Welcome to Rooted with Emily Talento, where we explore who Jesus is by diving into context, culture, and covenant. if you haven't listened to day one yet, I would go do so now, just cause it gives helpful context on the devo as a whole, as well as my heart behind it. And truthfully, I've never done anything like this before. I've never recorded a podcast, and I'm just so relieved that day one is over. so today's question is, if I don't feel God, is he still here? And the answer is God is near. What's funny is I didn't make it rhyme on purpose, but now that I'm saying it out loud, it works. Before anything else, I wanna dive into scripture. We are in Psalm 1 39 verses seven through 10. Where shall I go from your spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there. If I make my bed and chill, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the utmost parts of the sea, even there, your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. I love Psalm 1 39, the whole thing, but this portion specifically really speaks to God's omni presence. This idea that God is everywhere. It doesn't matter where we go, God is fully present. I think the heart behind the question, if I don't feel God, is he here? It isn't really about whether God is present or not. I think it's much more about whether I feel him. I think that's a trap a lot of us fall into. I don't feel this way, so it must not be true, or I do feel this way, so it must be true Proverbs 28 26 says, whoever trusts his own mind is a fool, but he who walks in wisdom will be delivered. We really can't trust ourselves to have an accurate picture of reality. Our feelings lie. Our emotions don't always, in fact, they usually don't reflect reality. I wanna zero in on Psalm 139, verse seven. Where shall I go from your spirit? Where shall I flee from your presence? We cannot escape his presence. even if we wanted to escape God's presence, we still couldn't. That's the reality of him being omnipresent. Whether we feel him or not, it doesn't matter. He's there. Romans 8 38 through 39 reinforces this truth For, I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor heights, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans is cool because it takes it from being a little more general. This idea that God's presence is everywhere to being. There's nothing that could separate us from God's love for us. my favorite part of the conversation about God's presence is actually our awareness. How often we're going about our days. Just, you know, living life, not thinking about the fact that God is present with us in that moment. But then when God doesn't show up when we want him to, we get very upset and we're like, God, you don't hear me well. He actually hears a lot more than I think we want him to in many cases. Today's rooted moment is about the Wilderness tabernacle, and if you know me, you know that the Tabernacle is one of my favorite topics, so I'm super excited to jump in. If you're unsure of what I mean when I say tabernacle, it was a structure that God instructed Moses to build while in the wilderness on their way from Egypt to the Promised Land, and it would be where God's would dwell among his people. there were very specific instructions that God gave for it to be up to his standard, both structurally and decoratively. So how does this make sense? I thought God's presence was everywhere. Why does he need a specific place to dwell? Well, even though God was always omnipresent and always everywhere in that time of the Israelites, he chose to let his presence dwell in this unique and tangible way the tabernacle became a special meeting place, a focal point of his presence among his people, even though he was still the God who fills the heavens and earth. so it's really just about highlighting the dist