The Practice of the Presence of God- Section 2

Communing with the Father in anything!

Today, I wanted to get around to reading the 2^nd section of the book: “The PRACTICE of the Presence of God”. There are five sections in the book, and am really excited to come further along in the book. It is a good book and stirring me up to new ways of worshipping God! I love it!!

The book is about a monk (Brother Lawrence), and his journey in faith and how it affected the way he carried out his daily tasks of dish washing and as a sandalmaker once he was unable to stand due to his gout..

The purpose on the second section of this book is to examine the CHARACTER of a Catholic monk in the 1600s, whose attention was constantly focused on the Lord’s presence. Realizing and basking in the presence of God is the spiritual discipline that we each need to have in our lives. So often our lives are busy, and never quiet. We so often do not experience God’s presence in a way that we could. I am excited to dive into some more of this book, because I want to experience God in greater ways, as I am sure you do. We make it so much more difficult than it has to be as I am discovering for myself. It is no so much about the reading, but the aftermath of experiencing God in a mighty way in light of what I have read. I am excited to see what God is going to teach me in this next year. This will be a journey that will not always feel fun, but it will teach me to experience God and bask in His presence on greater levels that I have ever experienced before!

What I learned in tonight's reading:

• Our faith needs to be ALIVE! Book knowledge cannot even compare to the knowledge of knowing and experiencing Christ!
• Communion with God can be interwoven in our daily tasks!
• I need to quit pursuing me, and recklessly pursue God in all things! 
• I can sacrifice my wants, and pursue God and do my daily tasks by showing my love to Him! Anything can be used for Him to worship Him! It does not matter how big or small of a task, it is about my sacrifice! It is about the love that I am showing Him, even if it is simply by doing the tasks instead of procrastinating the task.
• I can choose to suffer or choose to worship God in my pain and suffering! It is still sacrifice, and should be about showing Him the love and building up of my faith!
• Prayer does not have just one form. Worshipping God can take many forms. It is simply meeting with God or letting God join in with what we are doing--and choosing to worship Him!

Part 2: Chapter 1: The Beginning of Perfection.

The beginning of perfection starts with Christ. It starts with our faith.

This chapter really just began to stir in me about experiencing God. We can read book after book, but it does not equate to experiencing God. We can learn things about God through book, but realistically given the choice---if we had to choose between hearing facts about someone and experiencing time with them to get to know them first hand... which would you choose? Odds are, you would prefer to spend time with them. It is about awaking our faith and renewing our hope that we can only find in Christ. It is about gaining freedom, and learning to breathing again with the knowledge of God.

 “All that I have heard others say, all that I have found in books, all that I have written myself, seems savorless, dull and heavy, when compared with what faith has unfolded to me of the unspeakable riches of God and of Jesus Christ.”

What we experience in our walk of God cannot compare to what we may read in books. It is through our own experiences that our faith in God comes alive and transforms us in countless ways. I think that is what inspires me most about this particular reading is the faith coming alive… It continues on by stating:

“ Christ alone,” he said, “can reveal Himself to us.” We toil and exercise our mind in reason and in science, forgetting that therein we can see only a copy, while we neglect to gaze on the Incompariable Original. “In the depths of our soul, God reveals Himself, if we but realized it, yet we will not look there for Him. “”we leave Him to spend our time in foolish behavior or speech, and pretend to scorn communing with Him, who is ever-present, who is our King.” “It is not enough, he said, “to know God as theory from what we read in books, or feel some fleeting affection for Him that is brief as the wave of feeling or glimpse of the Divine that prompts them.

“Our faith is ALIVE, and we must make it so, and by its power LIFT OURSELVES beyond all these passing emotions to worship the Father and Jesus Christ in all their Divine perfection.” “This path of faith is the spirit of the Church and will lead to great perfection!”

Not only did Brother Lawrence perceive God as present in his soul by faith, but in all the events of life, whenever they happened, he would instantly arise and seek the presence of God.. using things he saw (like a leafless tree) to lead him up to the Unseen Eternal (the fact of God).

Chapter 2: Pursuing the Sense of the Presence of God

What I enjoyed from this chapter is one thing. Learning how to have constant communion of God. I believe this is what Apostle Paul writes about when he says we should pray without ceasing. We can continue steadfastly, glorifying God, and showing love to Him. We can communion with God daily even as we go about our daily tasks. It will reach the point where our tasks do not hinder our communion with God, our Father. It is a process of practicing to recognize God’s presence even as we go through my daily life. It is not choosing to not just give God a portion of us, but giving God all of us! All of our acts can produce a joy uninterrupted as we commune with God. Our faithfulness can cast away all other thoughts, and leave our souls free for unbroken communion with God. We can worship God and show our love for Him, as we do dishes or pick up a straw that has fallen on the ground, and do it because we LOVE Him!

