ACtually I recently was corrected on this belief. I was recently at a funeral where the minister said "absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.".
That actually isn't what the passage says.
For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven, if indeed, having been clothed, we shall not be found naked. For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life. Now He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who also has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. For we walk by faith, not by sight. We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord”
What Paul is actually saying is he would rather be absent from the body and present with the Lord. Not that when we are absent from the body we are in God's presence.
This came as a shock to me when I discovered this. Even bummed me out.
Speaking honestly here: you were better off had you not taken the confused minister's advice.
Paul should be allowed to speak for himself as he taught on this in many other places also, which confirms he meant what he said, to be taken just as its written.
2 Corinthians 5:8
We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.
Ecclesiastes 12:
6 Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern.
7 Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.
How about Paul's own writings :
1 Corinthians 15:12
Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead?
1 Corinthians 15:
19 If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.
If some people ( that poor minster ) thinks there is no resurrection at death, then they are most miserable.
20 But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.
21 For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. <--
22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. <--
Not to stay in a hole in a ground . If Christ is the example and He resurrected, so did they that die.
1 Corinthians 15:42
So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption:
( It is born into a natural body, it is raised in a heavenly one at death )
Continue to read, here, and Paul even gos into detail as to what kind of body, people have when they die.
So when Paul said, to be absent from the body is present with the Lord, he meant that happens at death.
