The Practice of the Presence of God In Modern English

by Brother Lawrence

While assigned to the kitchen, working at the tedious tasks of cooking and cleaning, he developed the practice of living always in conscious awareness of God.

His death in 1691 occurred in relative obscurity, but his teachings continued to live on in his words.

Here in this Modern English edition the Maxims are reunited with the Conversations and Letters into a single volume.

This Modern English edition is complete and unabridged. It seeks to preserve the historical integrity of the original, while making it accessible to the modern reader.

With such readers in mind, I have slowly and prayerfully rendered it into language easier to understand. I pray that God may use this translation as an instrument of blessing to others.

It ignited in him a love for God that was so great that he could not tell whether it had increased during the forty years since that day.

But God had disappointed him. He had found nothing but contentment in the monastery.

He said that we should establish ourselves in a sense of God’s Presence by continually communing with Him.

We ought to give ourselves to God in both mundane and spiritual matters. We should seek our satisfaction only in fulfilling His will, whether that leads to suffering or comfort. All things are equal to a soul truly surrendered to God. There needs to be faithfulness in the dry seasons of the spiritual life, when we feel distant from God and find prayer burdensome. At such times, God is testing our love for Him. Those are the times when we should surrender ourselves to God. If we do this, it will result in spiritual advancement.

He prayed for them, but he knew that God could change things whenever he wanted.

Lawrence said that he had always been governed by love without thought of self.

Therefore whatever becomes of me after death, whether I am lost or saved, I will always continue to act purely for the love of God. I shall have this consolation at least; that till death I shall have done all that is in me to love Him.”

In order to form a habit of communing with God continually and committing everything we do to Him, we must at first make a special effort. After a while we find that His love inwardly inspires us to do all things for Him effortlessly.

he could do nothing by himself, and God would not fail to give him the strength to bear them.

“Lord, I cannot do this unless You enable me.”

“I shall never do otherwise if You leave me to myself; You must stop my falling, and fix what is amiss in me.” Having prayed in this manner, he gave it no further thought.

He said that we ought to relate to God in the greatest simplicity, speaking to Him frankly and plainly, and imploring His assistance in our affairs as they happen. In his experience, God never failed to grant help.

The same was true of his work in the kitchen (to which he had a natural aversion). He proceeded to do everything there for the love of God, praying continually for God’s grace to do his work well. In this manner he had found everything easy during the fifteen years that he had been employed there.

He always enjoyed himself no matter what he was doing because he did everything, even the smallest things, for the love of God.

Even the busiest work did not distract him from his communion with God.

He was very aware of his faults, but he was not discouraged by them. He confessed them to God, but did not plead with Him to excuse them. When he had finished confession, he gently resumed his normal practice of love and adoration.

“Useless thoughts spoil everything,” he said. All trouble began there. We ought to let go of such thoughts as soon as we are aware of them. They are worthless to either life or salvation. We should return quickly to our communion with God.

He said that all bodily spiritual disciplines and exercises are useless. All that is needed to bring us to union with God is love. He had pondered this subject much, and concluded that the shortest way to God was to go straight to Him by a continual exercise of love and doing everything for His sake.

We should, without anxiety, accept that all our sins have been forgiven by the blood of Jesus Christ. From this perspective we are free to seek only to love Him with all our hearts.

He did not beat himself up when he sinned. He said, “When I fail in my duty to God, I immediately acknowledge it, saying, ‘All I do is sin, and I shall never do otherwise if I am left to myself.’ If I do something well, I give God thanks and acknowledge that everything good that I do comes from Him.”

Once he had become established in this lofty conception of God, he had no other plan except to faithfully reject every other thought, in order that he might do all things for the love of God.

Sometimes when he realized that he had not thought of God for a while, he did not worry himself about it. After acknowledging his wretchedness to God, he returned to Him with even greater trust in Him, prompted by the fact that he felt so wretched to have forgotten Him.

The trust we put in God honors Him greatly and draws down great blessings.

He also said that God would not allow a soul, which is perfectly surrendered to Him and committed to endure everything for His sake, to suffer long.

When outward busyness diverted him a little from the awareness of God, a fresh remembrance would come from God and consume his soul. This presence of God so inflamed and transported him that it was difficult for him to contain himself.

He said he was more united to God in his outward work, than when he left it for devotion in seclusion.

The worst that could happen to him was to lose that sense of the presence of God, which he had enjoyed so long.

After that, unspeakable pleasures followed. In difficulties we only need to turn to Jesus Christ and beg His grace, and then everything became easy.

The spiritual life is neither an art nor a science. To arrive at union with God all one needs is a heart resolutely determined to apply itself to nothing but Him, do nothing but for His sake, and to love Him only.

He told me that it all consists in one hearty renunciation of everything that does not lead to God.

We should offer everything to Him before we do it and give Him thanks after we have finished.

God never fails to offer us His grace for every occasion.

God always gives us light in the midst of our doubts when we have no other purpose but to please Him.

Our sanctification does not depend upon changing what we do, but in doing for God’s sake what we normally do for our own sake. It is sad to see how many people mistake the means for the end, addicting themselves to religious works, which they perform very imperfectly because of their human or selfish motives. The most excellent method he had found of going to God was to do our normal activities without any view of pleasing men, and (as far as we are able) purely for the love of God.

His prayer was nothing other than a sense of the presence of God.

God regards not the greatness of the work, but the love with which the work is done.

All things are possible to him who believes. They are less difficult to him who hopes. They are easier to him who loves. And they are easiest to him who perseveres in the practice of all three virtues.

God humbles us through this suffering and pain, inside and outside. It should not surprise us that people cause us troubles, temptations, oppositions and difficulties. We should accept these and bear them for as long as God wishes, and view them as highly beneficial to our spiritual development.

God was the target to which everything should point, and the goal in which everything will be fulfilled.

Then he spent all his time at work, as well before and after his work, in prayer.

"O my God, You are with me, and I must now, in obedience to Your commands, apply my mind to these outward things. I beseech You to grant me the grace to continue in Your Presence. To this end I ask that you grant me Your assistance, receive all my works, and possess all my emotions."

Then without being discouraged, he set his mind right again, and continued his practice of the presence of God, as if he had never deviated from it.

"By getting up after every fall, and by frequently renewing my faith and love, I have arrived at a state of mind where it is more difficult for me NOT to think of God as it was at the beginning to think of Him."

"The time of work," he said, "is not different for me than the time of prayer. In the noise and clatter of my kitchen, while several people are calling out at the same time for different things, I possess God in as great tranquility as if I were upon my knees at the Blessed Sacrament."

First I gave myself completely to God and made restitution for my sins, as much as I could. Then out of love for Him, I renounced everything that was not God. I began to live as if there