Walking in the presence of God

Last week I blogged about my struggle with prayer. I said that I read a devotion about being in Gods presence all the time. I actually read that in chapter 12 of the Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren. You remember that book, it was popular like 5 or 6 years ago. Rick Warren quoted a from some letters written by Brother Lawrence. Brother Lawrence spent the latter part of his life living in a monastery in Paris back in the 1600’s. Brother Lawrence spent his life mastering how to live in the presence of god 24/7/365. He wrote 15 letter which were published into a book called, The Practice of the Presence of God. Curious, I sought out this book online and was pleased to find out that is was available to to read online at http://www.practicegodspresence.com/brotherlawrence/practicegodspresence09.html. I printed it out and it is only 22 pages long, a very easy read. His book of letters is absolutely inspirational. It was amazing at what I learned, I highly recommend clicking on the link and reading it. Without spending time with to much detail, the gist is how Brother Lawrence mastered living in Gods presence all the time. What I want to focus on is when I learned from it. I had previously started praying several time throughout the day for short amounts of time instead of praying for a big chunk of time in the morning or at night. This has been life changing in itself. What I learned from The Practice of the Presence of God is how to do it better. This past week I have been spending a lot of time at work in prayer, which is probably where I need it most. The results have been amazing. People are are telling me, “you seem different, not in a bad way, but I just can put my finger on it.” I am turing heads, I love under cover ministry. Anyways, I don’t know about you but for me, work is the place that I have the hardest time, thinking about God, and being the same person that I am at church in Sunday morning, which is the person that I want to be all the time. Since putting this into practice, I have since started praying for every guest that I come in contact with each day, which is anywhere between 100 and 200 people depending on the day. The prayer is basically, ”Lord, I ask your blessing on (guests name) this evening, in Jesus name, amen.” This is not a very long pray, it is quite short and generic, but if helps to keep me in Gods presence all day, plus I get to bless people, which is way cool. I have also started praying for each person that I work with. I still do get distracted quite easily and forget to pray for my guests, but that’s ok. When I do miss a few, I soon think about God, and pick up my prayer with the very next guest. It is no where near perfect, but it is something that I am working on, and I am noticing that it is not going to be easy, but it is a challenge that I am excited to overcome with the help of God. I encourage you to ready this short book, and pray to God to see what he might have you do to improve your prayer life.