The d-word in “spiritual disciplines” makes it sound like spiritual formation is for those who like a well-ordered routine. The message seems to be: If you want to become Christlike, if you want your life to flourish, then you need to do these things regularly, consistently, and without fail. And certain (structured) ways are more preferred than others.

Spiritual formation as it has played out in the last few decades appears to be inordinately geared this way. But this causes me some concern. The way any of us moves in our interactive life with God may not look like someone else’s. (Nor should it, because the Spirit will lead us in the way that works best for us.) As a result, those with messy, less-regimented practices or people who do practices in looser, eclectic ways may worry that they aren’t truly spiritual.

Such was my dilemma several decades ago as I gave birth to two children within seventeen months. Although I was not yet a spiritual formation buff, I loved routine—which my little ones blasted to bits. Now there was no more quiet time, no more intercessory prayer lists. As a high J on Myers-Briggs, I loved ruts. I wanted my ducks in a row. As my niece used to say of me, “Don’t touch her ducks. Don’t touch her ruts.” I wondered how I would interact with God. Some days I was sure I didn’t.

Eventually I realized that having my routine thrown up in the air with no view as to how any day might land was actually good for my life with God. I could no longer visit God in a box. But it took me a while to get this.

I was also in a twelve-step group at the time where I repeatedly heard about “conscious contact with God” (Step 11). This got me to thinking. I decided to dig out Brother Lawrence’s book The Practice of the Presence of God. It’s so small and accessible that I could read it in my forty-five seconds of “alone time” in the bathroom now and then.

Brother Lawrence was a cook and a butler. So was I. I prepared meals and arranged doctor’s appointments and play-dates. If Brother Lawrence could stir soup and praise God, I figured that maybe I could too. So I did. In time, I could even diaper a child and sing. I could rock a baby and coo, “Thou wilt keep [her] in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee, because [she] trusteth in thee (Isaiah 26:3, KJVScriptures marked (KJV) are from the King James Version of the Bible and is in the public domain in most of the world., personalized with a feminine pronoun).

At first I wasn’t sure it “counted.” It seemed too pathetic. I was used to doing focused, concentrated disciplines that looked difficult. But practicing God’s presence amounted to the simple act of hanging out with God all day long. It seemed to me that practicing the presence of God was perhaps the easiest of disciplines, something suited for beginners.

But I now believe that practicing God’s presence is not just for beginners. As we incorporate into our lives times of silence, solitude, lectio, worship, or learning Scripture by heart, they become part of the rhythm of our interactive life with God. It’s so organic that it’s almost as if we were made to do this. This “hanging out” can take place over hikes in the mountains (complete with large-print passages of Scripture stuffed in a hiking pack). Serving while praying at the same time can become a way of life. Anyone who has talked to God while driving has done it. We can punch in numbers on the microwave oven to the glory of God. So practicing God’s presence becomes the most advanced of the disciplines, because it encompasses all the other disciplines throughout our entire life. Even “in the night also my heart instructs me” (Psalm 16:7 NRSVScripture quotations marked (NRSV) are taken from the New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition, copyright © 1989, 2021 The National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.).

When I have spoken about practicing the presence of God in groups, some people heave sighs of relief: I could do that. That even sounds like fun! Often these folks had felt locked out of spirituality for years. Also, I notice that when I talk about practicing God’s presence I see nodding heads and grins from the oldest folks in the room. They’ve been doing it for years now and know that this is how to do life with God.

The connection with God becomes more powerful the more we do it intentionally. Practicing God’s presence is foundational to everything else. Perhaps the verse I heard Dallas Willard quote more than any other was this: “I keep the Lord always before me” (Psalm 16:8, NRSV.). Every time he said it, I thought, This is how he does life with God in such a beautiful way.

Here are some aspects of practicing God’s presence that make it an all-occasion discipline, naturally woven into life.

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01.  Active

Mention of practicing God’s presence appears most frequently in Psalms and in Paul’s letters. Psalms seems like a natural place for this all-of-life prayer to surface (“I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth,” Psalm 34:1, NRSV, emphasis added). because so many psalms have a contemplative bent. Yet living each moment with God is not always reflective. These poems are attributed to David (and his tradition of God-lovers), who was also a warrior, a king, and a shepherd (a lion-and bear-killing shepherd).See 1 Samuel, 17:34–35. So even Rambo, an on-the-go politician, or an ever-alert security guard can practice God’s presence and (I believe) work best in their vocation when they do so.

