How to Practice God’s Presence Throughout the Day (6 Exercises)
You can learn to carry an awareness of God’s presence with you all day long, not only during your quiet time. Practicing God’s presence throughout the day means cultivating simple habits of attention, gratitude, and conversation with God in the middle of ordinary life. The practices below will teach you how to stay connected to God while you drive, cook, work, exercise, and go about your daily routine. These are practical skills you can begin today.
The Devotional Chair Problem
My tea mug had gone cold. My Bible lay open. I had spent a sweet thirty minutes with the Lord, and I could feel His warmth resting in my heart like a low, steady flame.
Then the phone buzzed. The laundry timer went off. A text from one of my daughters reminded me of an appointment I had forgotten. By the time I reached the kitchen sink, I could not tell you what passage I had just read. The warmth was already fading.
I knew God was real. I had experienced His presence in worship, in prayer, in those early-morning moments before the house woke up. What I did not know was how to carry that awareness with me once I stood up and walked into the noise of my day.
For years, I looked for the answer. I read Brother Lawrence’s classic. I heard pastors talk about “abiding in Christ” and “walking with God,” and I believed them.
I read beautiful accounts of other people’s experiences with God’s presence, and they stirred my hunger. Yet none of it gave me the practical skills I needed to cultivate that experience for myself. I wanted a “how,” and most of what I found was either an “ought to” or someone else’s story.
If that sounds familiar, you are not alone. In my research, I found that 81 percent of Christian believers did not feel confident they knew how to experience closeness with God. They loved God, desired more of Him, and simply lacked the practical tools.
This article is for you. What follows are six practices drawn from The 90-Day Spiritual Awakening Journal, a guided exercise journal I developed to help believers put action to their desire for more of God.
The exercises are organized around three categories that shape our daily experience: our attitudes, our thoughts and speech, and our physical activities. Each one meets you right where you already are, in the ordinary rhythms of your day.
You do not need to master all six at once. Pick one. Try it this week. Notice what stirs inside you. God is already closer than you realize, and He rewards those who diligently seek Him (Heb 11:6).
What Does It Mean to Practice God’s Presence Throughout the Day?
Many Christians have been taught that the devotional quiet time is the center of their spiritual life. And it is precious. But the quiet time was never meant to be the only time we connect with God.
When we close our Bibles and step into the day, we often leave our awareness of God behind, as though He stays on the nightstand with our reading glasses.
Scripture paints a much bigger picture. Paul told the Thessalonians, “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thess 5:17).
David wrote, “I have set the LORD continually before me” (Ps 16:8).
Jesus Himself told His disciples, “Abide in Me, and I in you” (John 15:4).
These are not poetic ideals reserved for monks and mystics. They describe a way of life available to every believer.
To practice God’s presence throughout the day means learning to notice Him in the middle of the ordinary. It means developing small habits that turn your attention toward Him again and again, until that turning becomes as natural as breathing.
You already do this with people you love. You think of your spouse during a work meeting and send a quick text. You glance at a photo of your grandchild and smile. Awareness of God works the same way, and it can be cultivated with practice.
If you have ever wondered why God’s presence seems to fade after your quiet time, this is the missing piece. The quiet time is the starting place. The rest of the day is where the relationship grows.
Why Does God’s Presence Seem to Disappear When I Get Busy?
The short answer: it does not disappear.
God promised, “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Heb 13:5, NKJV).
His presence is constant. What changes is our awareness.
Think of it this way. The sun does not stop shining when a cloud passes over. We simply cannot see it for a moment. The busyness of life, the scroll of notifications, the demands on our attention, all of these are clouds that block our awareness of what is always there.
Brother Lawrence, the seventeenth-century monk who famously practiced God’s presence in a noisy kitchen, described the core skill as simply returning.
Every time he noticed his mind had wandered away from God, he gently brought it back. He did not scold himself. He did not give up. He returned. Over time, the wandering grew shorter and the returning grew faster.
This is not a talent. It is a skill. And like any skill, it develops with practice. The six exercises below give you practical ways to build that returning reflex into the fabric of your day.
How Can I Stay Aware of God During a Busy Day? 6 Practical Exercises
You do not need to try all six at once. Choose one that fits your daily routine and begin there.
Practice 1: Cultivate Gratitude as an Ongoing Conversation (Attitude)
Gratitude is one of the most powerful doors into God’s presence, and you can walk through it anywhere.
The practice is simple: throughout your day, notice specific things you are grateful for and speak that gratitude to God, silently or aloud. Be specific. Do not just say, “Thank you, Lord, for everything.” Instead, thank Him for the warmth of the coffee in your hand. Thank Him for the coworker who held the door. Thank Him for the memory of your child’s laughter at dinner last night.
