Yesterday I posted about praying continually. I wrote the post in general terms that can be applied to any situation, which is the way to present the idea to a general audience like we have here. Yet the danger of keeping the conversation general is that some, maybe many, will have a hard time fitting this concept of praying continually into something that is practical for normal living.

We certainly can’t just leave people hanging, can we?

A little Bonus Post seems in order…

There is a short little book that I’ve mentioned here before, called The Practice of the Presence of God. It was written by a French monk named Brother Lawrence, but he didn’t write it as a book. Instead, the book we have today is a compilation of letters he wrote in the 1660’s and 1670’s to various friends and acquaintances. For more than a century now, this book has been required reading in Bible Colleges and Seminaries around the world for nearly every denomination.

I am recommending it to you now.

Brother Lawrence was a French Monk who wasn’t happy in his Monastery with the rigid structure he was required to live by. There was a set time for prayer, and for Bible reading, and for contemplation, and for meditation, and to top it off, He was assigned the role of a cook, which was a job that he loathed.

How would he deal with his anguish? He prayed without ceasing. The part that is so important for us to understand is that he had a specific rationale to his praying, and it wasn’t just for God to get him through the day without strangling somebody, it was for God to fill him with His love. Here’s how it goes:

1. God loved me.
2. God loved me so much that He sent His Son Jesus to die for me.
3. In response, I love God.
4. God loves all of the people around me.
5. Therefore, I also love all of the people around me.
6. Everything I do in my daily life is to serve God by serving all of the people around me because I love God and all of those He loves.
7. Therefore: I will thank God every minute for the opportunity to serve Him by serving those around me in my work, and in all of my daily activities. I will pray for all of those I am serving, and I will constantly thank God for them and for my work.

If you think carefully, this is the whole Gospel in 7 statements: It is the power of God at work in one man for the building of the Body of Christ, and it is the reason that Brother Lawrence came to love his job, and everything else in his life, and it will work the same way for any one of us who really tries it.

Yes, dear reader, I recommend The Practice of the Presence of God. This link is to a free pdf version, but you can also find it on Amazon or Google Books for free, and for pay on any number of sites.