The God Who Stays
A Mid-Week Essay on Faith, Love, and Home
“Lord, is it true
Nothing separates me from You?
How could it be
After everything that I've put You through?”
(“Abba I Know” by ELEVATION RHYTHM, Tiffany Hudson, & Joe L Barnes)
Lord, Is It True?
What Adam and Eve lost in the Garden in the early chapters of Genesis was more than just a perfect paradise. They lost intimacy with God and each other. They lost presence unhindered by anxiety and insecurity. They lost a vulnerability that wasn’t weaponized in retaliation. They lost the freedom that comes from God-created restraints and, instead, had to endure the consequences of a prodigal independence.
But did anything truly separate Adam and Eve from God after the Fall?
Was God ever not present to Adam and Eve after they ate the apple?
If we believe in God’s omnipresence, then the answer is, no, nothing separated them from God.
If we believe in God’s omnipresence, God has always been present—to Adam and Eve, to Cain and Abel, to all of humanity down through our species’s history into the present day.
Which means that God is present with us.
He is present with you and me and our loved ones and our enemies.
God is present with all of us. Every moment. Of every day.
Which is a bit creepy, actually.
The song “Every Breath You Take” by The Police comes to mind, as does the current surveillance technology that is employed by our multi-national tech behemoths and the world’s various governments.
God’s omnipresence leads us to think about His omniscience. That is: being everywhere for all of the universe’s history brings with it all-knowing-ness as well. God has knowledge of every single data point from the start of the universe to this present moment and on into eternity. Amazing, actually.
But we come back to the fact—or, the belief—that God is present with all of us. Every moment. Of every day.
And, again, we ask the songwriters’ questions: “Lord, Is it true? / Nothing separates me from You? / How could it be / After everything that I've put You through?”
What I’ve Put You Through
Humanity has always struggled. From Adam and Eve’s Fall to our present day. Every family, every generation, every body politic, every society, every economic system, every cultural reality—they all have their severe imperfections.
My faith tradition calls this state of imperfection sin. The word the biblical Hebrew text uses for this reality is the word חַטָּאָה or khata’, which means, according to the Bible Project, a kind of failing or missing the goal. The biblical Greek uses the word ἁμαρτία or hamartia which means something similar: a kind of missing the mark.
There is something to be said for a sociological or historical or ethical or legal study on humanity’s struggle with its own imperfections; how we have missed the mark. But I am not trained in any of those disciplines.
What I do know is how I fall short on a day in, day out basis. I know my imperfections really well.
Like all of us, I’m a work in progress.
But, in knowing my imperfections—my sin—I echo the aforementioned songwriters’ question when they ask, “How could it be / After everything that I’ve put You through?”
I ask that of God.
I ask that of those closest to me.
Maybe you do, too.
Salvation and Healing
“After all my running
Chasing love that wasn't
You come all of sudden
Throw Your arms around me
And oh it must be true
that nothing separates me from You
I know, I know, You love me
You always have
You always will
I know, I know, You love me
When I let go
You hold me still”
In Luke 15, Jesus of Nazareth tells the story of a son who asks for his inheritance while his father is still alive. In that culture, this request was tantamount to wanting the father dead. The father gives the prodigal son his piece of the inheritance, and the son blows his inheritance on worldly consumption, leaving the son broke and destitute. The son returns home, hoping to be taken back as a lowly servant. Instead, the father runs to meet his returning son, embraces the son, lavishes the son with kisses and clothing and jewelry, and then calls for a party—all while restoring the stunned son to his rightful place in the family.
“After all my running
Chasing love that wasn't
You come all of sudden
Throw Your arms around me
And oh it must be true
that nothing separates me from You”
What we thought we lost in Eden has been available to us all along.
We have never been forsaken, even if we have squandered the riches we’ve been given.
Nothing separates us from God.
Nothing.
All we have to do is come home.
To our Father.
To His embrace.
To the blessings that have been ours since the beginning of creation.
To the unconditional love that God has for us all.
“I know, I know, You love me
You always have
You always will
I know, I know, You love me
When I let go
You hold me still
I know, I know
I know, I know
Abba I know, You love me”
May we not just know this reality; may we live this reality.
This love.
This home.
“Abba, I know, You love me.”
May it be so with us.
-KGC
📚