Paul wrote, “In everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (1 Thess 5:18). Notice that he said in everything, not for everything. You can give thanks in the middle of a hard day because your gratitude is directed toward the God who is with you in it.
Research confirms what Scripture teaches: people who develop a habit of gratitude experience measurable changes in their emotional well-being. They feel happier.
We are not born thankful. Gratitude is a habit we cultivate, and as we do, we become more and more aware of the Giver behind every gift.
If you need help knowing where to start, I have a whole list of ideas for things to be thankful for that you can use as a springboard. And if you want to go deeper into the life-changing power of gratitude, my book When Thank You Isn’t Enough explores how gratitude transforms our relationship with God from the inside out.
1. Try this today: Before your feet hit the floor tomorrow morning, name three specific things you are grateful for. Speak them to God. Then do the same thing at lunch and again before you fall asleep. You are training your heart to stay in conversation with Him throughout the day.
Practice 2: Use an Awareness Trigger to Redirect Your Thoughts (Thought and Speech)
This practice uses a physical reminder to redirect your attention toward God throughout the day.
Place a rubber band around your wrist, or use a ring, a bracelet, or even a sticky note on your dashboard. Every time you notice it, pause and ask one simple question: “Jesus, where are You in this moment?”
That is it. You do not need to stop what you are doing for fifteen minutes. You do not need to close your eyes or fold your hands. You simply turn your attention to Him for a few seconds and ask.
Some days, you will feel His peace settle over you immediately. Other days, you may not feel much at all. That is fine.
You are developing awareness, and awareness grows with repetition. Do not make this complicated.
Do not put pressure on yourself. You are practicing, the same way a musician practices scales, not to perform but to build the reflex.
Jacob woke from his dream at Bethel and said, “Surely the LORD is in this place, and I did not know it” (Gen 28:16). How often are we surrounded by God’s presence and simply do not notice? The awareness trigger helps you notice.
Over time, you can shift the question. One day, ask, “Lord, what are You saying to me right now?” Another day, notice what you are thinking and ask, “How does God see this moment?” Paul encouraged us, “Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth” (Col 3:2). The trigger gives you a practical way to obey that verse, right in the middle of your workday.
Try this today: Place a rubber band on your wrist or set three random alarms on your phone. Each time you notice the band or hear the alarm, pause and ask, “Jesus, where are You right now?” Write down anything you notice.
Practice 3: Bookend Your Day With Christ (Thought and Speech)
The first thoughts of your morning and the last thoughts before sleep are among the most spiritually fertile moments of your day. Your mind is quiet. Distractions are few. Your heart is open.
Make a habit of giving those moments to Jesus. When you wake, before you reach for your phone, picture Him in a scene from Scripture. Imagine yourself sitting beside Him at the well in Samaria, or walking with Him through a field of grain. Hold a single verse in your mind and let it settle into your heart.
Do the same as you fall asleep. Let the last voice you hear be His. Let the last image in your mind be His face. You may want to whisper a simple prayer: “Lord, I rest in You tonight.”
Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies” (John 11:25). When those are the first and last words in your day, they shape everything in between.
This practice sounds small. It is. That is the point. Knowing God deeply does not always require grand gestures. Sometimes it begins with thirty seconds of attention at the edge of sleep and at the first light of morning.
Try this today: Tonight, as you lie down, close your eyes and picture Jesus standing in the garden after His resurrection. Hold that image. Speak to Him. Let that be the last thing you carry into sleep. Tomorrow morning, return to that image before you do anything else.
Practice 4: Breath Prayer in the Middle of Chaos (Physical Activity)
This practice meets you in the most pressured moments of your day, the traffic jam, the tense meeting, the kitchen full of demands.
When you feel the stress rise, stop. Breathe in slowly and deeply. As you inhale, breathe in the breath of God. Hold for a count of six. Then exhale slowly, and as you do, release the stress and anxiety you are carrying. Breathe in again, hold again, and relax.
Repeat this several times. Pay attention not only physically but spiritually. As you quiet your body, notice what stirs in your personal spirit. Do you sense His peace? His love? A lightness you did not have a moment ago?
This is not a relaxation technique borrowed from somewhere else. It is rooted in the nature of God Himself. The Hebrew word for spirit, ruach, is the same word for breath and wind. When God formed Adam from the dust, He “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life” (Gen 2:7). Every breath you take echoes that first gift. When you breathe intentionally in God’s direction, you are returning to your origin.
