How do I know if God is absent from me?

How do I know if God is absent from me?

For the first answer to that question we need to understand what his absence would be like.  Even in the presence of sin that wraps itself around our senses we are told that God never leaves our side or any part of our being.  With that assurance the next step is to believe that if God was to leave any one of us it would be a contradiction to his divine mercy.

Since the finite realism of human understanding is so weak when it comes to God’s love we only see through dark glasses what is always before us.  Refresh the words of the Angel Gabriel when he appeared to Mary;  “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.  Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus.  He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of David, his father, and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”   (Lk 1: 30 - 33).  And from 2 Sm; “And when your time comes and you rest with your ancestors, I Will raise up your heir after you, sprung from your loins, and I will make his kingdom firm.  It is he who shall build a house for my name.  And I will make his royal throne firm forever.”  (2 Sm 7: 12 - 13).

Herein is the promise spoken to David and recounted to Mary as well of a kingdom led by Christ, the Messiah who fulfills the promise God made through all the prophets regarding his plan to redeem all sinners throughout human history. 

If there is any doubt regarding the eternal effort of Almighty God pushing aside any semblance of forgiveness, it isn’t found anywhere throughout the Sacred Scriptures.  Since God lives in eternity where there is only a present existence, the forethought of man’s sin was already being relegated with his mercy which becomes real through Jesus Christ and his Passion.  The Blood he shed is the payment against rejection of God and his eternal world reserved for each sinner who is us.  

In this reality of sin being destroyed through God’s Only Son, the manner becomes complete when Mary said; “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord.  May it be done to me according to your word.”  (Lk 1:38).  It is interesting how God chose to forgive his wayward children.  The human species sinned before God; he brought mercy through the person of Mary who bore Jesus, who is God, and in his two natures (human and divine) brought a sinful epic to a divine reality.

Through the Hypo-static Union God Redeemed you and me and the only requirement is to believe in Christ and his sacrifice.  No effort on our part would accomplish this mercy.  His payment is Blood alone, where time and weather cannot remove its eternal existence.     

Ralph B. Hathaway