Do the people you lead feel your presence? Are you a leader in title but not in your actions? I worked for a Fire Chief who was so demanding that when I was assigned to be the Acting Chief, I had to constantly ask myself, “what would he do?” and then do it that way so that I wouldn’t disappoint him when he returned. Many years later, when I was a Fire Chief, I asked myself, “what would he do” and then I did the opposite because our leadership styles were different. His presence was not positive. As a leader, people can feel your presence in a positive or a negative way. A positive presence usually comes from the feeling of empowerment and the confidence to know that you will support them.

What things have a presence in your life? There are so many things that compete for our attention these days that it may be hard to determine what is truly important any more. As parents, we need to be present in our kids lives – not a spectator but a presence in their lives. As a leader, we need to be present (not just physically) at work to instill confidence in our employees and as a employee, we need too need to be mentally present at work. Distractions are everywhere so we must make conscious decisions to be present in the things we do. Think about the various roles you have in your life­ – spouse, parent, friend, employee, leader, coach, mentor, etc. Are you present in your roles? When we aren’t present because we’re distracted by our phone or we let something else take our attention, we might just be sending the message that we don’t care.

“I will put my dwelling place among you… I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people.” Leviticus 26:11-12

Do you feel God’s presence in your life? It can be hard to feel it some times, especially when things aren’t going the way we want them to. It would easy to imagine God getting distracted by all of the problems in this world and that He might ignore our little problems. This is NOT the case or even possible! The Leviticus verses are telling us that God intends to dwell with us, walk among us and be our God. It’s saying “God will lead you through it all, get used to Him because He’s not leaving, He’ll live and walk with you and will never leave your side. God will be there for the good and the bad times, you can count on Him – He is your God.

We are His people today because we believe; we see His actions daily and feel His presence. You might wonder where God is when you feel overwhelmed but if you stop and concentrate, you can feel God’s presence. He is in each word of the bible just as He is in your thoughts and on your heart. You need to simply concentrate and let God be present. As I mentioned before, we can be easily distracted or have our thoughts consumed by other things but God is never distracted. He is with us all of time and it us who need to let Him in. Close your eyes, clear your mind and open your heart; God will embrace you.