Where Is God?

“This, then, is how you should pray: ‘Our Father in heaven...'" (Matthew 6:9a).

"God's in his Heaven

All's right with the world!"

(Robert Browning)

We begin this brief look at the Lord's prayer with a simple question: where is God? It's actually a very deep question, one asked by people who are going through crises small and large. Many people have this idea that God should have stepped in and stopped the crisis, and when God does not, they conclude that God is far off and doesn't really care or maybe pay much attention to what happens here. Jesus says we should first address God as "our Father in heaven..." Does that mean the critics are right? Is God actually far-off in some distant Heaven?

The word translated in (I think) every translation as "heaven" has a more broad meaning of "sky" and implied meanings of "happiness, power, eternity." "Heaven" is the word we have adopted to describe God's dwelling place in eternity, but Jesus didn't actually talk a lot about Heaven. He talked mostly about the Kingdom of God. In our minds and in popular understanding, we have equated the two, but in reality, the Kingdom is much more expansive than our idea of "Heaven."

We picture "Heaven" as a place of clouds and golden streets where we will strum harps and rest for eternity. I don't know about you, but that honestly doesn't sound all that appealing. I can only take so much harp music! But the Kingdom, what Jesus came to bring, is living and active wherever God is—here and in eternity. Matthew calls it "The Kingdom of Heaven" and Mark and Luke call it "The Kingdom of God," but they're all talking about the same thing. The Kingdom is wherever God is, and God is everywhere. "Heaven" is wherever God is, and God is everywhere. Heaven isn't just for "the sweet by and by," but here and now.

Where is God? He is with you. He is here right now. He is present. He is absolutely other than us and yet as close as our very breath. When we call God "Our Father in Heaven," we're not trying to get him to pay attention to us from some distant throne. We're not waving our hands and hoping he notices us, as the pagans did with their "many words." We're acknowledging that he is with us, right here, and that the Kingdom is coming, slowly at times but it is coming because it's what Jesus came to bring. And every plan God puts in place will succeed. Because of that promise, that hope, that truth, we can begin our prayers in confidence, knowing we are heard.

So, auxiliary questions: where do we go when we die? Is there a "Heaven" we go to? And what does it look like? I don't know the details, but this I do know: for those who trust in Christ, when we die, we will be with him. And whatever that looks like or whatever we experience—it will be good because Jesus is there. We can trust in that.