Every few years I reread The Practice of the Presence of God. It’s one of my top 10 life-changing Books.
Why?
Because I need reminding to be like a little child and relish God’s protection over me everywhere I go.
And I need reminding that God is in the ordinary as much as the miraculous.
Even my ordinary. In the kitchen scrubbing pots. In my CRV between Walmart and home. On the beach in Gulf Shores.
Definitely on the beach. And it’s my privilege and duty to seek him there.
Last weekend I finished The Practice of the Presence of God (again) and I celebrated my nephew’s vows with his wife (again) on the beach.
God was present.
So using the words from Brother Lawrence, who wrote from his monastery in Paris in the 1600s, and using the pictures from Jenna of my great-nephew Alexander, see if you, too, can revel in a child’s wonder of life and God, and can clearly see the Extraordinary in the ordinary.
1. Faith, Hope, Love
All things are possible to him who believes. They are less difficult to him who hopes. They are more easy to him who loves, and still more easy to him who perseveres in the practice of these three virtues.
2. A torrent of blessings
But when He finds a soul penetrated with a lively faith, He pours into it His graces and favors plentifully.
There they flow like a torrent, which, after being forcibly stopped against its ordinary course, when it has found a passage, spreads itself with impetuosity and abundance.
3. Delight in God
The end we ought to propose to ourselves is to become, in this life, the most perfect worshippers of God we can possibly be, and as we hope to be through all eternity.
4. He hears your cries
You need not cry very loud. He is nearer to us than we are aware.
...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.
5. Live to know
Do not forget Him but think on Him often. Adore Him continually. Live and die with Him. This is the glorious work of a Christian; in a word, this is our profession. If we do not know it, we must learn it.
...Let all our efforts be to know God. The more one knows Him, the greater one desires to know Him.
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When have you been most aware of God’s presence this week?
