The Practice of the Presence of God

“Lord, I will never be able to do that if You don’t help me.”

An expression of Brother Lawrence’s sense of humility and sense of dependence before God, a necessary first step to achieving an awareness of God’s presence. Lawrence said this habitually before embarking on a good deed, and found immediately that he had the strength to achieve it. Thus, the quote illustrates the effectiveness of Lawrence’s spiritual method.

”All we really have to do is to love God and rejoice in Him.”

This quote conveys the simple, minimalist nature of Brother Lawrence’s spirituality. In God’s eyes, the intention of a person’s heart matters more than the weaknesses into which they might fall because of temptation. If they get the intention right—loving God—everything else will follow.

“Brother Lawrence said he concentrated on doing little things for Him, since he was unable to do bigger things.”

A key part of Brother Lawrence’s way of life is simplicity and service as vehicles for holiness—a concept closely related to spiritual humility and the rejection of ego. Aware that he is an “ordinary” person without special talents in a worldly sense, Lawrence seeks to sanctify his everyday life for God. The idea of offering “little things” to God would become a theme in French spirituality, including the work of St. Therese of Lisieux.

“This brother in the Lord sinned only when he strayed from God’s company or when he forgot to ask Him for His help.”

This quote is related to the ideas expressed in the previous two. Ultimately, sin is caused by losing the sense of God’s presence, rather than from some intellectual error. This conveys Brother Lawrence’s personalized conception of the spiritual life, one that prioritizes the idea of relationship over knowledge that is purely intellectual. It highlights The Importance of Constant Prayer in Daily Life.

“He believed it was a serious mistake to think of our prayer time as being different from any other.”

An expression of the integration of spirituality and life which Brother Lawrence preaches. According to Lawrence, one can engage in prayer at any time, thus causing one’s whole life to be made holy. Ultimately, everything is to be dedicated to God.

“My God, I am all Yours; do what You will with me.”

Beaufort cites this as an example of the kind of spontaneous prayer Brother Lawrence would utter when he felt he had strayed from God’s presence. As a result, Lawrence would feel God’s presence return to his soul. Essentially the prayer is an expression of humility and dependence before God and surrender to His will—for Lawrence, necessary conditions for seeking God’s presence.

“Those who have the wind of the Holy Spirit in their souls glide ahead even while they sleep.”

An example of Brother Lawrence’s richly poetic and metaphoric language employed to describe the spiritual life. He is alluding to the traditional conception of the Holy Spirit as God’s “breath” that inspires human beings, and goes on to allude to the gospel story of Jesus calming the storm at sea while in a boat with his disciples. More fundamentally, the quote points to Lawrence’s positive view of spiritual progress and Divine Presence as Lived Experience.

“I still believe that all spiritual life consists of practicing God’s presence and that anyone who practices it correctly will soon attain spiritual fulfillment.”

This could serve as a thesis statement for the entire book, encapsulating Brother Lawrence’s view equating the spiritual life with seeking God’s presence. This seeking is a practice or habit, one that should be continued constantly through prayer.

“Go out in faith, with love and humility.”

From one of his letters to his “dear sister in the Lord” (36), a pithy statement of the more outgoing side of Brother Lawrence’s spirituality. The quote highlights his emphasis on the personal qualities of love and humility above “rules or special devotions” (37) because they express our true, sincere relationship to God.

“Pure love of Him is all that keeps me going.”

Again, Brother Lawrence emphasizes love as the motive force for one’s relationship with God. It comes at a moment when Lawrence doubts his own spiritual status, but declares his simple allegiance to God, confident that this love alone will help him through all difficulties.

“Sometimes I imagine that I’m a piece of stone, waiting for the sculptor.”

Brother Lawrence describes an exercise he engages in to help him enter into communion with God. The exercise involves the use of an imaginative metaphor, one that expresses the idea of spiritual humility and the rejection of ego. In one of the book’s few explicit mentions of Christ, Lawrence says that God is specifically “sculpting my soul into the perfect image of His beloved Son” (41).

“What do I have to be afraid of when I’m with Him?”

This is an expression of Brother Lawrence’s unflappable serenity of spirit in the face of all the “trials of life.” This serenity is rooted in a sense of God’s presence. Lawrence expresses surprise and even bewilderment at this continual serenity even in the face of life’s troubles.

