I've had tour guides in Jerusalem tell me, "You can pray to God anywhere on earth, but here it's a local call." They usually say it tongue-in-cheek, but also with an air of seriousness.

In Psalm 139, King David wrote, "Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence?" (v. 7). Essentially, he was asking, "Where is God?" This is a rhetorical question that's meant to lead you to one conclusion: God is everywhere. This is what we call His omnipresence, and it's either a great comfort to you or a great concern, depending on how you're living.

From Psalm 139, we can draw three conclusions about the omnipresence of God:

1. Death can't hide us from God. In verse 8, David said, "If I ascend into heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there." For the believer, "to be absent from the body" is "to be present with the Lord" (2 Corinthians 5:8). Even unbelievers will one day have to face God. The Bible says, "It is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment" before God (Hebrews 9:27).

2. Distance can't hide us from God. "If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there Your hand shall lead me, and Your right hand shall hold me" (vv. 9-10). To rephrase: "If I could travel the speed of light and shoot across the universe to any place, God is there." This means you don't have to go on a pilgrimage to a holy place or crawl on your knees to get to God. You can open the Bible, pray, and instantly make contact with heaven.

3. Darkness can't hide us from God. "If I say, 'Surely the darkness shall fall on me,' even the night shall be light about me; indeed, the darkness shall not hide from You, but the night shines as the day; the darkness and the light are both alike to You" (vv. 11-12). The word fall in verse 11 literally means to bruise, crush, or oppress. All of us have been crushed spiritually or emotionally in dark times. But Jesus said, "Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age" (Matthew 28:20). That's a promise.

Think back to what those tour guides say: "You can pray to God anywhere on earth, but here it's a local call." That's just not true. In Acts 17:24, Paul said point-blank that God "does not dwell in temples made with hands." And for believers, it's not just that God is everywhere--it's more personal. Jesus is Immanuel, "God with us" (Matthew 1:23). He lived here on earth for thirty-three and a half years, and before He left, He promised His followers that the Holy Spirit of God would come and dwell inside them (see John 16:7).

I pray you would meditate on the great truth that God is here and everywhere. If there's a truth through which you should filter all the activities and decisions of your life, it's this one.