With your permission I'd like to use this edition of my regular Boundless Answers column to offer a couple of stories that I hope serve as a reminder of how God longs to encounter us every day of every season of every year.

It is no small irony that the time of year where my attention is most attuned to the details of God's incarnation is without question also the time of year when I am most distracted from that unspeakable glory.

My wife and I have added to our usual menu of seasonal distractions that of purchasing and moving into a new home, hosting visiting family on their biennial missionary furlough from Africa, and being eight months pregnant (admittedly that last one is mostly her, but we're all in this together, right?).

Our need for the incarnated God—our Savior—is more intense than ever. Ironically, the noise surrounding us seems louder than ever. With every minute being drained by "the cares of this world," the voice of the present Christ grows faint in our dulling ears.

But as the season we have all just experienced reminds us, God mercifully invades our common lives with nourishment for our impoverished souls, turning the ordinary into the extraordinary.

"Driving Immanuel" is a story I wrote for Boundless a couple of years ago that relates one such unexpected moment in my life. It's a story of how God turned an ordinary errand into an extraordinary encounter.

God's presence in our lives is ongoing. He is everywhere at all times, and for those of us who've embraced His all-sufficient grace, He actually and in reality dwells in us. So it isn't like He's nowhere to be found and we're walking down the street and turn the corner and BAM, there He is.

He is always with us. It is our challenge and need to make progress in "seeing" and experiencing more of His presence in our lives, moment-by-moment. Much of that involves God's gracious healing of our blinded spiritual vision, so that our eyes are opened to His presence.

"Fifteen Minutes of Shame" is another piece I wrote for Boundless about how God used a Christmas season graveyard-shift temp job to get my attention on a very important matter. Unlike Driving Immanuel, this encounter was subtle, but His message was crystal clear.

God is on the earth and dwells in human hearts. How I long for greater revelation of that truth. I hope you see Him more at work in your heart and life this year than ever before.

Blessings,
JOHN THOMAS

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If you have a question you'd like John to consider for this column, please send it to editor@boundless.org. Please note that all questions selected for "Boundless Answers" may be edited for clarity and privacy and become the property of Focus on the Family.