Skip to content
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

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

Be satisfied with the condition in which God places you. However happy you may think me, I envy you. Pain and suffering would be a paradise to me, if I could suffer with my God. The greatest pleasures would be hell if I relished them without Him. My only consolation would be to suffer something for His sake.

I do not pray that you may be delivered from your pains; but I pray earnestly that God gives you strength and patience to bear them as long as He pleases. Comfort yourself with Him who holds you fastened to the cross. He will loose you when He thinks fit.

Share this page, please.

  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter

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

God has many ways of drawing us to Himself. He sometimes seems to hide Himself from us. But faith alone ought to be our support. Faith is the foundation of our confidence. We must put all our faith in God. He will not fail us in time of need. I do not know how God will dispose of me but I am always happy.

Take courage. Offer Him your pain and pray to Him for strength to endure them. Above all, get in the habit of often thinking of God, and forget Him the least you can. Adore Him in your infirmities.

Share this page, please.

  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter

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.

Share this page, please.

  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter

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.

Share this page, please.

  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter

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

It seems to him (in fact, he feels it) that this God of love, satisfied with such few words, reposes again and rests in the depth and center of his soul. The experience of these things gives him such certainty that God is always in the innermost part of his soul that he is beyond doubting it under any circumstances.

I have taken the liberty to impart to you these good sentiments that you may compare them with your own. May they serve to re-kindle them, if at any time they may be even a little cooled.

Share this page, please.

  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter

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.

Share this page, please.

  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
Next →