The Practice of the Presence of God

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Brother Lawrence advocates for regularly focusing on God, highlighting that genuine spiritual growth happens slowly through consistent effort. He shares his thoughts on dedicating your life to loving and serving God, encouraging readers to make it a daily habit to think of Him. 

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[00:00:01] Bryan Entzminger:

Ninth letter. The enclosed is an answer   to that which I received from. Pray deliver it to her.   She seems to me full of good will, but she would go   faster than grace. One does not become holy all at   once. I recommend her to you. We ought to help   one another by our advice, and yet more by our good example.   You will oblige me to let me hear of her from time to time,   and whether she be very fervent and very obed.   Let us thus think often that our only business in this life is to   please God, and that all besides is but folly and   vanity. You and I have lived about 40 years in   religion, that is a monastic life. Have we   employed them in loving and serving God, who by his mercy has called us   to this state. And to that very end. I am filled with shame   and confusion when I reflect on one hand upon the great favors which   God has done and, and incessantly continues to do me,   and on the other upon the ill use I have made of them, and   my small advancement in the way of perfection.  

Since by his mercy he gives us still a little time,   let us begin in earnest. Let us repair the lost   time. Let us return with a full assurance to that Father   of mercies who is always ready to receive us affectionately.   Let us renounce. Let us generously renounce, for the love of   him, all that is not Himself. He deserves infinitely   more. Let us think of him perpetually. Let us put our   trust in Him. I doubt not but that we shall   soon find the effects of it in receiving the abundance of his grace,   with which we can do all things, and without which we can do nothing   but sin, we cannot escape the dangers which abound   in life without the actual and continual help of God.  

Let us then pray to him for it continually. How can   we pray to him without being with Him? How can we be with   him but in thinking of him often? And how can we   often think of him but by a holy habit which we should form of   it? You will tell me that I am always saying the same   thing. It is true. For this is the best and   easiest method I know and as I use no other, I   advise all the world to do it. We must know before   we can love. In order to know God we must often think of   him, and when we have come to love him, we shall   then also think of him often, for our heart will   be with our treasure. This is an argument which well deserves   your consideration. I am yours, and the rest   of the.