It's a question I've been asking a lot these days.

The amount this question has come up makes me excited. I am excited because people want to know how to know God loves them.

But there is another side to this question that breaks my heart; because if Christians, people who grew up in and are actively involved in church are asking this question, it means that something has failed. Many Christians carry an intellectual understanding of God's love: scriptures can be recited, theology can be regurgitated, but what does it mean to me, to you, personally, when someone tells me the classic John 3:16 verse: For God so loved the world, that He gave His only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Is that a powerful verse? Absolutely. Is having an intellectual understanding of God vital to one's faith? Yes. But y'all, none of that makes sense nor matters if you, personally, do not know that God loves you: now. That He is involved in your life: now. That He is just as real as He was on the pages of the bible: now. That He is coming for you- that He is a reckless lover who wants nothing else than to have your whole heart.

But you gotta train your eyes to look for God. As Andy Stanley likes to say, it is your attention that determines the direction of your life, not your intention. In short: we really do become what we behold.

Throughout the scriptures the writers capture this idea that God is at our right hand. I've known this intellectually for a long time. I know the verses, I can recite this fact by heart. But what the heck does that reality actually mean to me, today, right now in this very moment of my life?

It means this: that if I close my eyes, while I am sitting right here on my couch, in my living room, I envision the Lord sitting right beside me. And all this might sound a little cray cray, but y'all here me out…

What does it mean for my body if the Lord is literally right beside me? It means I can take a deep breath. It means the tension in my shoulders can soften because the creator of the universe is currently on my couch...say what? I close my eyes again, soaking up this picture, soaking up the warmth that this reality brings with it. Because God's presence is all warmth, y'all. If you feel fear, if you feel judgment...here me say, and here me say clearly: it is not the Lord's presence you feel.

I take this image of God being at my right hand, sitting on the couch with me, throughout the day. Laundry, traffic, cooking, work, diaper changing, random conversations with friends, family, strangers: It means if he was there on my couch, then He is in all those moments too, His presence cannot be shaken. He really is that awkward person that will not go away. He's always been there, you know. He always is there. He always will be there.

But here's the thing: life is shitty sometimes (yes, Christians cuss. We also have sexless marriages, rebellious children, empty bank accounts, hangovers and crazy uncles, just to name a few). When you get the breath kicked out of your lungs by the cruelness of life you forget that time you imagined the creator of the universe sitting with you on your couch. All you see is bad. All you see is hard. You forget. I forget, that actually, God never left my side, it was me, instead that chose to focus my eyes in another direction.

The hardest work I’ve done in counseling is to train my mind, my memory, my heart, and my eyes to see the Lord’s presence in some of the darkest, most traumatic moments of my life. Because what is easiest to believe is God was not there in those moments.

The same can be true in moments where I’ve made some of the most destructive decisions of my life. I thought I was walking away from God, I thought I had turned my back on him because I believed He wasn’t there. If I had only paused, taken a breath, closed my eyes and realized He was right there…not standing in judgement over me, but inviting me, with open arms, to turn my eyes towards Him. It would have made all the difference.

I think about the accountability this reality of God being at our right hand brings to the table for those that call themselves Christians. I think about the countless church leaders and Christians who chose to sexually abuse children, women, men. I think about church leaders and Christians who use their power to silence, control, and manipulate. I think about the evil the church has done, the evil Christians have done. And if God was at their right hand, in those terrible moments, it means He witnessed all of it.

And I’ll be honest, this reality of God enrages me sometimes: how could a good God stand by, and let this evil play out?

Free will. That’s why. Because God gives us the freedom to choose to behold Him both in the good and the evil. He will not force the direction of my gaze or your gaze. You choose. And then you trust that one day, God will be the ultimate judge over the evil in the world. Some way, some how, you believe He will make it all right.

Yesterday I was waiting for my drink at Starbucks. I've given Starbucks way too much of my money over the years, but that's neither here nor there. Two years ago, around this time, I was robbed in Starbucks. And y'all, it shook me. That event ushered in an intense season of dryness with the Lord. I couldn't see Him. I stopped going to my couch. I stopped coming to this place to document the Lord's activity in my life. I stopped believing He was at my right hand every moment of the day.

But yesterday, while I was back at this place, waiting for my tall, two pump, soy, chai latte (ridiculous, I know), I looked up and saw and heard two young kiddos trying to get my attention. They were telling me, and everyone for that matter, they had just gotten out of a dentist appointment, and the dentist had given them the coolest gifts in their respective favorite colors. Now, I'm not sure about you, but I hated the dentist as a child. It was scary. I was usually afraid of what was to come. Even now as an adult, the dentist chair is not my favorite place to be. But these kids, they couldn't stop talking about the gifts they had been given because they went in to that scary, hard place, sat still, and opened up.

This morning, as I sat on my couch, as I closed my eyes, and took a deep breath and chose to believe the creator of the universe was right by my side, those kiddos came to the forefront of my mind.

And then God spoke to my heart. That's right, the creator of the universe will talk to you if you believe He is with you:

I was with you. All along. I never left you. For two years, you've taken your eyes off me, you saw the strength of your storm and your forgot about meeting with me, here on your couch. You stopped seeing me in everything around you. And you failed to tell people about the gifts I gave you in those hard, scary, dry places.

So here I am again. My pen is rusty. I've missed this place. This place that was created to point to the presence of God in my everyday life. But I want to be like those kiddos yesterday, telling you with every fiber of my being: Look at these beautiful gifts God gave me in that really hard season. He was there all along. He is with you, too.

How do you know God loves you? You first believe He is with you. Believing takes imagination. It takes being still. It asks your mind to play and have childlike faith. For serious, adults, with a million tasks to do, and kiddos to chase, this is a hard ask. But when you are ready, I invite you to go to your couch, close your eyes, take a deep breath, and challenge your mind to behold something that may seem impossibly impossible: God, at your right hand. Right now.

You just gotta believe it. And then your eyes will see it.

**Some of you, perhaps many of you, have some things to say to God about the evil you experienced, the evil you witnessed. And God wants to hear it. Don’t hold back. For heaven’s sake, for your faith’s sake, get the anger out.

And some of you, some of you need to get on your knees and beg God to be real again. You need to ask God to give you new eyes to see him. Because he loves you and he misses you.