47. Practicing His Presence
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Blessed are those who have learned to acclaim you,
who walk in the light of your presence, O LORD.
Psalm 89:15A
Sa writer I’m always fascinated by what makes a book last.
Of the dozen or so that I’ve written, several are already out
of print. How I grieved for those little books. They died so young!
One of my favorite books, The Practice of the Presence of God,is
more than five hundred years old! Its author was a sixteenth-century
monk named Brother Lawrence. Brother Lawrence was not a reli-
gious leader or theologian. He was a simple man who worked in the
kitchen of a monastery. He never intended to write a book. He just
wrote letters to his friends, telling them about his friendship with his
wonderful Savior, Jesus Christ. But people gathered those letters and
had them bound into a book. And that book has outlasted thou-
sands of others.
It’s not hard to figure why once you read it. Brother Lawrence’s
book expresses one of the most profound secrets of the faith. He
learned to remind himself all day long that he was in God’s presence.