The phrase “I keep the Lord always before me” is followed by “because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. (Psalm 16:8, NRSV.). The right hand is a place of honor,H. C. Leupold, Exposition of the Psalms (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1972), 150. where a friend might stand (“close to me, ready to protect and save”),Pulpit Commentary, Psalm 16:8, http://biblehub.com/commentaries/pulpit/psalms/ 16.htm (accessed June 6, 2014). and so keeping an awareness of God’s presence before us makes us unshakable. Sometimes we practice God’s presence in purposeful activity as we work hard. When I pack books for a speaking engagement, I try to get the numbers of books right, but even more important is the praying for readers that goes on as I pack. If no books are bought, that will be fine because I also get to pray that the ideas contained in those books become game changers in people’s lives.

The ever-active, never-a-dull-moment apostle Paul lived and moved and had his being in God. Besides saying we could “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17, KJV), he wrote:

• Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful (Colossians 4:2, NIVAll Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™, emphasis added).
• We always thank God for all of you and continually mention you in our prayers (1Thessalonians 1:2, NIV, emphasis added).
• Constantly I remember you in my prayers at all times (Romans 1:9–10, NIV, emphasis added).
• Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you face to face and restore whatever is lacking in your faith (1 Thessalonians 3:10, NRSV, emphasis added).

 

Such night-and-day, constant devotion permeated small businessman Paul’s life of sewing tents, selling them, and managing employees. Doing customer service was woven with prayer and worship and God’s thoughts (scriptural phrases) throughout his day. Like Paul, “all who have walked with God have viewed prayer as the main business of their lives.”Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988), 34.

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02.  Holistic

Other times practicing God’s presence floats more gently in the back of the mind. Because there are beautiful mountain peaks in the valley where I live, I cannot help but celebrate God’s presence as I ride my bike. With Scripture resting on my handlebars, I can soak in a phrase for miles. I have named certain peaks (in my mind’s atlas) for what I’ve heard God say to me over and over on my bike. The more we do this, the more an awareness of God’s presence permeates our lives the way blood circulates through our bodies. We find ourselves conversing with God while playing volleyball, weeding the yard, or hanging a picture.

Prayer infuses all of life. Brother Lawrence put it this way: “Our only business was to love and delight ourselves in God.”Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God, Robert J. Edmonson, trans. (Orleans, MA: Paraclete Press, 1985), 18. Just as I was learning that loving my toddler was more important than getting the toys picked up, I was learning that living a day with Jesus was better than getting my to-do list checked off for the day.

When we practice God’s presence, life goes from being fragmented to integrated. We feel ourselves becoming more fully alive. Brother Lawrence learned to live every aspect of his life in God’s company and set aside anything that hindered this pursuit. His aim was not to do a spiritual discipline but to move toward God’s love, to live in union with God’s love. In the book’s first letter he writes,

 

“This made me resolve to give the all for the all; so after having given myself wholly to God, that he might take away my sin, I renounced, for the love of Him, everything that was not He; and I began to live as if there was none but He and I in the world.”Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God (Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming H. Revell, 1958), 31.

 

Brother Lawrence’s goal was to let everything he did, said, thought, and felt become part of devotion to and communion with God.

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03.  Obedience

Some commands are just difficult. Take the great one(s):

 

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37–39, NRSV).

 

That’s a lot of self-lessness and devotion to God. But practicing God’s presence moment by moment helped me translate those commands into these questions that over time have become automatic thoughts:

• What would it look like to love God for the next ten minutes?
• What would it look like to love the person in front of me for the next ten minutes?

 

The first question became a consuming thought as I waited in doctor’s offices and now as I sit at airport gates, especially when a flight is delayed. Life is no longer boring. I remember that the kingdom of God is here and now through Christ in me, and there’s some adventure right here in front of me. Let’s be open. Let’s enter in.

When the ten minutes of hanging out with God is up, I can sign up for another. Life is not so tedious when I live it in these ten-minute increments. I see my existence as a privilege of hanging out with God all day long. What might we do today? What adventure might be in front of me that I have not considered? And so practicing God’s presence becomes a way to pay attention to whatever is going on in front of us as we celebrate “the sacrament of the present moment.”Jean-Pierre de Caussade, The Sacrament of the Present Moment (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1982).

