THE PRACTICE OF THE PRESENCE OF GOD
"We must know before we can love. In order to know God, we must often think of Him. And when we come to love Him, we shall then also think of Him often, for our heart will be with our treasure."
... Brother Lawrence
he Gifts of the SpiritLove, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Fidelity, Gentleness, Self-control
How do we acquire these gifts? Weak, unworthy creatures that we are, try as we might, we are incapable of getting these gifts through our own efforts. These are gifts that can only be bestowed by God at will. And yet, they have been promised to His children. How, then, does He make good His promise?
From personal experience, Brother Lawrence saw that "the whole substance of religion was faith, hope, and charity. In the practice of these we become united to the will of God. Everything else is indifferent and to be used as a means that we may arrive at our end and then be swallowed up by faith and charity".
In other words, through the practice of the presence of God, our will eventually becomes united with God's will. We become synchronized to the expression of what is pleasing to God in our thoughts, words, and deeds. Our attitude is transformed. We become God-contained.
We love God without any motive, even for His promised gifts. We love Him purely because He is ultimately lovely. He then bestows the gifts of the spirit on us. We feel His great outpouring while, at the same time, as Brother Lawrence says, the gifts become "swallowed up by faith and charity".
Who can wonder that becoming established in the practice of the presence of God is worth doing whatever and for however long it takes?
One of the purest souls ever to live on this fallen planet was Nicholas Herman, known as Brother Lawrence. He wrote very little, but what he wrote has seemed to several generations of Christians to be so rare and so beautiful as to deserve a place near the top among the world's great books of devotion ... The writings of Brother Lawrence are the ultimate in simplicity ... ideas woven like costly threads to make a pattern of great beauty. ... A. W. Tozer
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Yours in Christ,
Paul N. F.