Have You Found Brother Lawrence? (I Didn't Even Know He Was Lost!)

I enjoy browsing through the library.

Almost always, it results in finding something I didn't know I was looking for.

For instance, during a recent stroll through the 248 section of the Dewey Decimal System (no relation), I found a book that I had heard about countless times but had never read, The Practice of the Presence of God: Conversations and Letters of Brother Lawrence.

For something first published in 1692, it certainly feels up-to-date so far. I'm sure several quotes will be finding their way into this space. Such as this one:

In order to form a habit of conversing with God continually, and referring all we do to Him, we must at first apply to Him with some diligence; but after a little care we should find His love inwardly excite us to it without any difficulty. (Oneworld Publications, Oxford, England, 1993 p.15.)

In other words, when our first attempts at a spiritual mindset seem forced and done out of a sense of duty, we shouldn't fret. They will eventually become matters of the heart that we could never abandon.

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Truth is...if at first you don't succeed, pray, pray again.