I have seen believers discover God’s presence in the most unlikely moments through this simple practice. In a carpool line. Between loads of laundry. In the middle of a grocery aisle. He is there. We simply need to slow down long enough to notice.
Try this today: The next time you feel overwhelmed, stop what you are doing for sixty seconds. Breathe in the breath of God. Hold. Release. Repeat three times. Ask Him to meet you in that moment. He will.
Practice 5: Turn Your Walk Into a Prayer Walk (Physical Activity)
Some people find they do their best praying while their feet are moving. If that describes you, a prayer walk may become one of your most treasured daily practices.
A prayer walk is simply a walk during which you pray for the people and places you see. It can happen anywhere: your neighborhood, your workplace hallway, a park at lunchtime, even the route you walk from the parking lot to the store.
As you walk, pay attention. Notice the houses. Pray for the families inside. Notice the businesses. Ask God to bless the people who work there. When you pass a school, pray for the children and teachers. When you see a stranger, ask God what He would have you pray for that person.
This practice connects your physical body, your spiritual attention, and the world around you in a single, integrated act of worship. You are not retreating from the world to find God. You are walking through the world with God, and asking Him to show you what He sees.
Jesus walked everywhere He went. He noticed the fig tree, the widow at the temple, the children in the crowd. He saw people others overlooked. A prayer walk trains your eyes to see the way He sees.
Try this today: On your next walk, whether it is around the block or through a parking lot, pray for everything and everyone you notice. Start with, “Lord, show me what You see,” and then simply pay attention.
Practice 6: Listen to Scripture on Audio (Thought and Speech)
This practice transforms your commute, your workout, your cooking time, or your evening routine into an encounter with God’s living Word.
Instead of filling those moments with a podcast or music, try listening to an entire chapter or book of the Bible on audio. Almost everyone has access to a Bible app with audio features. Choose a version you enjoy and press play.
Listening to Scripture is a different experience than reading it. Words that feel familiar on the page can surprise you when you hear them spoken aloud.
Passages you have read many times may suddenly stir something new in your heart. The Bible is alive, and hearing it washes over your soul in ways that quiet reading sometimes does not.
The writer of Hebrews declared,
“For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword” (Heb 4:12).
When you listen to Scripture while you drive or cook or fold laundry, you are immersing your spirit in that living Word.
Try a short book first: Philippians, Colossians, or one of John’s letters. You can listen to any of them in fifteen to twenty minutes.
After a few days, notice the difference in your attitude, your thoughts, and your awareness of God’s presence. The effect is often subtle at first and then unmistakable.
Try this today: On your next commute or during your next household task, listen to the book of Philippians on audio. Do not analyze it. Just listen. Let the Word wash over you and notice what God stirs in your heart.
How Do I Practice God’s Presence at Work?
Work may seem like the hardest place to stay aware of God, with deadlines pressing in, coworkers pulling your attention in five directions, and meetings that leave you drained before lunch.
Yet work is precisely where most of us spend the largest portion of our waking hours, which means it is also where we have the greatest opportunity to grow.
Several of the practices above translate directly to the workplace. The awareness trigger (Practice 2) works at your desk. The breath prayer (Practice 4) works between meetings. Gratitude (Practice 1) can reshape the way you see even a difficult coworker.
Brother Lawrence spent his years practicing God’s presence in the kitchen of a busy monastery, surrounded by noise, demands, and the ordinary grind of daily labor.
He wrote that he came to possess God in as great a tranquility there as if he were upon his knees in the chapel.
If God could meet Brother Lawrence amid the clatter of pots and pans, He can meet you at your desk, on the sales floor, or in the breakroom.
Start with one practice. Give it two weeks. God will meet you where you are.
Can I Really Experience God’s Presence in Ordinary Moments?
You might be surprised at the places God shows up when you begin to pay attention.
Bathroom time, for example, is one of the quietest moments in many people’s day. The shower is a place where distractions fall away and your mind is free. I have heard God speak and felt His presence many times in the shower. The water runs, the noise of the house fades, and suddenly it is just you and the Lord.
Many believers have told me the same thing. They experienced a real awareness of God’s presence right there in the shower, with the water running and the rest of the world shut out for a few minutes.
The grocery store is another unexpected place. Most of the time, I am too busy checking my list and dodging carts to notice much of anything. But when I slow down and whisper, “Jesus, where are You?” I can sense His presence right there, between the produce and the bread aisle.
This is what cultivating God’s presence looks like in real life. It is not reserved for mountaintop experiences or church services.
God’s presence can be experienced in the kitchen, the car, the backyard, and yes, the shower. The question is not whether He is there. The question is whether we have learned to notice.