The second question invites me to ponder what it looks like to love the person in front of me (the biblical term for this being “neighbor,” the one who is nigh [near] thee). We live many moments in the past (Why did that happen yesterday?) or in the future (What will I say to . . .? Tomorrow I have to . . .), or fantasy (Someday, I’ll be . . .). Instead, we can live our lives seeking God and loving others for just the new few minutes.

As we become content to live with God in the present moment, our activity is not so frenetic. Instead, we stay open but also purposeful and focused on what God is doing today. We have a “sense of God’s hand reaching back to lead us while His other hand stretches forth unseen into His will.”Frank Laubach, Man of Prayer: Selected Writings of a World Missionary, The Heritage Collection (Syracuse, NY: Laubach Literacy International, 1990), 22.

Practicing God’s presence means that difficult people aren’t so difficult. First, we learn to live on two levels, as Quaker pastor and college professor Thomas Kelly put it: “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.”Thomas Kelly, A Testament of Devotion (New York: Walker and Company, 1987), 9. In so doing, we “fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:18, NRSV).

So to have a conversation with someone also becomes a prayer for them. To bring garbage cans in becomes a moment to be thankful for a community of local services where we help each other. May I love well those who empty our cans for us. May I wave and thank and bless them.

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04.  Simplicity

As a whole-life experience, practicing God’s presence isn’t so much a method or discipline. Brother Lawrence saw it as more of an intention to be with God and interact with God all the time. He favored this simple, every-man approach over more complex and religiously prescribed methods of Christian devotion. “Having found in many books different methods of going to God and diverse practices of the spiritual life, I thought this would serve to puzzle me rather than facilitate what I sought after, which was nothing but how to become wholly God’s.”Lawrence, Practice of the Presence (Revell Publishing House ed.), 30–31. To register how scandalous this approach is in our day, imagine a candidate for pastor saying in an interview: “I have quitted all forms of devotion and set prayers but those to which my state obliges me.”Practice of the Presence, 35–36. He seems to almost abandon disciplines, yet in reality he was also bringing them all into his practice in a style that fit him well.

It’s tempting to think of practicing God’s presence as difficult because it’s so all-encompassing, but as eighteenth-century Jesuit priest Jean Nicholas Grou explained, “We are not incessantly making vocal prayers, but our heart is always turned toward God, always listening for the voice of God, always ready to do His holy will.”Jean Nicholas Grou, Manual for Interior Souls, 264, cited in Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God, Great Devotional Classics, Douglas Steere, ed. (Nashville: The Upper Room, 1961), 5. Quaker author Douglas Steere adds: “When a young man is in love with a girl, he does not think of his beloved every instant if he has important work to do. But his devotion to her permeates all that he does with an overtone, and when a pause comes his mind naturally turns to the loved object.”Grou, Manual for Interior Souls, 7.

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05.  Prayer-Drenched Service

Practicing God’s presence convinced me that prayer really is the “main business of life,” so I took that with me to the drop-in center for the homeless where I volunteer. I liked Eugene Peterson’s idea that the role of the subversive Christian is that his or her outward role is a “cover” for the true role of pray-er.Eugene H. Peterson, The Contemplative Pastor (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1993), 43. It’s as if the outward role—in my case, laundry lady and shower desk worker—is our camouflage. The clients thought I was there to do laundry. And I tried to do a decent job of washing towels, folding towels, and giving out shampoo and soap to clients, but these tasks were my “cover.” My primary task there has been to pray for clients, volunteers, and whoever else crosses my path. My conversations with God about them are the steady drumbeat among the chaos of a ringing telephone, throbbing dryers, and bantering chatter. Praying for clients doesn’t replace giving them a blanket or tennis shoes without holes in the soles, but prayer runs alongside everything I do. And I notice that it keeps me from burnout. I don’t quit in discouragement, and I don’t feel tempted to grab clients by the T-shirt and yell at them to get a job.

The more I’ve practiced God’s presence, the easier it has become to be kinder to clients. Although I still enjoyed diverse theological questions and conversations with clients (several love to bring this up), I quit trying so hard to witness to them or “influence them for Christ.” Instead the conversation between God and me spilled over into my default thoughts and caused me to see people differently, that the guy who smarted off to me had slept in the cold on the ground the night before. Instead I grinned and thought, Give ’im a break. He’ll get some coffee soon. Or, the woman who always freezes me out socially has no clue what it means to be well-loved. I’ll approach her slowly and carefully.

