Finding Peace in the Ever-Present Presence of God

I’ve personally and deeply known Jenn Tucker as one of my dearest friends for the last 10 years & she is nothing if not a genuine woman of the Word. A woman who trusts that God is trustworthy, that He communicates, and a life of intimately communicating with Him, and daily listening to Him, leads to a life of deeply fulfilling communion, even, especially, in crisis.  And as two very close friends who can testify to this truth, two mothers, two daughters of the King of kings, Jenn and I have long walked together through some achingly dark nights of the soul, standing with each other, kneeling with each other, grieving with each other, breathing prayers with each other, for each other, and the hard things become holy things as we bring them to Him. It’s one of my greatest joys to welcome Jenn to the farm’s table today…

Guest Post by Jennifer Tucker

When Hurricane Helene made landfall on the Florida coast, it left a trail of destruction that stretched more than 500 miles inland. Countless communities were completely devastated in what has been described as “an almost unimaginable disaster.”1

The severity of the storm was shocking. A hurricane like this, with such tremendous rainfall, had a less than 0.1% chance of happening in any given year—that’s only once in every 1,000 years.2

No one expected the level of devastation that Helene left in its path. Homes and businesses were destroyed, roads were completely washed away, towns were flooded, more than 2 million homes lost power, and more than 230 lives were lost. Communities are still digging through the rubble, picking up the pieces and beginning the slow and painful process of recovery.

The damage is great.

The pain is deep.

The recovery will take a long time.

And life for so many will never be the same.

[image error]REUTERS/Marco Bello SEAN RAYFORD/GETTY IMAGES

There are seasons in our lives that barrel through like a hurricane.

Whether it’s an unexpected crisis, an unwanted trauma, or an unimaginable loss, these events can quickly flood our lives with pain and fear and doubt, threatening to uproot us and wash us away.

These are the watershed moments3. These are the moments that forever divide our lives into a clear “before” and “after,” leaving a lasting impact in their wake and changing the trajectory of our lives in some marked way.

Life after these moments will never be quite the same.

When my daughter was hospitalized for the first time, and the doctors pulled me into a private room to discuss the severity of her condition and the concerns for her safety and health, I felt a complete loss of control and an overwhelming sense of uncertainty.

“The truth is: doing things for God is not at all the same as spending time with God.“

I didn’t know what the next step forward was, let alone how to take it. It felt like a pit had opened up and swallowed me whole, and suddenly I was in a new kind of terrain that I knew nothing about and had no idea how to navigate. 

I didn’t want to walk this road. I didn’t want this to be our story.

Up until that point, I had put a lot of the focus of my faith into all the things I did for God. I read my Bible and I served at church, I led ministries and went on missions trips, we had family devotions and prayers before dinner and bedtime. I checked all the boxes. I did all the things I thought I was “supposed” to do to be a “good Christian.”

But when l found myself in that hospital room, blindsided by a storm of a size and magnitude that I had never imagined, I was shaken to my core.

As anxiety and doubt began to surge over me, I could feel the roots of my faith coming loose…I was drifting away on a wave of worry and fear and helplessness. I had no framework for this kind of suffering. My roots were not deep enough to hold me in this kind of storm.

I had spent so many years focused on doing good things for Christ. But doing all the things for God, without slowing down and actually being with God, had left me with shallow roots. My faith was easily shaken when the storms raged down, because the substance of my faith was dependent on my own abilities instead of on Christ’s complete sufficiency.

The truth is: doing things for God is not at all the same as spending time with God.

“Productivity is not a substitute for presence.“

Productivity is not a substitute for presence.

That hospital room became holy ground where my faith was stripped bare and the presence of God was all that I had. 

That’s when breath prayer became my lifeline.4 I had nothing left in me but two little lines from Psalm 23: “The Lord is my shepherd, I have all that I need.”

I breathed and prayed my way through that crisis, clinging to the truth of that small handful of words. Like a ring buoy thrown out to me in the middle of a raging ocean, breath prayer kept me tethered to Christ through some really dark and difficult days.

But as the storms of that season continued, as weeks turned to months and months turned to years…as suffering lingered and pain persisted, as new crises and new struggles hit, as prayers were left unanswered (in the way we wanted, anyway) and hope grew harder to hold onto…I found it increasingly difficult to keep my mind from spiraling into a dark pit of fear and despair.

The damage was great.

The pain was deep.

The recovery was taking a really long time.

And our lives would never be the same.

I had to find a way to be ok even when the circumstances surrounding me were not ok. I had to figure out how to remain calm when all around me felt like chaos. I needed more than just a lifeline to tether me to Christ, I needed an anchor to secure me to His presence and steady me in His Word.

I needed to be grounded and rooted in something—in SomeOne—stronger than myself and greater than my circumstances.

Meditation became that anchor for me.

