Immanent means naturally part of something; existing throughout and within something.
We are in God, and God is in us. We are made in His image, and He has woven us into the fabric of His being.
Isn’t it odd that people can claim not to believe in God when their very existence is woven into Him! It’s like saying I don’t believe in air, or I don’t believe in blood. These things exist, though they are not always visible, and we could not exist without them - but, to many people, they are somehow more tangible than God.
Yes, you can feel the air passing in and out of your nostrils. And yes, you can feel your pulse and see blood when you get cut. But what is it that makes feeling those things possible? More-so, what is it that makes feeling those things meaningful?
You are full of life-force. You are full of awareness. You are experiencing life as a phenomenon that you can perceive your own participation in. And yet somehow that all seems to be taken for granted, and put on auto-pilot, and placed in the category of “deep thinking.”
Is it deep thinking to say that you breath? Is it deep thinking to say that your heart beats? Why should it be deep thinking to say that you are woven into the fabric of God, and that He is in you. Can’t you feel Him - always there, always being? Can’t you touch Him in your heart, and feel the touch of His presence within you? Not just once in a while, but as you breath, and bleed!
God is so intimate a part of us, and we of Him, that most of the time we don’t even realize He’s there. We are fish in water, and He is the water - the Living Water.
God didn’t create something that He could only observe from a distance, and maybe visit every now and then. He created everything as a part of Himself. He is intimately connected to every aspect of everything He created. He is ever present, ever knowing, ever guiding and directing, without end, without exception.
If you can’t understand that God is in you then try this. Find your pulse and feel your heart beating, and pay attention to it for a while. Then sit in silence and pay attention to the in and out of your breath for a while. Then in that state of calm attentiveness peer inward, behind your thoughts, behind your breathing, behind your pulse, and ask God to reveal His presence to you. Give this some time and surrender yourself to the experience without placing expectations on what God is going to say or do. Just watch and listen.
He’s there. He’s the source of life that we originate from and operate from. He’s the cause of our heart beat. He’s the reason we inhale and exhale. He’s in us, and around us, and beyond us. If He was not, then we could not be.
We imagine God to be an old guy with a big white beard, sitting on a cloud in the sky. But He’s not. He’s an ageless, infinite God sitting in your heart, standing next to you, and activating everything that’s going on around you.
Jeremiah 23:23-24 (NLT) Am I a God who is only close at hand?” says the LORD. “No, I am far away at the same time. Can anyone hide from me in a secret place? Am I not everywhere in all the heavens and earth?” says the LORD.
Acts 17:27-28 (NLT) “His purpose was for the nations to seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him—though he is not far from any one of us. For in him we live and move and exist. As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’
Haggai 2:5 (NLT) My Spirit remains among you, just as I promised when you came out of Egypt. So do not be afraid.’