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Thoughts of God

Love Mercy, Do Justice, and Walk Humbly with God

  • Welcome
    • Jesus and the Jewish Festivals
      • Jesus and Shalosh Regalim – Three Jewish Pilgrimage Festivals
      • Palm Sunday
      • Observing the Pascal Lamb
      • Pesach – Passover – Crucifixion – Unleavened Bread
      • Bikkurim – “First Fruits”
      • S’firat HaOmer – “Counting The Omer”
      • Shavuot – “Weeks” – A Week of Weeks
    • Select Reading
      • THE PRACTICE OF THE PRESENCE OF GOD – Table of Content
      • The Holy Spirit or Power from on High – Vol 2 by A.B. Simpson
      • Day of Heaven on Earth – AB Simpson
      • The Book of Prive Counseling – Author Unknown
      • The Cloud of Unknowing
      • William James – The Varieties of Religious Experience
    • My Purpose
      • Journal
      • Relational Theology
    • Prayer
      • Addressing God
      • Biblical Words Related to Prayer
      • Prayer, Living the Stations of the Tabernacle
    • Thoughts vs Sin

Eighth Letter – THE PRACTICE OF THE PRESENCE OF GOD – Brother Lawrence

One way to re-collect the mind easily in the time of prayer, and preserve it more in tranquility, is not to let it wander too far at other times. Keep your mind strictly in the presence of God. Then being accustomed to think of Him often, you will find it easy to keep your mind calm in the time of prayer, or at least to recall it from its wanderings.

I do not advise you to use multiplicity of words in prayer. Many words and long discourses are often the occasions of wandering. Hold yourself in prayer before God, like a dumb or paralytic beggar at a rich man’s gate.

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Seventh Letter – THE PRACTICE OF THE PRESENCE OF GOD – Brother Lawrence

You need not cry very loud. He is nearer to us than we are aware. And we do not always have to be in church to be with God. We may make an oratory of our heart so we can, from time to time, retire to converse with Him in meekness, humility, and love. Every one is capable of such familiar conversation with God, some more, some less.

Gradually become accustomed to worship Him in this way; to beg His grace, to offer Him your heart from time to time; in the midst of your business, even every moment if you can.

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Sixth Letter – THE PRACTICE OF THE PRESENCE OF GOD – Brother Lawrence

I do not say we must put any violent constraint upon ourselves. No, we must serve God in a holy freedom. We must work faithfully without trouble or disquiet, recalling our mind to God mildly and with tranquility as often as we find it wandering from Him. It is, however, necessary to put our whole trust in God.

I cannot imagine how religious persons can live satisfied without the practice of the presence of God. For my part I keep myself retired with Him in the depth and center of my soul as much as I can.

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Second Letter – THE PRACTICE OF THE PRESENCE OF GOD – Brother Lawrence

My King is full of mercy and goodness. Far from chastising me, He embraces me with love. He makes me eat at His table. He serves me with His own hands and gives me the key to His treasures. He converses and delights Himself with me incessantly, in a thousand and a thousand ways. And He treats me in all respects as His favorite. In this way I consider myself continually in His holy presence.

In conversation some days ago a devout person told me the spiritual life was a life of grace, which begins with servile fear, which is increased by hope of eternal life, and which is consummated by pure love.

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First Letter – THE PRACTICE OF THE PRESENCE OF GOD – Brother Lawrence

When we are faithful to keep ourselves in His holy presence, and set Him always before us, this hinders our offending Him, and doing anything that may displease Him. It also begets in us a holy freedom, and, if I may so speak, a familiarity with God, where, when we ask, He supplies the graces we need. Over time, by often repeating these acts, they become habitual, and the presence of God becomes quite natural to us.

Brother Lawrence’s letters are the very heart and soul of what is titled ‘The Practice of the Presence of God’. All of these letters were written during the last ten years of his life.

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Fourth Conversation – THE PRACTICE OF THE PRESENCE OF GOD – Brother Lawrence

By rising after my falls, and by frequently renewed acts of faith and love, I am come to a state wherein it would be as difficult for me not to think of God as it was at first to accustom myself to it.

We might accustom ourselves to a continual conversation with Him with freedom and in simplicity. We need only to recognize God intimately present with us and address ourselves to Him every moment.

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