I love what it says: “In the end, habit became so much second nature that, as he told me, it was in a way impossible for him to turn away from God and busy himself with other matters.” What if our worship through our daily tasks made us fall completely in love with God again? What if we didn’t want to be distracted with non-God things? The presence of God can be reached more readily by the heart and by love than by understand. This is why it won’t matter how many books we read. We just need to fall in love with Him again. We need to experience His presence. He is there, but we may not be experiencing Him like we could be..

Brother Lawrence gives a powerful picture that I am going to type out and share..

“I am giving you a picture of a lay brother serving in a kitchen—let me then use his own words:

“We can do little things for God. I turn the cake that is frying on the pan for the love of Him. When that is done, if there is nothing else to call me I prostrate myself in worship before Him, who has given me grace to work—afterwards, I rise happier than a king. It is enough for me to pick up but a straw from the ground for the love of God. We search for stated ways and methods of learning how to love God, and to come to that love we disquiet our minds by I do not know how many devices. We are giving ourselves a world of trouble, and pursue a multitude of practices to achieve a sense of the presence of God…yet it is so simple. How very much shorter and easier it is to do our common business purely for the love of God, to set His consecrating mark on all we lay hands to, and thereby foster the sense of His abiding presence by [constant] communion of our heart with His! There is no need either of art or science—we can go to Him just as we are, simply and with single heart…I have come to see that my only business is to live as though there were none but He and I in the world.”

Chapter 3: Forsaking All of Self for God

In this passage, we see what it would be like if we truly traded our own selves for the living God. Scripture talks about what happens when we are baptized that our old self is dead, and our life with Christ is what we become—as we are a new creation!

The brother began by what was most perfect, forsaking all for God, and doing everything for His love. He entirely forgot about himself. He did not think about Heaven or Hell or about his past sins once he asked for forgiveness.

“We are made for God and for Him alone. He cannot, therefore, think it wrong that we forsake all, even ourselves, to find our all in Him.”

In forgetting ourselves, we can truly be found. We can only be found, once we see who we are in view of God’s mercy. We can only find our true self as we pursue an intimate relationship with the Lord! In the events of Brother Lawrence (a monk who lived and served in Paris), he chose to stay fixed on God.

During four years of trials, he stayed fixed on the love of God and said: “Let what may come of it, however many be the days remaining to me, I will do all things for the love of God.” What if we surrendered our will to God’s completely? In all the events of life he saw plainly the working of the divine will, and this kept him in perfect peace, because his mind stayed on God. He continued in peace no matter what, because he knew God could remedy anything. When his superiors made a decision he didn’t agree with, he would say: We must believe that they have good reasons for their decisions, and our duty now is to obey and say no more about it!” I want to be a person like that who respects others authority, even when our opinions is at odds with those in authority!

The attitude brought him to so great an indifference about everything, and to such perfect freedom, that it was very like the freedom of the Blessed. What would it be like to live with bias-free, free of prejudice, and without a trace of our old self? What would it look like to be a true citizen of Heaven where nothing on this earth holds us enchained.. for our wills are no longer bounded to this world.

“Everything came alike to him, every station, every duty. The good brother found God everywhere, as near when he was at the humblest task as when praying with the [others in the] community.”

Chapter 4: Do All for the Love of God

The one method of entering God’s presence is to love. Doing it for the love of God should be our method in our walk with God too. I wish, we could seek God’s glory diligently in everything we do. It may be a task that we absolutely dread, but we can sacrifice our own will and do it for Him---out of love for our Creator. We each have things we hate, and how much would our lives change if we began to do things for God’s glory instead of putting things off out of dread…It does not matter how “little” the task appears to be, but it is the value of our offering to God. God doesn’t consider the greatness of the act, but the love that is involved in our sacrifice!

Having a firmness of mind is another quality mentioned when considering the practicing of the presence of God. What if nothing shocked us about the world we live in today, and nothing gave us fear? Sounds mighty wonderful to me… Resting in the truth of God’s promises that God will never deceive us and only send the best for us as His children… Our part is not doubt, but to do and suffer all for the love of Him.

Do we take pleasure in the duties God has given us? I don’t know about you, but I don’t always take great joy in the fact that I have a sink full of dirty dishes to be washed. This may or may not be seen as a “duty”, but it still has to be done---right? This monk, Brother Lawrence, did dishes (way more than I do..) and it was a duty given by God. What if our attitudes hindered the task God gives us? I think, our attitudes DO in fact hinder our walk with God and the tasks He gives us daily!

