Meanderings about God

When Leah asked if I had ever felt the presence of God and where it set me to thinking.....
I don't know where this post is going exactly but I'd be happy for you to meander through it with me.

I wondered, if I believe in an ever present God, why would I sometimes feel His presence and sometimes not?
Must I choose to recognise a divine presence or does He decide when I should be aware of Him? or is it a bit of both?

I thought too, about my answer that I have most often had a powerful sense of God in church. I have long been aware that a sense of God's presence is created by the leader of worship and I briefly wondered whether it was not God I had sensed but that I had been caught up in some theatrical moments. I was really fascinated by this question for a little while. There is no doubt that a well crafted church service is, in a way, a piece of theatre. Careful choices of scripture complemented by the right music and well delivered preaching are a powerful combination. Ultimately though I think it is the job of the leader to create a sense of awe, of reverence, of His power. In the same way that a film might help an audience to relate to a particular historical event, a church service might help us to understand God and as the film wouldn't exist without the history neither would the theatre of liturgy exist without the God it seeks to glorify.

If God is love
If God is beauty
If God is justice
if He is mercy
if He is peace
if he is joy, patience, kindness, goodness.....

and if I remember that all of these things are God, I should feel a sense of His presence every time I see one of these qualities, His qualities.

The conclusion I seem to be coming to is that just as in our human relationships there are moments of extraordinary connection, there are moments that bring us to our knees through insane passion or exquisite tenderness or sidesplitting hilarity, there are also less dramatic times of everyday togetherness and it is like that with God. If I am open to it I can get a grand sense of an awe inspiring presence but if I keep my eyes and ears open I can have a less dramatic but more continuous sense of the Big Fella right alongside me.

Have you ever felt God's presence? Tell me about it?