I missed her so much, it ached. That was how I felt about my wife when I was out of the country for four months. How much worse it is for those who are separated for more extended periods. Indeed, one of our overseas workers' most painful sacrifices is to be away from their loved ones.
During this time of quarantine, we experience various levels of separation at a much grander scale. Almost everyone feels what it means to be out of touch with someone he/she cares about. Some parents miss their children because they cannot come home. Fiancés have not seen each other and have to move wedding dates. Christians long for physical gathering during Sundays. There are (a few?) people who may be missing interacting with their officemates. And who can imagine the pain of not being able to attend the wake of a loved one?
All of the above reminds us of our physical limitations. We can only be in one place at a time. Don't you sometimes wish you can be at two places at one time or zip to any part of the world instantly? Well, yes, only in our dreams.
But our God is not so. He is omnipresent, which is just a theologian’s way of saying He is everywhere. Unlike us, He is not subject to physical limitations. There is no place in the universe where God is not present. More precisely, perhaps, everything is present in God. Paul preached to the Athenians that “he [God] is actually not far from each one of us, for “‘In him we live and move and have our being’” (Acts 17:27b-28a).
True, God is transcendent. That is, He is far above all creation, in contrast to the mistaken notion that God is simply the summation of everything. Yet He is immanent, which means He is present in all His creation. Such attributes of God boggle the mind, as it should. Confronted by the majestic, omnipresent God, we can only bow down in worship.
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