I have found in many books many different ways of going to God and many different practices in living the spiritual life. Nonetheless, the account I can give to you is as follows.… 2. If I knew that you would let it be seen, all the desire I have for your advancement would not force me to send it. I must tell you that it is with great difficulty that I am obliged to share this with you, and I share it only with the agreement that you show this letter to no one. I write this only because you have so earnestly requested that I explain to you the method by which I have learned how to develop an habitual sense of God’s presence which our Lord, in his mercy, has been pleased to grant to me. Writer, Pastor, and Renovaré Ministry Team MemberĮxcerpt from Devotional Classics The Practice of the Presence of God 1. With this reading, I’m reminded of the simplicity of God’s desire for the fullness of our lives, “Is love expressed and experienced?” Brother Lawrence also brings to mind the necessity of building right habits if our love is to expand and delight. We are prone to judgment, participate in bitter resentment, and become perpetuators of a divided world-winners and losers, those who make it and those who don’t. We are overcome by what I call “comparison fatigue” as we carry the weight of comparison. When so much of our world is geared toward measurement grades, promotions, making the team, getting the part, college acceptances, neighborhoods we live in, schools our kids attend, we end up bearing the cost-in our bodies, minds, and spirit, of a perpetual cycle of never measuring up. In this passage, two guiding insights stand out to me:Ģ) Right habits increase our capacity to love. I don’t know if the following is original with Dan Wetzel (former VP of Church Ministries at our National Office) but I had never heard it before.Brother Lawrence’s little manual has become such a guide for me in the celebration of my ordinary life. You will be like a well-watered garden, like an ever-flowing spring.” (NLT) So the obvious question becomes: “So what does the garden of your soul look like?” Currently my soul-garden is going through a rather dry time but I know the soil is moist and full of nourishing minerals and God will restore what has been damaged. Isaiah 58:11 speaks to our soul: “The LORD will guide you continually, giving you water when you are dry and restoring your strength. I truly desire to walk in the power of God’s Presence – to do otherwise is exhausting (not to mention fruitless). He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join Him in the work He does, the good work He has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.”Ī friend of mine made this comment: “Jesus ushered in the reality of God’s deep concern and compassion of how we’re doing on the inside and how we need to stop practicing the presence of self.” Ouch! I don’t know about you but my SELF loves attention and loves to go around bragging – if not out loud then on the inside of my heart. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! We don’t play the major role. All we do is trust Him enough to let Him do it. Saving is all His idea, and all His work. ![]() I recently read Ephesians 2:7-10 in The Message: “Now God has us where He wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. ![]() But how freeing it is to view this in the positive: “Wow! Awesome – I have God’s Spirit in me!” I want to embrace the truth that the Holy Spirit living in me provides the necessary strength to do the good works He has prepared before time for me to do. I think I often evaluate this truth in a negative light by perceiving it to mean: don’t do this and don’t do that or you better behave because God is ever-watching. “Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself…” 1 Corinthians 6:19 (NLT)
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