"Oh, It's Only You"

There's an old story about a man named Smith Wigglesworth, a believer remembered for a life of extraordinary faith and power.

The way the story goes, he woke up one night and the presence of God had flooded his bedroom — that thick, holy, weighty kind of presence that would knock most of us flat on our faces or send us scrambling for words. And how did Wigglesworth respond? He didn't panic. He didn't leap up trembling. He simply looked up and said, almost casually, like a man greeting an old friend who'd walked into the room: "Oh, it's only You, Lord." And then he rolled over and went back to sleep.

The first time I heard that, it almost sounded irreverent. But the longer I sat with it, the more it undid me — because of what it reveals. Here was a man so deeply, daily familiar with the presence of God that an encounter which would shake the rest of us to our core was, to him, just another moment with a Friend he knew intimately. The presence of God in his bedroom wasn't a rare event. It was home.

That's the goal of the entire Christian life. Not occasional visits from God. Familiarity with God.

— 1 Thessalonians 5:17

God isn't just for the appointment

Most of us, if we're honest, treat God like a scheduled appointment. We meet Him in the morning during our quiet time — if we manage one. Maybe again at church on Sunday. And the rest of life happens in His apparent absence. We clock in for our spiritual meeting, clock out, and go live the other twenty-three hours on our own, only sensing Him again at the next scheduled slot.

But Paul doesn't say pray sometimes. He doesn't say pray on schedule. He says pray continually. Pray like you breathe — an unbroken, ongoing, all-day conversation woven through every single thing you do. The dream of the Christian life was never a slightly better quiet time. It's a life where the line between "prayer time" and "the rest of my time" disappears completely — because you've learned to carry His presence with you everywhere you go.

God doesn't want to be a meeting on your calendar. He wants to be the atmosphere you live in.

The monk in the kitchen

Centuries ago, a humble man named Brother Lawrence discovered the secret to this in the least spiritual-sounding place imaginable: a monastery kitchen, up to his elbows in dirty dishes.

He wasn't preaching to thousands. He wasn't writing famous books. He was washing pots and pans, day after day, doing the chores nobody wanted. And in that kitchen he made a discovery that has echoed through the centuries: he learned to turn every single ordinary task into a conversation with God. He said the clatter and chaos of his kitchen never once interrupted his communion with Christ — that he could possess God in the middle of the noise and the dishes as peacefully as if he were kneeling at the altar. He called it practicing the presence of God. Every pot scrubbed, every floor swept, every meal cooked became one more chance to talk to the One he loved.

And here's the staggering part: what he found in that kitchen is just as available to you in your car, your cubicle, your kitchen sink, your carpool line, your inbox. The presence of God was never reserved for the sanctuary. It's offered to you in the middle of your most ordinary, forgettable Tuesday. The dishes can be holy ground. The commute can be a cathedral. You just have to remember He's there.

A simple way in

For a very long time, believers have used short, repeated prayers to keep their hearts turned toward God throughout the entire day — a single sentence simple enough to whisper anywhere, anytime, without breaking stride. Something as simple as: "Lord Jesus, have mercy on me." Or even just His name, breathed in a hard moment: "Jesus."

It was never about magic words or a religious formula. It's about training your heart to return to Him again and again and again — until turning toward God becomes your reflex instead of your afterthought, your default instead of your emergency. You set a slow, steady rhythm of remembering Him: in the elevator, in the waiting room, in the silence between meetings, in the thirty seconds before you walk into the hard conversation. And over time, something shifts. The awareness of God stops being something you have to schedule and starts being something you simply carry — everywhere.

Practice the presence today

So here's your invitation, and you can start before you even finish reading this: don't wait for tomorrow's quiet time to talk to God. Start practicing His presence right now, in the middle of whatever you're doing.

Thank Him while you make your coffee. Whisper His name in traffic instead of white-knuckling the wheel. Turn your worry into a one-line prayer the second it rises. Invite Him into the meeting, the errand, the hard conversation, the dishes piling up in your sink. Treat the ordinary moments of your day as holy ground — because the moment you remember He's there, they are.

Do that long enough, and something beautiful starts to happen. The presence that once felt rare and far away slowly becomes familiar. The God you used to visit becomes the God you walk with. And maybe, just maybe, one day you'll be so at home in His nearness that even in the holiest moment you'll smile, look up, and say like an old friend, "Oh — it's only You."

That's not irreverence. That's intimacy. And it's the whole point.