Panes of Glass

Brother Lawrence insisted that, to be constantly aware of God’s presence, it is necessary to form the habit of continually talking with Him throughout each day. To think that we must abandon conversation with Him in order to deal with the world is erroneous. Instead, as we nourish our souls by seeing God in His exaltation, we will derive a great joy at being his.Another thing he mentioned was that our faith was too weak. Instead of letting faith rule our lives, we are guided by our petty, everyday, mechanical prayers, which are always changing. The Church’s only road to the perfection of Christ is faith.The dear brother remarked that we must give ourselves totally to God in both temporal and spiritual affairs. Our only happiness should come from doing God’s will, whether it brings us some pain or great pleasure. After all, if we are truly devoted to doing God’s will, pain and pleasure won’t make any difference to us.

~ “First Conversation”, The Practice of the Presence of God

My boss recently recommended this book to me. I read it in one weekend and absolutely loved it. I was taught in the past of the importance of keeping a running dialogue with God throughout the day, but I never really knew what that would look like. This little book concisely and thoroughly addresses the issue. I highly recommend it to anyone, especially at the price of six dollars.