Prayers/Practice of the Presence

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Intro/Background

In his book, Prayer: Finding the Heart's True Home, Richard Foster writes that "As Christians over the centuries have sought to follow the biblical injunction to "pray without ceasing," they have developed two fundamental expressions of Unceasing Prayer. The one is more formal and liturgical; the other is more conversational and spontaneous."

The first expression could be referred to as either Prayers/Breath Prayers, or the Prayers/The Jesus Prayer.

The second expression is often referred to under the phrase to "Practice the Presence of God".

Richard Foster goes on to say, 

The second major expression of Unceasing Prayer is associated with such practitioners of prayer as Brother Lawrence (The Practice of the Presence of God), Thomas Kelly (A Testament of Devotion), and Frank Laubach (Letters by a Modern Mystic). Their profoundly simple approach is to go through all the activities of our days in joyful awareness of God's presence with whispered prayers of praise and adoration flowing continuously from our hearts. Brother Lawrence, who called himself "the lord of all pots and pans," crystalized this idea in his now-famous comment "the time of business does not with me differ from the time of prayer; and in the noise and clatter of my kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for different things, I possess God in as great tranquillity as if I were upon my knees at the blessed sacrament."

Lawrence urges us to "make a private chapel of our heart where we can retire from time to time to commune with Him, peacefully, humbly, lovingly." He encourages us to make inward prayer the last act of the evening and the first act of the morning and in so doing discover that "those who have been breathed on by the Holy Spirit move forward even while sleeping."

Simultaneity

Thomas Kelly wrote about this kind of life in his simple but profound classic, A Testament of Devotion. He described it as “simultaneity”—the ability to be engaged with two things at the same time: There is a way of ordering our mental life on more than one level at once. On one level we may be thinking, discussing, seeing, calculating, meeting all the demands of external affairs. But deep within, behind the scenes, at a profounder level, we may also be in prayer and adoration, song and worship and a gentle receptiveness to divine breathings. The secular world of today values and cultivates only the first level believing this is where the real business of mankind is done . . . But we know that the deep level of prayer is the most important thing in the world. It is at this deep level that the real business of life is determined.

Source: With: Reimagining the Way You Relate To God, by Skye Jethani

Moment by Moment

Frank Laubach. A pioneer in global literacy and an acclaimed educator and administrator, Laubach was above all (or maybe we should say “beneath all”) a man of prayer. Letters by a Modern Mystic is a collection of letters Laubach wrote while living on the Philippine island of Mindanao. It reveals a man utterly dedicated to an “experiment of filling every minute full of the thought of God.”

In his book he writes:

We used to sing a song in the church in Benton which I liked, but which I never really practiced until now. It runs:

Moment by moment, I’m kept in His love;

Moment by moment I’ve life from above;

Looking to Jesus till glory doth shine;

Moment by moment, O Lord, I am Thine.

It is exactly that ​“moment by moment,” every waking moment, surrender, responsiveness, obedience, sensitiveness, pliability, ​“lost in His love,” that I now have the mind-bent to explore with all my might. It means two burning passions: First, to be like Jesus. Second, to respond to God as a violin responds to the bow of the master. Open your soul and entertain the glory of God and after a while that glory will be reflected in the world about you and in the very clouds above your head.

Source: Renovare | Living Each Moment with a Sense of God’s Presence: Frank Laubach

Additional Resources

Renovare

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