Bringing God Downstairs
When we first moved into our new home two years ago, one of my favorite rooms was the office upstairs—it seemed like a perfect place to escape. The office fits my husband’s and my desks along with overfull bookcases, but the corner dearest to me holds a comfy chair and a side table filled with notebooks, Sharpie pens, and my worn Bible. As I set up this sacred section of my home, I knew that this was where I would have my quiet time. It helped me feel settled into our new house to know that I would meet with God in this perfectly arranged nook.
At least that’s what I thought. But with my Bible and study materials upstairs behind a closed door, it seemed like I would have to take a great journey to mount the tower and reach my blessed corner each day. A baby waking up through the night made early morning appointments almost impossible. Since the office was not babyproof, bringing my daughter up didn’t seem feasible either. While I might hurry to my corner as soon as she went down for a nap, I often found myself dozing off, too.
My seemingly perfect quiet time corner appeared far off, and so did God. I so dearly wanted those precious, peaceful alone minutes with him that I had before motherhood. But it felt like God was upstairs, and my real life was downstairs—as I cleaned oatmeal off the floors, changed dirty diapers, and kissed booboos.
The Holy Spirit began to convict my heart, and I came to realize that in my pursuit of God, I had actually idolized my vision of quiet time over God himself. I wanted to have long, uninterrupted time in prayer and Bible study, but I was unwilling to sacrifice the little interruptions throughout my day to him. God was not upstairs. My chair may be. My Bible may be. My abundance of pens and highlighters may be, but God was not confined to a place and time.
In the Old Testament under the Old Covenant, God’s presence was represented by the Ark of the Covenant hidden in the Most Holy Place within the Jewish Temple. Only one man, the high priest, could come before God in that place one time a year. The fullness of God’s presence was regulated to a limited time, place, and person. Yet God promised that one day, “My dwelling place shall be with them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (Ezek. 37:27). He would do that through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
When Jesus took his last breath on the cross, the veil that separated the Most Holy Place from the rest of the Temple was torn in two, from top to bottom—symbolizing that God’s presence no longer was separated from his people. “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ” (Eph. 2:13). God is not only with his people, but also in them through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. We as God’s people, the church, don’t have to wait for a high priest to go before us into God’s presence because we have Christ, the Great High Priest, and God’s very presence is inside of us, making us a royal priesthood.[1]
Through this new and better covenant, we now have unity with Christ and the assurance of the Holy Spirit that allows us to live in the presence of God. Yet when I separated God from my everyday life—dividing the sacred from the secular—I was putting in place barriers between my communion with God that were never supposed to be there as a follower of Christ. I always have access to God’s presence, whether I’m cooking or vacuuming or rocking a baby.
While I eventually moved my Bible and favorite chair downstairs, a more important shift in my heart and mind occurred. No longer is God’s presence limited to an hour of isolation and silence; he is here in the midst of the noisy chaos of little children. While morning quiet times are still a precious gift, my communion with God does not end when the first cry comes through the baby monitor. A prayer begun in the quiet of the morning continues throughout the day. A briefly studied verse is meditated upon while doing laundry and dishes. The presence of God is felt not just when I am alone with him, but when my daughter is cuddled up in my lap reading a book.
And God is near to you as well. Through the sacrifice of Christ, we can have confidence to “draw near to the throne of grace” to “find grace to help in time of need” (Heb. 4:16). He doesn’t just want to be present with you when you are sitting alone with a Bible in your lap. He wants you to call out when you are losing patience with your child, when you face conflict with a coworker, or when you are pursuing a passion in your heart. He cares for every moment of your life, not just the quiet ones. He promises that he is “near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth” (Ps. 145:18).
While we shouldn’t give up quiet times with God, let’s remember that our time with God doesn’t always have to be quiet. We can give him our loud moments, our sad and happy moments, and our sinful and holy moments. Through the blood of Christ, in every moment we have access to the Father. He is not upstairs, though we may have relegated him to the corners of our life. Today, draw near to him, for he longs to draw near to you.
[1] Hebrews 4:14; 1 Peter 2:9
