The Presence of God

Brother Lawrence grew up in France during the Thirty Years’ War of the seventeenth century. On the battlefield, aged 16, he saw a leafless tree. Perceiving that the tree would be in full leaf in a few months, he saw it as a symbol of God’s ability to transform the human heart. He became a monk in Paris and spent his life cooking for 200 other monks.

He describes how, when he stopped trying to be holy, he could start simply to be present. He succeeds in staying present because he renounces the instrumentalisation of faith. To be devoted to God as a method to secure an afterlife, he recognises, would be not love, but transactional commerce: true love sets aside the urge to determine, or even know, the outcome. Lawrence finds that keeping himself in God’s presence generates a holy freedom, indeed a familiarity with God, that dissolves intercession into seamless exchange, and makes acts of devotion become habitual. Thus the presence of God becomes perfectly natural.

One editor has paraphrased Lawrence’s understanding of presence like this. As he looks around the world, Lawrence sees people running in circles. They are looking for a treasure map – when the gold for which they are searching is under their feet. The treasure is already in their soul. They do not need to go searching for it. That treasure is God. It is as if they have a king living in their guest room, yet exit the house to beg for pennies in the street. Instead of abiding in the presence of the king, they leave the treasure room of their soul to beg for crumbs of satisfaction from elsewhere.

By patient application and self-acceptance, Lawrence allows the Holy Spirit to make Christ present not only in moments of intentional worship but through daily kitchen tasks. In the words of Mother Teresa, ‘Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.’

Revd Dr Sam Wells