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In one sense God is always near us. He is not an Absentee, needing to be brought down from the heavens or up from the deep. He is nigh at hand. His Being pervades all being.

Every world, that floats like an islet in the ocean of space, is filled with signs of His presence, just as the home of your friend is littered with the many evidences of his residence, by which you know that he lives there, though you have not seen his face.

Every little crocus flower pushing through the dark mould; every firefly in the forest; every bird that springs up from its nest before your feet; everything that is - all are as full of God's presence as the bush which burned with His fire, before which Moses bared his feet in acknowledgement that God was there.

But we do not always realize it. We often pass hours, and days, and weeks. We sometimes engage in seasons of prayer, we go to and fro from His house, where the ladder of communication rests; and still He is a shadow, a name, a tradition, a dream of days gone by.

"Oh! if only I knew where I might find Him, that I might come even to His seat.
Behold! I go forward but He is not there;
and backward, but I cannot perceive Him:
on the left hand, where He doth work, but I cannot behold Him;
He hideth Himself on the right hand, that I cannot see Him."
Job 23:3

How different is this failure to realize the presence of God to the blessed experience of His nearness realized by some.