Intentionally setting aside meaningful times of stillness and silence with Christ, to pray and deeply contemplate His Word and purposefully be with Him, has kept me securely grounded in Christ and has fundamentally transformed my faith.

[image error] REUTERS/Marco Bello JABIN BOTSFORD/WASHINGTON POST/GETTY IMAGES MARIO TAMA/GETTY IMAGES

Meditation is not some weird, new-age ritual—it is a deeply Biblical practice that is focused on Scripture and is a means for communing with Christ.

Throughout Scripture we are directly instructed to meditate on God’s Word—to focus our thoughts on it and to contemplate the Word in way that causes it to sink deep into our hearts and take root in our souls, changing us from the inside out:

“This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it.” Joshua 1:8 ESV

“Blessed is the one . . . whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night.” Psalm 1:1–2 NIV

“Meditation didn’t change my circumstances but it changed me within my circumstances “

Meditation anchors us and grows our roots down deep. If our roots are strong, the winds of worry won’t uproot us, and the storms of anxiety won’t wash us away. If we’re deeply rooted, we may bend in the wind, but we won’t break easily.

When seasons and circumstances change, when the watershed moments bring droughts of discouragement or floods of anxiety with them, we can remain anchored and secure, weathering any storm that might come. 

Over time, I learned how to be still and befriend silence. Meditation didn’t change my circumstances but it changed me within my circumstances. It shifted my focus off of the storms and onto the One who walks on the waves and is with me through it all. 

There are still dark and stormy days, and I still experience waves of worry and gusts of anxiety…the problems are not all fixed and life is still not at all like it once was. But a steady rhythm of meditation has helped me shift the way I weather the storms that come.

So when my oldest daughter, a sophomore in college at the time, came to us and told us she was unexpectedly pregnant, though I was shocked and shaken at first, I wasn’t crushed and I didn’t crumble beneath the waves of worry that washed over me. My faith stayed steady as we walked with her through her own watershed moment.

“It shifted my focus off of the storms and onto the One who walks on the waves and is with me through it all. “

And when my youngest had a setback and needed a higher level of care and I had to live out of a suitcase in a hotel or Airbnb for months so that she could get the specialized care she needed, though I was weary and anxiety still rained down on me, I didn’t panic or despair. I was able to hold onto a deep and abiding inner peace in knowing that God was with me—and with her—through it all.

Meditation is a gift you can give to yourself today, a gentle invitation to simply quiet the noise around you and within you so you can tune your heart to the presence of God and focus your mind on His Word.

Whether you’re weathering a difficult storm, overwhelmed by current events, or worried about what lies ahead, try taking a few minutes today to slow your pace and quiet all the noise. Breathe deep and turn your focus to God’s ever-present presence with you, right here and right now.

You can walk whatever hard road lies ahead because you are not alone. God loves you. He’s with you.

He’s holding you.

And He won’t ever, ever let go.

Footnotes:

1. How Hurricane Helene Became a Deadly Disaster Across 6 States

2. More Than a Month Later: Communities Struggle to Rebuild After Hurricanes Helene and Milton,

3. The word “watershed” is a geographical term that refers to an area of land that divides the flow of
rivers: the water is going one way at first, until the watershed moment, when it gets rerouted
toward a different trajectory.

4. https://annvoskamp.com/2022/09/hard-days-need-a-lifeline-breathe-deep-try-this/

Jennifer Tucker is an artist, graphic designer, and the bestselling author of Breath as Prayer: Calm Your Anxiety, Focus Your Mind, and Renew your Soul, winner of the 2023 ECPA Christian Book Award for New Author of the Year. Her new book, Present in Prayer: A Guided Invitation to Peace Through Biblical Meditation, is a gentle invitation to linger long in the presence of God as you meditate on His Word using the centuries-old meditative practice of lectio divina. Jennifer is a wife, mother, and grandmother, as well as a devoted follower of Jesus and an advocate for mental health. She lives in Georgia with her family, and she shares her heart and art online at littlehousestudio.net.

Does the busy, hurried pace of your daily life ever leave you feeling weary and overwhelmed? Do you find that even when your body isn’t moving, your mind is still racing? Do worries, ruminations, distractions, or a spiral of negative thought patterns keep you from the stillness and deep peace your soul longs for? 

Present in Prayer invites you to intentionally quiet the noise around you and within you, to slow down and practice being fully present in prayer as you allow the Holy Spirit transform your thoughts and renew your mind through the practice of Christian meditation. Deep yet accessible, each of the thirty beautifully illustrated meditations calls you to silence, prayer, and thoughtful reflection on a Bible passage using the framework of the centuries-old practice of lectio divina. As you sink into a new spiritual rhythm of thinking about whatever is true and lovely and pure and excellent, you will find purposeful prayer and lasting peace that only God provides. Learn more at presentinprayer.com

{Our humble thanks to Thomas Nelson for their partnership in today’s devotional.}