God’s Omnipresence is Good News for Teenagers
This is the first of a monthlong series about teaching youth the attributes of God. We believe it’s important to teach students about God. That should be a no-brainer. But it’s surprisingly easy to never teach clearly about the attributes of God. You can read YPT’s other articles about the attributes here.
Who or what is a constant presence in your students’ lives? If you ask your students this question (perhaps you might even put it in their language and ask, “What lives rent free in your mind?”), you might receive answers that include social media, the pressure to keep up, their anxiety, their current obsession, or an embarrassing moment that they can’t stop thinking about.
What if your students could also know and rest in God as a constant presence in their lives? The Scriptures teach the doctrine of God’s omnipresence - which is a word theologians use to mean that God is all (omni-) present. God is present everywhere.
Amidst all the noise and hardships of the teens years, God’s omnipresence is a doctrine that can anchor students in the rocky seas of adolescence.
How Does the Bible Teach God’s Omnipresence?
There are two elements to God’s omnipresence: transcendence and immanence.
First, the Scriptures teach that God is transcendent – he is not bound by space, but rather is Lord over all space. For example, in 1 Kings 8:27, Solomon prays, “But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you; how much less this house that I have built!” No space can contain God, no matter how large it is. Because we are used to thinking in terms of spatial dimensions, we may just want to think of God as very big, but the reality is that he is infinite and immense and exists without spatial dimensions.
Second, the Scriptures teach that God is immanent – he is present within all his creation with his whole being. Psalm 139:7-8 teaches that there is nowhere we can go where God is not present. Jeremiah 23:24 reminds us that we cannot hide from God, again implying that God is present everywhere. The passage also points to the truth that God fills every part of space with his entire being. In other words, God isn’t just “spread out” across all space so that part of him is here and another part of him is over there. All of his fullness is present everywhere.
These two truths may feel at odds with each other - that God transcends space and yet is present within all of it - but the Bible holds both of them together (see Isaiah 57:15).
Applications for Students’ Lives
The doctrine of God’s omnipresence has multiple applications for the lives of our students. It is both a comforting and sobering doctrine, as well as one that evokes worship and joy.
Because God is present everywhere, we are never alone
When your students feel lonely, they can be encouraged by the truth that they are never truly alone, no matter where they are or how they feel. God’s omnipresence is good news for them in their struggles and hardships, too. In fact, when we are suffering, what we most need is not answers about why we are suffering, but a person to be with us in our suffering. God is with us in all our suffering, and his presence comforts, sustains, and blesses us.
God’s everywhere-presence is also a sobering reality
We cannot hide our sin from God, because there is nowhere to hide from him. What are your students trying to hide from others, from themselves, and from God? Their attempts to hide may work with others, but they cannot work with God. God sees, and he invites us to come into the light.
God’s omnipresence is awesome and beyond us
He transcends space, and he is everywhere at all times. Especially when you think about the size of all God’s creation (not just earth!), that’s hard for our finite minds to grasp. Rather than trying to grasp it, it calls us to stand in awe of the God who is far beyond us.
God’s omnipresence is one of his incommunicable attributes
This means we do not reflect this the way that we reflect some of God’s other attributes. We cannot be omnipresent. We can only be in one place at one time. However, especially with the advent of technology, we are often tempted to attempt to reflect God’s omnipresence. We try to be in more than one place at once - with our physical bodies present in one room, while also attending to people and things elsewhere via technology. Talk with your students about how we were made with limits and meant to be present in one place at one time. Help them to notice the ways they are tempted to be present in more than one place at a time, and discuss the effects that has had on them and others.
Finally, if I were talking about God’s omnipresence with students, I would also want to point out to them that it’s not just that God is present with us, but he wants to be present with us. This is a theme we see throughout the Scriptures, beginning with God dwelling with his people in the Garden of Eden, followed by God dwelling with his people through the tabernacle and temple in the Old Testament. It is seen clearly in Jesus (John 1:14, Matthew 1:23, Isaiah 7:14) and in the end of the Biblical storyline (Revelation 21:2-3).
Some students may think of God’s omnipresence primarily as God wanting to “chaperone” or “police” our lives. But because we know God wants to be with his people - that he is redeeming us so that we may be with him - we know that God is glad to be with us. And when you have someone who is glad to be with you, you will likely experience joy in their presence. Therefore, students have access to this joy at all times and in all places, because we are always in the presence of our Father in Heaven who wants to be with us. Encourage your students, then, to pray for God to help them to know and experience how he wants to be with them.