The book talks about this idea of “What if we fixed our eyes on God, versus reflecting on what to do?” So often the planning (or maybe the procrastination) sucks the life that our tasks could do. They could be countless opportunities to show our love to God, even if it something simple like picking up a straw off the ground (Chapter 2). Our devotion to God could be radically challenged and grown as we do tasks out of LOVE for God!

Chapter 5: Brother Lawrence’s Final Days

The chapter entitled “Brother Lawrence’s Final Days” is what I find amazing. It amazes me and gives me great hope what God can do in a person’s spirit amidst great struggle and pain. Brother Lawrence approached the end of his life without anxiety or concern, which is something I know we each could only hope for. It is possible as we approach the spiritual discipline of recognizing God’s presence is constant and worshiping Him for who He is! I am going to share snippets of the chapter, because my words will fail to capture these last moments and the amount of faith that has me in awe..

“His patience has been great indeed through all his life, but it grew stronger than ever as he approached the end. He was never in the least fretful, even when he was the most wracked with pain. Joy was pain not only on his face, but still more in his speech—so much so, in fact, that those who visited him were compelled to ask if he was not in suffering. “forgive me” he replied. “yes, I do suffer. The pains in my side greatly trouble me, but my spirit is happy and well content.” They added, “Suppose God wills that you suffer for ten years, what then?” “I will suffer,” he answered, “not for ten years only, but until the Day of Judgment, if it be God’s will. And I would hope that He would continue to aid me with His grace to bear it joyfully.” His one desire was that he might suffer something for the love of God.. He embraced it heartily! Often in the hour of pain he would cry out with fervor, “My God I worship thee in my infirmities. Now, now, I shall have something to bear for thee—good, be it so, may I suffer and die with thee.” Then he would repeat those verses of the fifty-first Psalm, “create in me a clean heart, O God. Cast me not away from your presence. Restore to me the joy of my salvation!”…So amazing was his boldness in that dark valley from which so many shrink... We can do nothing better than abandon ourselves to God. He ended with: I am doing what I shall do all eternity—blessing God, praising God, adoring God, giving Him the love of my whole heart!”

I am amazing at the faith of this monk. His timeless example of how faith can overtake our sufferings, and He continues to give God glory. I can only ask: Can I be more like that? Can I be more willful of suffering knowing it is for the love of God and it is a sacrifice that He adores?!

Chapter 6: Part of the Great Band Who Have Forsaken the World for Christ

“Nothing can give a clearer picture of a true Christian philosophy in practice than the life and death of Brother Lawrence. He took the Gospel as his only rule, and forsaken the world to dedicate himself to the life of the spirit and to come to a knowledge of God and of His Son, Jesus Christ.”

Reading a picture of how the Christian life can be is excited to me. It opens up the avenues that we can travel, and ways we can bask in His presence! We can forsake the patterns of this world, and chose to continue to be transformed by God as we fix ourselves on Him—enjoying His awesome presence!

In St. Clement of Alexandra, they said “the great business of a philosopher, that is, a wise Christian, is prayer. Such people pray in every place, at every time, not indeed using many words or thinking to be heard for their much speaking, but in secret in the depths of their soul---while walking, conversing with others, reading, eating, or working. Their praises ring to God unceasingly—not only at specific times during the day, but in all their actions they glorify God..”

It is encouraging to read about how we can experience God no matter where we are or what we may be physically doing. We can worship the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ wherever we are. We can approach God when we are the most busy, wherever we are and whatever we are doing and during our time of leisure! We can see others examples, and be moved to render thanks to God for all His mercies and for the good that He inspires others to do, humbling ourselves before Him for our many failures. We each have an obligation to worship God and love Him.

I will end tonight’s blog with a bit of an excerpt from chapter 6 on the communion with the Father which is sure to be convincing as well as convicting..

“We each have an obligation to worship God and love Him. We cannot carry out this solemn duty as we should unless our heart is knit in love to God. Our communion with Him is so close as to compel us to run to Him at every moment, just like little children who cannot stand upright without their mother’s arms of love.

Far from this communion with our Father being difficult, it is very easy and very necessary for every one—it is to this that the apostle Paul says all Christians are obliged. (1 Cor. 1:9; 2 Cor 13:14, Eph 6:18, Phil 4:6, Col 4:2, 1 Thess 5:17, 1 Tim 2:8)

Whoever does not practice it, whoever does not feel their great necessity, whoever does not grasp their total inability to do it correctly alone, is ignorant of their own self, ignorant of God their Father, utterly ignorant of their continual need of Jesus Christ.

No affairs or cares of the world can serve as an excuse for neglecting this, our duty. God is everywhere, in all places. There is no place in space or time where we cannot draw near to Him and hear Him speaking in our heart. With a little love, just a very little, we will not find it hard.”