I've had a cold the last few days. It doesn't take long for me to get to the point where I'm sick of being sick. I hate having sapped energy, I hate the pressure in my head and I hate going through a box of tissues in a day. I feel like I've been sick a lot more since having my appendix removed. It's annoying.
Sickness is always a sign of something wrong with our bodies. Often it's a reminder that we need to slow down and take a rest.
Just as I need to take some time to rest to get better, I need to rest in God for my spiritual life to get better. He invites me to come into His presence, sit at His feet and get to know Him.
I've been doing a terrible job at living more like Brother Lawrence--my desire has been to practice the presence of God more in my daily routines. I get too distracted or too involved and forget to focus on God being with me at all moments. I forget to converse with Him. Brother Lawrence perfected it while doing the dishes at the monastery where he lived.
So, that's my aim for this next week: to get over this cold and to practice the presence of God more. I'll keep you posted.
2 comments:
I'm behind on my blog reading, but I still want to comment on this "old" post. There is an important phrase buried within your description of Brother Lawrence: "...in the monastery where he lived." Brother Lawrence lived in the midst of communal spiritual discipline. His entire community paused together throughout the day to pray the offices. He was surrounded by people who had taken vows of spiritual obedience and commitment. He lived in isolation from the workaday world of his day.
Need I say that this is radically different from living with 2 lively little boys and a wife in the midst of a modern American city? Be wary of comparing yourself to him. His practices were appropriate to his context. Yours may need to be tailored to your own context. As Helen Cepero loves to say, "Pray as you can, not as you can't."
Thank you, Sue, for that reminder. I'm struggling with even doing the disciplines in my daily life. I have to believe that they aren't just made for monastic communities, but that there's a way to become more aware of our connection to God in the daily lives of everyday ragamuffins. I've learned from my Enneagram style that I am very good at attaining knowledge on all these things, but I can be lousy at doing them if I don't work at it.
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