I love that kind of question because to me, the best questions are how things fit together.

They help me most. I think in my study, the Bible is seeing when things seem not to fit together,

seem contradictory, and then instead of walking away from the Bible and assuming, well, it's a bunch

of double-talk digging down to the root so they come together and then you realize, oh, these two

plants are not opposites. They have the same root. So that's, I think that's what we're dealing with

here. So we need to think about kinds of presence of the Lord. The Bible talks about different kinds

of His presence. So, for example, most of us would agree that God is omnipresent. There's no

place where He's not. Paul said, in Him we live and move and have our being. He's just quoting a

pagan poet there to agree that, yes, everybody is in God, held in being by God. And Jeremiah

in 2324 says, can a man hide himself in secret places so that he can't see, so that I cannot see

him. God is talking. Do I not feel heaven and earth declares the Lord? So I think the first and

most basic sense that we need to talk about is He's everywhere. God is omnipresent, including

in the lives of believers and unbelievers, holding them in being, knowing all that they do

firsthand. And then, Michaela points to, and she's absolutely right, there is this special presence.

She calls it the new covenant promise of God's presence in Hebrews 13.5, which says, keep your life

free from the love of money and be content with what you have for He has said, I will never leave you

or forsake you or we could go to Matthew 28. Behold, I am with you always to the end of the age

or we could go to 2 Corinthians 4. I am persecuted but not forsaken. So you've got these new

testament new covenant promises. God is never ever going to abandon or leave his people. The one

I love most is Jeremiah 32 40 where it goes over the top and says, I will make with him an

everlasting covenant. This is now the new covenant that I will not turn away from doing good to them.

And then he adds, and I will put the fear of me in their hearts so they may not turn from me.

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