“The difficulties of life do not have to be unbearable. It is the way we look at them—through faith or unbelief—that makes them so.”

Another example of Brother Lawrence’s positive, serene spiritual viewpoint. Lawrence declares that one’s perspective on life is crucial for determining how one reacts to the things that life throws one’s way. If one remains attached to God’s presence and aware of His love, suffering will be alleviated by seeing things in a larger perspective.

“However, I do believe that it is a common mistake of Spirit-filled people not to leave the cares of the world periodically to praise God in their spirits and to rest in the peace of His divine presence for a few moments.”

Brother Lawrence is preaching the need to take “temporary retreats” throughout the day in which we withdraw from the cares of practical life to talk to God and rest with Him in quietude. Lawrence says that even in the middle of reading the Bible or praying, people can stop momentarily to thank and praise God. The quote shows Lawrence’s thoroughly contemplative nature.

“It is proper that the heart—which is the first to live and which dominates all the other parts of the body—should be the first and the last to love God.”

Consistent with his spirituality, Brother Lawrence argues for the primacy of the heart as the part of the human person that directs all other functions. For Lawrence it is the heart, not the intellect, that primarily drives people’s choices. Accordingly, they must direct their hearts to God above all things.

“In the way of God, thoughts count for little, love does everything.”

Amplifying the previous quote, this one is presented in conjunction with a statement that Lawrence considered acts of the will more important than acts of the intellect. It is the intention of our heart that chiefly matters to God, while the mind can often lead us astray. This emphasizes the importance of constant prayer in daily life.

“I turn my little omelet in the pan for the love of God.”

This phrase sums up Brother Lawrence’s emphasis on simplicity and service as vehicles for holiness. Instead of aiming at great achievements, Lawrence sought to do the smallest tasks with dedication and love, offering them up to God. The quote recalls that he worked in the monastery as a cook for a long time.

“Though he was indeed a humble man, he never sought the glory of humility, but only its reality. He wanted no one but God to witness what he did, just as the only reward he expected was God Himself.”

As Beaufort recalls, Brother Lawrence lived his humility consistently, never letting it lapse into the opposite of the virtue by practicing it in a showy way. This shows Lawrence’s thorough awareness of the presence of God, to which he dedicated all his actions. The quote goes to build up the picture of Lawrence as someone who practiced what he preached.

“Brother Lawrence loved to seek God in the things He had created.”

One of the few passages in the book dealing with Brother Lawrence’s attitude toward creation. Beaufort goes on to speak of the divine significance that Lawrence found in the world of nature, which he appreciated as evidence of God’s wisdom, power, and goodness. From this important passage, we learn that nature serves a role in Lawrence’s spirituality as reflecting the presence of God.

“O Lord God, how incomprehensible You are in Your thoughts, how profound in Your designs, how powerful in all Your actions.”

Brother Lawrence’s reaction to nature’s wonders, this exclamation echoes the language of the Psalms in extolling God’s wisdom and grandeur as reflected in creation. The quote bears witness to the strength of Lawrence’s love for the created world, something not explicitly shown in most of the rest of the book. It also shows his absorption of the language of scripture and the importance he placed on reading God’s word.

“God Himself paints Himself in the depths of our souls.”

Brother Lawrence prefers to experience divine wisdom in the form of scripture and nature, rather than in works of human scholarship. That is because “God alone is capable of making Himself known as He really is” (86), and all human works only imperfectly reflect the divine nature. The quote implies the belief that human beings are created in God’s image, and thus bear the potential of knowing God.

“Our brother believed that the books of even the most famous academies taught very little in comparison with God’s great Book.”

Building on the previous quotes, this quote shows Brother Lawrence’s high esteem for the Bible as God’s word and the comparatively lesser importance he gives to formal theology as taught in schools. This is consistent with his emphasis on the need to approach God as the source of all truth who reveals Himself to human beings, as well as with his belief in divine presence as lived experience.

“The more desperate things appeared to him, the more he hoped—like a rock beaten by the waves of the sea and yet settling itself more firmly in the midst of the tempest.”

This is another witness of Brother Lawrence’s hopeful, optimistic, and positive nature. No matter how tough things became, Lawrence’s total trust in God and awareness of the divine presence made him calm and imperturbable and saw him through every difficulty. This is one of several striking metaphors used in the book to describe the spiritual life.