“No atomic particle is so small that God is not fully present to it, and no galaxy so vast that God does not circumscribe it.  No space is without the divine presence.  God is in touch with every part of creation.  God cannot be excluded from any location or object in creation . . .” (Thomas C. Oden, The Living God, p. 67, italics mine).

All of us addicts know that craving for a fix is not simply a mental or spiritual problem.  It is certainly that, but it is more: Addictions enslave us, even at the molecular level.  Every cell in our body cries out for the substance or activity to which we are addicted.  This is true, no matter what our addiction.

Researchers are beginning to see this more clearly as well.  Addicts have always known it—at least, those of us who have experienced some measure of sanity.  Until I had acknowledged my addiction and had some success in recovering from it, I had no clue how powerful the addiction was.  You only know the power of your enemy when you seek to resist him.

However, an ancient observation about God comforted me and challenged me greatly the other day: God is everywhere at the same time.  There is no place, large or small, distant to us or near us, where God is not present all the time.

God is present in every cell that craves something that feels good, but isn’t good.  God is just as present in the cells of my body as God is present in the most distant galaxy.

“7 I can never escape from your Spirit! I can never get away from your presence!

  8 If I go up to heaven, you are there; if I go down to the grave, you are there.

  9 If I ride the wings of the morning, if I dwell by the farthest oceans,

  10 even there your hand will guide me, and your strength will support me.

  11 I could ask the darkness to hide me and the light around me to become night–

  12 but even in darkness I cannot hide from you. To you the night shines as bright as day. Darkness and light are the same to you.

  13 You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb.

  14 Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous– how well I know it.

  15 You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb.”  (Psalm 139:7-15, New Living Translation.  Italics in the quoted verses is my own.)

However, is God’s omnipresence good news or bad news?

That depends on whether God is really good and has our best interest in God’s mind and heart.  I believe that goodness is indeed the way God is.  However, I freely admit that this is a statement of faith, and that there is plenty of evidence that would suggest that there is either an evil god or no god at all.

I have a friend who is a very fine friend and a very fine artist.  He gave me one of his pieces that I like a lot.  It is a small block of wood with a canvas stretched out on it.  It is entirely black—except for one very tiny point of light.  He calls the piece “Hope.”

Frequently, I seem to be able to see only the darkness.  Sometimes, I can see the point of light, but it seems way too small to make any difference.

But once in a while, I see more.  I see hope.  Perhaps the presence of a good God everywhere, even at the cellular level, is a point of light in the darkness, a beacon of hope.