme has emerged in their experience of prayer: God’s presence feels like joyful love. Teresa of Avila speaks of this “love accompanied by delight.” Dr. Frank Laubach says that he “aches with bliss.” Brother Lawrence describes being “filled with joys so continual.”

And this isn’t new! The apostle Peter himself names some of the dynamics of what it feels like to experience a God that we cannot see. He describes this same joy-love connection:

In the context of this quote, Teresa encourages her readers that the gift of God’s presence cannot be earned, only received. I want to encourage us, if we have not felt this joyful love from God in a long time or even never — all we can do is wait and receive. But He is faithful to give if we are faithful to show up!

Whenever we talk about emotions in our prayer lives, I’m aware that a myriad of things can come up. I’d love to invite us to take a moment to reflect, and maybe even invite the Holy Spirit to heal our hearts on a deeper level today to make space for God’s emotions to break through into our hearts.

What is your relationship to your emotions? Do you mostly trust your emotions or are you mostly skeptical of your emotions? Do you tend towards shaming or being afraid of your emotions, or do you tend towards the other end of the spectrum — putting your emotions in the driver’s seat of your life?

And then when it comes to emotions in our prayer lives, there’s a whole host of things that can surface. I find that whatever our relationship is with our emotions in general tends to be amplified when we navigate emotions in our relationship with God.

If we are mostly skeptical of emotion, we will probably be even more skeptical of emotion in our prayer life. If we tend towards overindulgence, shame, or fear of our emotions, then we will probably overindulge, be ashamed of, or be afraid of, emotions in our prayer lives. In addition to this, we’ve got to name if our emotions have been manipulated in church environments or by pastoral leaders which can make it even harder to have a healthy relationship with our emotions in our relationship with God. If that is you, all I can say is that I am so, so sorry.

As Pete Scazzero often argues, spiritual depth and emotional maturity are inseparable, and I believe that a huge part of this is because God longs to meet us in our emotions. God is not an emotionless, distant deity, but He actually feels feelings! We are not deists who believe in a stoic and absent god, but rather Christ-followers who believe that God took on flesh and wept (Luke 19:41, John 11:35, Hebrews 5:7), anguished (Luke 22:44), and rejoiced (Luke 10:21), and still does today — and deeply longs to invite us in, that we would be with Him where He is (John 17:24). And, one of the most frequent ways that He invites us in is through the emotion of joyful love — because that is how He feels about us.

If we are to cultivate a dynamic connection to the resurrected man Jesus, then emotions are a non-negotiable part of the equation. Yet, because of the effects of the Fall, our relationship with our emotions can tend towards brokenness. But I believe God wants to heal our hearts — even right now — even by breaking through our funk, emotional disconnection and malaise, and the storm of emotions — with His joyful love for us. Often, the pathway to emotional healing in prayer is to discover that God is not afraid of or ashamed of our emotions (or lack thereof), rather He loves us with a joyful love, even in our weakness, no matter what we may be feeling.

I believe one of the great privileges of cultivating a prayer life over many years is that we get to become friends with God. The great privilege of Christian prayer is that we get to know the heart of God — how He feels about us, our families and communities, and the world. And the way His heart is mediated is often through the language of the heart — emotions.

Reflect today:

1. What is your relationship with your emotions? Disconnection, skepticism, trust, shame, fear, balance, or overindulgence?

2. What is your relationship with emotions in your prayer life? Disconnection, skepticism, trust, shame, fear, balance, or overindulgence? Have you experienced emotional manipulation in church environments or by church leaders?

3. What could it look like to position yourself to receive the joyful love of God today?

Lord, would you heal my emotions today? Would you take me on the journey of learning to feel Your heart? I position my heart today to receive the gift of love accompanied by delight.

Best,

Ryan

P.S. Always feel free to hit “reply” to let me know if this is helpful or if you’d like to respectfully disagree 😀