What Is a Simple Prayer to Practice God’s Presence?
If you want one prayer to carry with you all day, try this:
“Lord, I know You are here. Open my eyes to see You. Open my ears to hear You. I welcome Your presence in this moment.”
You can pray this in the car, at your desk, standing in line, or lying in bed. It takes ten seconds. And it turns your heart toward the One who has been beside you all along.
For more prayers that help you cultivate an intimate friendship with God, see the prayer section below.
These Six Practices Are Just the Beginning
The exercises above give you a taste of what is possible when you learn how to practice God’s presence throughout your day. They are drawn from a much larger collection I have developed for believers who want to go deeper.
The 90-Day Spiritual Awakening Journal organizes dozens of exercises across three categories, Attitude, Thought and Speech, and Physical Activities, into a guided daily experiment. Each day gives you a specific practice, a Scripture anchor, and a journaling prompt to help you process what God is doing in your heart.
If you have ever felt inspired to draw closer to God but lacked the practical steps, this journal was written for you. It gives you the how that so many believers are searching for.
Get The 90-Day Spiritual Awakening Journal on Amazon →
For a deeper understanding of what God’s presence is, why it matters, and how to cultivate an ongoing awareness of Him, How to Practice the Presence of God walks you through the theology and the practical skills together, with prayers and step-by-step exercises throughout.
Get How to Practice the Presence of God on Amazon →
My Prayer for You
Dear friend, I pray for you right now, wherever you are reading this.
Lord, I ask You to awaken this reader to more of Your presence today, right where they are, in the shower, in the car, in the middle of their busiest hour. Open their spiritual eyes to see what has always been there. Give them the courage to slow down, to ask, “Jesus, where are You?” and the faith to believe You will answer.
Remove every lie that says Your presence is only for the spiritual elite, for pastors and monks and people who have it all together. You are for every one of Your children. You promised You would never leave, and You keep Your promises.
I pray that the practices in this article will become seeds that take root and grow. Let them bear fruit that surprises this precious reader with Your nearness, Your warmth, and Your love.
In Jesus’ name, amen.
Practicing the presence of God means developing daily habits that help you stay aware of God throughout your ordinary life, not only during prayer or church. It involves turning your attention toward God repeatedly throughout the day until that awareness becomes a natural part of how you live. The concept has roots in Scripture (Psalm 16:8, 1 Thessalonians 5:17) and was made well-known by Brother Lawrence, a seventeenth-century monk who learned to experience God in the kitchen as deeply as in the chapel.
You can grow in daily awareness of God’s presence by cultivating simple practices like gratitude, breath prayer, listening to Scripture on audio, and using awareness triggers to redirect your thoughts toward Him throughout the day. The key is consistency, not perfection. For a step-by-step guide with prayers and exercises, see What Does God’s Presence Feel Like? and How to Practice the Presence of God.
Corporate worship creates an environment designed to focus your attention on God, with music, community, and intention. The rest of your day has none of those built-in supports, which is why you need practical skills to carry that awareness forward. The practices in this article teach you how to build those supports into your daily routine so that your connection with God extends beyond Sunday morning.
Yes. While the exact phrase is not used in Scripture, the concept runs throughout the Bible. David said he set the Lord always before him (Psalm 16:8). Paul told believers to pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:17). Jesus told His disciples to abide in Him (John 15:4). These verses describe a lifestyle of ongoing awareness and conversation with God, which is the heart of what it means to practice His presence.
About the Author
Dr. Cynthia K. Johnson is an ordained minister, author, and cofounder of Deeper Walk Ministries, Inc. She holds a Doctor of Church Ministries and Leadership from Oral Roberts University. Dr. Johnson is passionate about equipping believers with practical skills for spiritual growth. Her books include How to Practice the Presence of God, The 90-Day Spiritual Awakening Journal, When Thank You Isn’t Enough, and the novel Forgotten Promise. She and her husband Howard live in Northwest Florida and have three grown daughters and six grandchildren.
← Return to the full guide: What Does God’s Presence Feel Like? How to Recognize It Daily
Knowing God’s Presence Series
- What Does God’s Presence Feel Like? How to Recognize It Daily (Main Guide)
- Why Can’t I Feel God’s Presence? 6 Reasons and the Way Back
- The 3 Secrets to Knowing God
- The Surprising Secret to an Intimate Friendship With God
- 34 Inspiring Bible Verses About God’s Presence
- What Does God’s Voice Sound Like?
- Where Is God’s Presence When Life Falls Apart?
- How to Practice God’s Presence Throughout the Day (you are here)
