I've been rereading "The Practice of The Presence of God" by Brother Lawrence, and I can remember my first response to this little devotional book, many years ago. When I first read it, I was bothered by the notion of practicing my relationship with God. At first I had tried to rationalize that walking with God should require no work on our part. I thought Brother Lawrence was wrong - why should a pure walk take work? It should just be a filling!
But I was wrong. It's both. The filling is there, and many times God will come upon us in outpourings of His Spirit, as we see with the apostles in Acts. But the daily walk requires work, practice, discipline. It's not going to happen otherwise.
And it's not simply a quick, take five minutes out of your day activity. It takes a deep, concentrated, isolated time with Him. It may be like a desert time, but the moments will come out of these times.
I believe we try to take the path of least persistence when it comes to our walk with God. We want it all now, but will not wait upon Him and sink ourselves deeply into Him.
3 comments:
hello Mr. TDags, I'm happy to have finally found your blog! since you're probably dying to know how college is going for me i'll save you the trouble of asking and just tell you, its going good.
now on topic, i started reading that book and so many times i was like "yeah, thats where its at, this guy gets God" i don't know that much about brother larry accept what i've read about him in his book, non-the-less, its good to be reassured in your own faith by recognizing similarities in someone (brother L) else's faith.
one concern: sometimes i wonder if people who say they want a better relationship with God even have a relationship with him in the first place. specifically people (more specifically kids my age) who grew up in a "christian home".
It's good to hear from you. I have the same thoughts - like when people come to me for counseling to improve their marriage, yet they really don't have a true loving relationship with their spouse in the first place.
I think that many kids your age do have a faith, but there are so many more who have an understanding but not a relationship, and there is a HUGE difference.
welcome to the blogosphere pete! good to get another voice out here.
what i like about bro larry (i like that name) is that he doesn't judge the people who don't live the way he does, but he desires it for them. he doesn't see how anyone can go through life any other way. i love that. it's very encouraging.
good to hear from you pete.
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