Practicing The Presence Of God: Old Habits For A New YearSample

Day 5: Second Nature

We’ve uncovered quite a lot from this enduring book. Brother Lawrence has not only given us the practice, but the vision of what our life with God can become. One almost gets the sense, as we read over his words, that he recovered that Edenic spirit, that divine friendship of God and Adam in the Garden. Perhaps that’s the foremost result of this spiritual practice, it carries us home, to the Garden, to God. 

All of this reverberates with glory, but we must say with all the frankness we can muster, that the practice of the presence of God, like all spiritual practices, takes a long obedience in the same direction. It takes time, diligence, and a holy grit. It’s natural to romanticize the spiritual life, to reduce the struggle and ignore the stamina required for the journey – to whitewash the cross and all its agony – to try and set up resurrection as the wall-to-wall experience in the life of faith. But Brother Lawrence won’t let us get away with that, he says:

“When I finally reached a point where I wanted to quit...” 

There’s some real honesty. Even the humble cook wanted to throw in the towel, to abandon the practice, to be done with it all – but he didn’t. He persevered. Patience, on the spiritual journey, never fails. Here’s the full excerpt with the result of his persistence,

“When I finally reached a point where I wanted to quit, I found myself changed all at once. In my soul, which until that time was in distress, I suddenly felt a profound inward peace as if it were in its true place of rest. Ever since that time I have walked before God in simple faith, with humility and with love.”

Practicing His presence is a process that takes years not weeks or months. All that is required, is to persevere. If we do, we’ll come to see the fruit that Lawrence found. He writes:

“...when we are faithful in keeping ourselves in his holy presence, keeping him always before us...it brings to us a holy freedom, and if I may say so, a familiarity with God wherein we may ask and receive the graces we are so desperately in need of. In short, by often repeating these acts they become habitual, and the presence of God becomes something that comes naturally to us.”

As we move through the weeks and months and years, building this conversational relationship with God, it will slowly develop into habit, meaning we’ll do it instinctively, without thinking. Whenever we leave our home for an evening walk, we don’t think about the process of walking, of keeping one foot in front of the other or swinging our arms back and forth. We do all these things by habit. It’s second nature. We just step over the threshold and make our way. We don’t fret about mechanics, we simply enjoy the stroll.

This is what the fruit of our practice and the grace of God can produce. It becomes less and less about what am I supposed to be doing or saying or praying, and more about enjoying our conversation with God. There’s a sense of oneness and with-ness. We work, God works. He speaks, I listen. I speak, He listens. Could there be any greater outcome of a spiritual practice? Now you see why this little book has persisted for the last four hundred years. It’s an invitation to the with-God life. The life that Brother Lawrence persevered to acquire. Here’s how he put it towards the end of his life:

“As for what happens to me these days, I cannot express it. I no longer have any pain or difficulty because I have no will except that of God's, which I endeavor to do in all things....I make it my business only to persevere in his holy presence wherein I keep myself by a simple attention and a general fond regard to God, which I refer to as an actual presence of God. Or, to put it another way, an habitual, silent, and secret conversation of the soul with God.”

At the beginning of this plan we said that we hoped to explore, in Day Five, who we could become by building this practice into our day-to-day life. I’d now like to answer that question. Who can we hope to become? We can become like Christ. What we find so attractive about Brother Lawrence’s life, what draws us in, what we’ve admired and even longed for as we read, is the Christ life inside him. Was it not Jesus who pioneered and perfected the practice of the presence of God? Listen to what He said, “Father, I thank you that you heard me. I know that you always hear me.” Or “the Son can do nothing by himself. He does only what he sees the Father doing.” Or “I and the Father are one.” This is the Christ life. The union of God and man. The recovery of what was lost in the Garden. This is the life that Brother Lawrence points to. Practicing the presence of God, is practicing to become like Christ. Let us now move forward and in the words of the Apostle Paul, press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of us.

Reflection

1. As you worked through this plan, what is the one insight about Brother Lawrence’s life that has helped you most?

2. What would your life look like if you formed this spiritual discipline? What dispositions, emotions, and actions would naturally become yours?

Practice

This week, set aside ten minutes in the middle of your day to recalibrate your heart and mind towards God. Once the ten minutes is up, ask God to help you carry that sense of with-ness and oneness into the rest of your day.

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