Because he is omnipresent, or because you did the rituals with the water and wine correctly?
I
want to believe God is right here, or at least I think some part of me wants it.
Both, though it's not about doing rituals correctly; it's about God's promise to be and act through His means of grace.
In the Lutheran tradition we speak of faith as a gift from God and a work of God. Faith doesn't arise from reason, as a property of the will or intellect, but is something which comes from outside of ourselves. God uses His means of grace, Word and Sacrament, to give, create, work, and strengthen faith.
In the Gospels a man comes to Jesus saying, "Lord, I believe, help my unbelief!" I think very often we commonly think that faith and doubt are opposites; or that if one has faith one doesn't doubt, or if one has doubts one doesn't have faith. I don't believe that's true. The person with faith struggles.
I have often said that if someone told me they believe, but have never experienced doubts or struggle, I'd wonder if they really do believe. So when I hear someone say "I want to believe", to me that says much. That person who wants to believe is not a person entirely without faith. But like a seed planted in soil, it must be watered, fed, and allowed to sprout and grow.
And that also remains true of every baptized Christian--to be watered, fed, in conditions to grow. That's the importance of God's means of grace. That Jesus created a community of people who call Him Lord and Teacher, and He instituted means in which the promises of God are attached. So Jesus said, "make disciples, baptizing them" and He took bread and wine saying, "This is My body" and "This is My blood", He told His apostles to proclaim forgiveness in His name, etc. So that, in this community of faith we call the Christian Church there is hearing the promises of God (the Gospel), the Sacraments such as baptism and the Lord's Supper, etc. So that, like a greenhouse is designed to have the right conditions for plants to grow, so is the Church God's house in which He causes us to grow. That there is community and place in which we experience and encounter Jesus Christ as He gives Himself to us and shares Himself with us--through the pulpit by preaching, through the altar where the bread and wine are consecrated, through the baptismal font where there is new birth. So that in every corner, every wall, every liturgical act, every hymn sung, and every Scripture read, Jesus is there--giving Himself, sharing Himself, working in our midst as He promised, "Where two or three are gathered in My name, I am there".
In that sense, then, you have met God--you've met God whenever the name of Jesus is exalted, whenever you have heard that He loves you, that Christ died for you, that Christ has been raised from the dead, and your sins are forgiven by what He has done for you. There was God, there is God, in what you have heard.
-CryptoLutheran
