We often talk about drawing near to God, as if He’s the one who’s far off. But Scripture tells a different story. God is always moving, always present. It's just that we don’t always notice.

Four times in Scripture, we’re told God “passed by.”[1]

• On the road to Emmaus, two heartbroken disciples walk alongside Jesus, but they don’t recognize Him until the very end.
• In 1 Kings, Elijah stands on a mountain waiting for God in the wind, the fire, and the earthquake. But God wasn’t in any of those. Instead, He came in a whisper.
• In Exodus, God hides Moses in a cleft of rock, covers him with His hand, and lets His glory pass by.
• And in Mark 6, Jesus walks on water toward a boat full of terrified disciples, and it says, “He was about to pass by them.” He’s right there, close enough to reach, but their fear nearly blinds them to His presence.

So, what do those stories have in common? Whether it’s Moses, Elijah, the disciples, or the two on the road, none of them initially recognize the holiness in the moment.

Some are distracted by fear. Others are exhausted. Still, others are looking for something louder, flashier, and more obviously divine.

We’re often the same way. We want the miracle, the audible voice, the breakthrough moment. But maybe, just maybe, God is most present in the subtle, anticlimactic moments we dismiss as ordinary. That passing comment, that song lyric, that weird nudge in your spirit. That moment with your kid in the car. And if we’re not paying attention, we’ll miss Him walking right by.

Learning to Hear in the Ordinary

Discernment, at its core, is about tuning our ears and hearts to recognize God's voice amid all the other noise. It’s not a skill we're born with. It’s developed over time—through mistakes, through silence, through missed opportunities, and yes, through a few miracles.

If you’ve ever realized after the fact that God had been speaking and you didn’t notice, you're not alone. In fact, you’re in pretty good company. Jesus Himself rebuked the disciples on the road to Emmaus, calling them foolish—not because they were unintelligent, but because they were slow to believe.

How many of us have done the same? We hear stories of God working, we sense a whisper in our spirit, we catch a glimpse of something meaningful in the mundane—and we talk ourselves out of it. We reason it away. We wait for something more obvious, more supernatural. Meanwhile, God is right there in front of us.

In his book How to Hear God, Pete Greig writes that if we’re ever going to feel truly safe and loved by God, we have to learn to hear Him in “the anticlimax of life’s non-events.” That phrase hits hard. Life isn’t lived in mountaintops or revival tents. It’s lived in school pick-up lines, slow commutes, and quiet evenings.

If you’re raising kids, you know the ache of wanting to get it right. You teach them about Jesus, you pray with them, you bring them to church—and then they grow up, pull away, and make their own choices. You start to wonder if you missed God somewhere along the way.

Did you hear Him wrong? Did you plant seeds that never took root? That Luke Bryan song, “Jesus 'Bout My Kids,” captures it so well: I used to talk to my kids about Jesus… now I talk to Jesus 'bout my kids.

And yet, maybe those ordinary moments—the quiet bedtime prayers, the rushed car rides, the imperfect dinners—were the holy encounters. Maybe that was God passing by, and you were planting seeds in the cracks of the rock, where only He can make them grow.

Choosing to See What’s Already There

So how do we become people of discernment? Not just people who believe in God, but people who actually notice Him? It starts with a choice to pay attention. One way is through a simple practice called the Prayer of Examen, which is a prayer of reflection developed by St. Ignatius Loyola. It involves reviewing the day, reflecting on one's actions and reactions, and seeking God's guidance for the future.

Here is how you practice it. At the end of the day, take a moment to reflect and ask yourself these questions: Where did I sense God today? What stirred my heart? When did I feel peace? When did I miss it? Sometimes, you’ll realize He was right there in that hard conversation, or that fleeting thought you brushed off, or that word someone said in passing.

We don’t need to beg God to show up. He already has. The real challenge is noticing when He passes by. Because He does. Often. Quietly. Kindly. Faithfully.

May we become the kind of people who don’t miss Him when He passes by, and who learn—through all the anticlimaxes of life—to recognize the presence of the Living God right beside us.

[1] This is a concept Tyler Staton writes about in The Familiar Stranger and his thoughts helped me think through this idea in a new way.