Perhaps you read my post about Interruptions and wondered where those ideas came from. Glad you asked, because that brings me to The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence. This little book has meant a lot to me over the years. The gist of the book is straightforward: you can find God’s presence in every moment of your life no matter what you might be doing. Big project or little project, daydreaming or praying, work or rest, church or hard labor, God’s presence can be found if you just continually keep your focus on Him.
Now, this seems like mystical nonsense to some or idealistic thinking to others. I understand such concerns. But practicing the presence of God is at least worth trying, right? And if we do practice, won’t we get better at it? And if we do get better, won’t we begin to be aware of God’s presence in more and more of our lives?
Over the years my attempts at experiencing God this way have met with all kinds of results. Sometimes — perhaps most often — I fail miserably. But other times I become conscious of God moment by moment, never wavering from an awareness of His presence. It’s like having a good friend or a loving spouse in the room … you don’t always have to be talking, you don’t always have to be looking at each other, but you always know he or she is in the room.
Brother Lawrence shares his model for this practice through the collection of letters and other writings that were compiled into this little book. He lived from 1614 to 1691, much of that time as a cook in a monastery in Paris. Despite his lowly position, the esteemed and powerful would search him out to learn about his unique passion for being in continual communion with God. He wrote of his time in the kitchen, “The time of business does not with me differ from the time of prayer; and in the noise and clatter of my kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for different things, I possess God in as great tranquility as if I were upon my knees at the blessed sacrament.”
What I especially love about Brother Lawrence’s advice is that he sees God in the little things. He writes, “…we ought not to be weary of doing little things for the love of God, who regards not the greatness of the work, but the love with which it is performed.”
Perhaps the message of Brother Lawrence is summed up with his line, “In order to know God, we must often think of Him; and when we come to love Him, we shall then also think of Him often, for our heart will be with our treasure.”
I’m wildly inconsistent at this practice and imperfect at achieving such lofty goals even when I give it my best effort. But The Practice of the Presence of God set me on a course to at least try. The few times where I felt in constant communion with God, and achieved some semblance of continual prayer, were moments of pure bliss. I felt a peace that is indescribable.
For that, and for all the richness that the book has brought to my spiritual life, The Practice of the Presence of God is on the list of the 25 books that most influenced my life.
Want to read more of my top 25? Here is the list thus far:
Celebration of Discipline – #1
The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings – #2
The Cost of Discipleship – #3
The Screwtape Letters – #4
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – #5
Only the Paranoid Survive – #6
The Spy Who Came In From The Cold – #7
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – #8
Truman – #9
Shantaram – #10
The Maltese Falcon – #11
The Shadow of the Wind – #12
Survey of the New Testament – #13
Calvin & Hobbes – #14
Celtic Daily Prayer – #15
Managing the Nonprofit Organization – #16
A Wrinkle in Time – #17
The Practice of the Presence of God – #18
Catch 22 – #19
The Tortilla Curtain – #20
The Kingdom of God is a Party – #21
Earthkeeping – #22
Reviving Ophelia – #23
The Grapes of Wrath – #24
Peanuts – #25