Practicing His Presence

Well, Em, this post is for you. I don't really know what to say about the experiment yet, except that it is so worth the effort, even though I am doing such a bad job!

(For any readers who don't know what I'm talking about, I recently read Practicing His Presence, a little book with writings from two men, Frank Laubach, a twentieth century missionary, and Brother Lawrence, a 17th century monk. Both men set out to see if they could remain constantly in fellowship with God. Laubach's experiment was to see if he could bring Christ to mind one second out of every minute, opening his heart and will to Him.)

What I have found so far is that God is near and loves deeply and pours out grace freely. Sometimes I go for hours and forget to bring Christ to mind but when I come He receives me with so much joy and affection. I can hardly describe how wonderful He is. Some days like today I get stubborn and just want to do my own thing. He lets me. (though Lawrence said that in his experience the Lord would call him back when he had forgotten for too long...both men, I think, said that God wouldn't push if there was a problem with the will being toward self).

Anyway, I hope that helps give you some idea what's going on. It's hard to explain how it works, except that in coming to God, we have to lay our WHOLE self at His feet, all of our will. Both Laubach and Lawrence expressed repeatedly that the will to be God's must be with all our hearts, keeping nothing back from Him. Laubach said that he resolved and then reresolved to give his whole self to God, every minute. It was definitely an act of will and a conscious decision to reject everything but the Savior and His love.