Nicholas Herman began his life in a poor family in France. As he grew up he became a soldier and a household servant. He never received any formal education and was an awkward clumsy man. His strength in life was a deep love for God. At the age of eighteen, God spoke to him that winter, while he was looking at a bare, leafless tree. He began considering that with time, that tree would be renewed and the flowers and fruit would appear. God showed him that this would be true for his life as well. From this, he developed a deep sense of the providence and power of God. He was received into a monastery in Paris to devote his whole life to God and remained there until his death at eighty. It was there he took the name Brother Lawrence and he set himself to live every moment of his life in the presence of God. His attempts to create a habitual state of communion led to new heights of spiritual living. Looking back on his life, many have been deeply inspired by his deep devotion to God but it began by a simple commitment to seek an awareness of God’s presence. As Brother Lawrence once said
“You need not cry out very loudly; He is nearer to us than we think.”
You might think this was easier for him. All he did was pray in the monastery. While he did spend extravagant time set apart with Jesus, he also sought God’s presence in his mundane daily work. He worked in the kitchen washing dishes day in and day out as a servant of the servants of God. It was a job that he naturally had a great aversion towards but he was able to see that “the time of business does not with me differ from the time of prayer; and in the noise and clatter of my kitchen, while several persons are at the table calling for different things, I possess God in as great tranquility as if I were upon my knees at the blessed sacrament. The difference being that we shouldn’t grow weary in doing the little things because it’s not about the greatness of the work for God but the love with which it is performed." Brother Lawrence was challenged to be a worshipper of God by doing it all in love and devotion for God. No task was too trivial for Brother Lawrence because he was able to transform the mundane chores of the kitchen into glorious experiences of heaven as he blended work with prayer.
Below are short compilations from a book called “The Practice of the Presence of God” which was a collection of letters he wrote along with accounts of conversations he had with his abbot. Look past the older language and see how he beautifully and simply expresses the joy of living in the presence of God.
“You need not cry out very loudly; He is nearer to us than we think.”
You might think this was easier for him. All he did was pray in the monastery. While he did spend extravagant time set apart with Jesus, he also sought God’s presence in his mundane daily work. He worked in the kitchen washing dishes day in and day out as a servant of the servants of God. It was a job that he naturally had a great aversion towards but he was able to see that “the time of business does not with me differ from the time of prayer; and in the noise and clatter of my kitchen, while several persons are at the table calling for different things, I possess God in as great tranquility as if I were upon my knees at the blessed sacrament. The difference being that we shouldn’t grow weary in doing the little things because it’s not about the greatness of the work for God but the love with which it is performed." Brother Lawrence was challenged to be a worshipper of God by doing it all in love and devotion for God. No task was too trivial for Brother Lawrence because he was able to transform the mundane chores of the kitchen into glorious experiences of heaven as he blended work with prayer.
Below are short compilations from a book called “The Practice of the Presence of God” which was a collection of letters he wrote along with accounts of conversations he had with his abbot. Look past the older language and see how he beautifully and simply expresses the joy of living in the presence of God.
“I have found in many books many different ways of going to God and many different practices in living the spiritual life. I began to see that this was only confusing me, as the only thing I was seeking was to become wholly God’s.
Thus I resolved to give my all for God’s all. After having given myself wholly to God that he might take away my sin, I renounced, for the love of God, everything that was not God, and I began to live as if there was none but God and I in the world. Sometimes, I imagined myself standing before him as a poor criminal at the feet of the judge. At other times I beheld him in my heart as my Father and as my God. I worshiped him as often as I could, keeping my mind in his holy presence and recalling it back to God as often as I found it had wandered from him. For the first year I spent much of the time set apart for devotions thinking about death, judgement, hell, heaven, and my sins. I continued this for a few years, applying my mind to these thoughts in the morning and then spending the rest of the day, even in the midst of all my work, in the presence of God. I considered that he was always with me, that he was even within me. After a while I accidentally began doing the same thing in my set times of devotion as I had been doing the rest of the day. This produced great delight and consolation. This practice produced in me so high an esteem for God that faith alone was enough to satisfy all my needs. This was how I began. And yet, I must tell you that for the first ten years I suffered a great deal. The awareness that I was not as devoted to God as I wanted to be, the awareness of my past sins which were always present in my mind, and the great yet unmerited favors God did for me were the source and substance of my suffering. During this time I sinned often only to rise again soon. It seemed to me that all the creatures of the world, all reason, and even God were against me. All that was in my favor was faith. When I finally reached a point where I wanted to quit, I found myself changed all at once. In my soul, which until that time was in distress, I suddenly felt a profound inward peace as if it were in its true place of rest. Ever since that time I have walked before God in simple faith, with humility and with love, and I apply myself diligently to do nothing and think nothing which might displease him. I hope that when I have done what I can, he will do with me what he pleases. I make it my business only to persevere in his holy presence wherein I keep myself by a simple attention and a general fond regard to God, which I refer to as an actual presence of God. Or to put it another way, a habitual, silent, and secret conversation of the soul with God. In short, I am assured beyond any doubt that my soul has been with God for nearly thirty years. I have not shared it all so as not to bore you, but I think it is proper that I tell you what manner I imagine myself before God whom I behold as king. |
Brother Lawrence shares his unique perspective on daily and constant devotion to God. What challenged you the most and how could you begin to practically be more aware of God’s presence in daily life?