I find it odd when Christians speak of God’s presence in ways that imply it is variable. As if God could be more present in a church building than in a living room, or more present during Sunday worship than during a Tuesday morning commute.
Scripture consistently points to a God who is ever‑present, who fills all of creation:
“Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?”
— Psalm 139:7
Indeed, our very existence is sustained by God’s presence:
“In Him we live and move and have our being.”
— Acts 17:28
What is variable is not God’s presence, but our perception of it.
There are moments when the veil feels thinner, when our awareness is heightened, when our hearts are open and the Spirit stirs us in ways we can sense. And there are also seasons when God feels distant. Not because God is absent, but because our attention is scattered by the noise and demands of this world.
The problem with speaking as though God’s presence actually shifts is that it risks grounding our spirituality in emotional states or sacred spaces instead of grounding it in the reality of God’s constancy. It risks imagining him as spatially confined or temporally intermittent.
It may feel otherwise, but feeling should not be mistaken for fact.
What changes is our attunement—our openness, our attention, our sense of wonder. God’s presence is the steady reality. Our awareness of that presence is what ebbs and flows. We are the moon. God is the sun.
And ironically, acknowledging this can be a comfort. It means those dry seasons and quiet moments do not signal divine absence. They simply remind us of our dependence on the One who is always with us, even when we are not paying attention.
Curious Christian 
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