Practicing the Presence, Or, Procrastinating Prayer?

Practicing the Presence,

Or

Procrastinating Prayer?

            When I invited my church family to covenant with me to pray for an hour a day, I was pleasantly surprised at how many accepted the challenge.  I’m sure that many were already praying for longer periods of time than I was.  I also know that many felt that this was a miserably long amount of time to spend rattling off a prayer list.  Frankly, I agreed with them, and encouraged them instead to spend that hour seeking God rather than seeking God’s blessings.    Still others came to me with what seemed like a pious objection to the idea of spending a quiet hour with Jesus:

            “I spend all day with Jesus,” they said.  “When I’m driving down the road, I’m thanking Him for the beautiful day.  When somebody at work tells me about some trouble they’re having, I take a second and ask God to bless them.  When my kids have me at wit’s end, I ask God for help.  Why do I need to spend a certain time alone in a chair, praying, when I can spend all day with the Lord?”

            It sounds good, on the surface.  I mean, who could argue with something like that?  Yes—we should spend all day with Jesus, in just the ways that have been stated above.  We should practice the day-in, day-out presence of God in our lives.  In fact, The Practice of the Presence of God is a wonderful work by Brother Lawrence, a must-read for anyone who wants to learn prayer.  In a nutshell, Brother Lawrence was a 17^th century Carmelite monk who hated his job working in the monastery’s kitchen.  It seemed an unspiritual drudgery to him, until one day he had a revelation:  Every dish and floor he scrubbed, he scrubbed for Jesus.  From that moment, he began to practice the presence of God everywhere he went.  He spent his days cooking with Jesus.  He passed his hours cleaning with the Master who cleansed his soul.  When he made his relationship with Jesus the main thing in his life, suddenly everything else took on new meaning.  Brother Lawrence writes, “We ought not to be weary of doing little things for the love of God, who regards not the greatness of the work, but the love with which it is performed."  He also says:

"We should fix ourselves firmly in the presence of God by conversing all the time with Him...we should feed our soul with a lofty conception of God and from that derive great joy in being his. We should put life in our faith. We should give ourselves utterly to God in pure abandonment, in temporal and spiritual matters alike, and find contentment in the doing of His will,whether he takes us through sufferings or consolations.”

What a beautiful thing, to practice the presence of Almighty God!  If this is what my parishioners meant when they said they spent all day with Jesus, then I applaud them.  I wish every Christian would spend all day with Jesus in this way.  The problem comes not from practicing the presence of God, but when this form of prayer is the only form of prayer.

An exasperated husband once sat with me in my church office, talking through his marital problems.  “I don’t know what she wants,” he said.  “She says she wants more time with me, but I think I spend plenty of time with her.”

“What to do you spend time doing?” I asked.

“We do everything together,” he said.  “We go shopping together.  We work in the garden together.  We watch movies together.  We eat dinner together every night.  We talk together.”

“But have you ever tried listening together?” I asked.

Now that was something he’d never tried.  He’d spent so much time just doing the mundane things of life—and those were good things.  But while he passed the time with her, he’d busied himself with his own talking.  So much so that he never took the time to listen.

The same can be true when we practice the presence of God.  Brother Lawrence’s epiphany was just what he needed at the time—a fresh experience of the mundane world.  He needed Christ’s presence to sanctify everything in his life.  The practice of the presence of God called him to “pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:17 NASB).”  Perhaps Lawrence’s spiritual awakening is just what you need—or maybe it has become an excuse for you to neglect a real quiet time with Jesus. 

Don’t get me wrong—I’m not saying you should compartmentalize your relationship with the Lord into one hour on your knees.  Lawrence was on to something, and so was Paul when he wrote to the Thessalonians.  But asking God to bless your efforts throughout the day is not enough.  There must be lengthy times of intimacy between the believer and the Lord. 

A husband and wife need to do more than run errands together.  They must gaze into one another’s eyes and speak sweet words of love.  They must truly be together—on a core level.  They must frequently share an embrace, a kiss, and make love with each other as God intended.  They must truly communicate with each other, and this involves both speaking and listening.  This is how marriages grow.  This is also how our relationship with God grows—when we take time to just be with Jesus.  Don’t just mutter a prayer to him throughout the day.  Share quiet time with Jesus.  Let Him hold you in His love.  Speak quiet words of worship and let Him respond with adoration. 

Practicing the presence of God can be an amazing way to spend your day—as long as it doesn’t become a way to procrastinate your prayer time.  Brother Lawrence would be horrified to find that his spiritual realization has given countless people an excuse to not have a daily time of prayer.   In The Living Reminder, Henri J.M. Nouwen says that believers should…

walk in [God’s] presence as Abraham did.  To walk in the presence of the Lord means to move forward in life in such a way that all our desires, thoughts, and actions are constantly guided by him.  When we walk in the Lord’s presence everything we see, hear, touch, or taste reminds us of him.  This is what is meant by a prayerful life.  It is not a life in which we say many prayers, but a life in which nothing, absolutely nothing, is done, said, or understood independently of him who is the origin and purpose of our existence.

            Walking in God’s presence also means sitting in God’s presence.  Praying without ceasing does not preclude your daily quiet time with Jesus.  As spouses must spend exclusive time together addition to all the errands, so the Christian must devote exclusive time to Jesus in addition to “ceaseless prayer” throughout the day.  The believer’s cry of relationship with the Lord should echo the words of Michael W. Smith’s song, “Draw Me Close.”

Draw me close to you
Never let me go
I lay it all down again
To hear you say that I'm your friend
You are my desire
No one else will do
Cause nothing else can take your place
To feel the warmth of your embrace
Help me find the way
Bring me back to you

You're all I want
You're all I've ever needed
You're all I want
Help me know you are near