Perhaps the crux of practicing God’s presence is simply paying attention. We acknowledge that God is always present, so we notice what is around us that we might otherwise miss: the warmth and softness of this old shirt I’ve worn and washed for at least ten years; the complexity of thought and new ideas in the book I’m reading; the beautiful cherry color of the car my husband and I bought many years ago just because it was the last Corolla on the lot. C. S. Lewis saw that “the world is crowded with [God.] He walks everywhere incognito. And the incognito is not always hard to penetrate. The real labour is to remember, to attend. In fact, to come awake. Still more, to remain awake.”C. S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm Chiefly on Prayer (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1964), 75.

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06.  Practices within the Practice

At first, practicing God’s presence can seem a little daunting because it aims to encompass all of our life. Below I’ve shared a few activities that you might start with. It’s also important to remember that the Spirit will lead us in specific ways to practice God’s presence. Those ways may not look like any of the ideas below or anything you’ve read in books because the Spirit knows what will work best for us and leads us that way.

Breath prayers: Some phrases in our conversations with God become well-worn paths. We’ve said them so often they’re part of how we think. These familiar prayers of nine or ten syllables or less (not words, but syllables) have great meaning. To those of us who have spent our energies reciting long lists of prayer requests, breath prayers might seem hackneyed and infantile, but they aren’t. Breath prayers are so simple that they’re revolutionary. Thomas Kelly talked about breath prayers, saying,

 

The processes of inward prayer do not grow more complex, but more simple. . . . We begin with simple, whispered words. Formulate them spontaneously, “Thine only. Thine only.” Or seize upon a fragment of the Psalms: “so panteth my soul after Thee, O God.”Psalm 42:1, KJV. Repeat them inwardly, over and over again.Kelly, Testament of Devotion, 16.

 

As the fictional character, Mary Lindsay in The Scent of Water found her way back to God, she stumbled upon these breath prayers, “Into Thy hands,” “Lord, have mercy,” and “Thee I adore.”Elizabeth Goudge, A Scent of Water (New York: Coward, McCann Publishers, 1963), 115, 119. I especially like the first one, “Into Thy hands,” because it can help us relinquish to God our fear, our anguish and our desire to control:

• I am afraid of upcoming surgery—Into Thy hands.
• I don’t want my church to split—Into Thy hands.
• I want this person to love me, but he doesn’t—Into Thy hands.

 

Yes, it’s simple, but what a relief to grow into a relationship with God where we don’t have to go on and on explaining everything. We can rest in the confidence that God already knows and understands.

We need this simplicity in a culture that wows people with words—adorning them with graphics, using them to manipulate and convince people. Breath prayers resemble the unembellished approach that Jesus recommended when he spoke of offering a simple yes or no instead of elaborate oaths.See Matthew 5:33–37.

Breath prayers are very different from “vain repetitions,” which Jesus described as lofty, impressive recitations made for others to notice (Matthew 6:7, KJV). These quiet, gut-based groanings become more meaningful as we use them. As we turn these prayers over and over, they become woven through these thoughts and may even transform our attitudes.

Another one of my favorite breath prayers, Turn this person’s heart toward you, paraphrases biblical statements about God’s power to change motives and attitudes (Psalm 119:36; Luke 1:17; 1 Kings 8:58). Whether we’re thinking about a government official or crusty old Aunt Franny, this breath prayer keeps us focused on God’s will in the person’s life. Sometimes I add Turn my heart toward this person as a prayer to empty myself of my well-researched opinion of their behavior. These prayers can wring the self-importance from our attitude and allow God to put within us the most loving attitude we can muster.

Meditating on the Run:See Jan Johnson, “Meditating on Scripture,” https://janjohnson.org/meditating-on-scripture/ (accessed 11 February 2023). The purpose of learning Scripture by heart (a term I prefer instead of memorizing) is to be able to access it at any time. So it can be great fun to stand in line at a store and be transported to another dimension by the line,

 

“I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:16–19, NIV).

But even with passages we know by heart, it can be helpful to see the words in front of us, which is why I carry passages in twenty-point type with me. (I’m not sure the small print of Scripture apps on a phone would work as well for me. The large print helps me focus more clearly and without distraction.) The largeness of the words, the physical representation of them in front of me gives me a sense of getting inside the idea, getting inside the mind of Christ for just a few minutes.

Humming: One of the ways Dallas Willard practiced the presence of God was hymn humming. If you sneaked up behind him, you could catch the hymn and join in. So in addition to scraps of twenty-point Scripture, I have old hymns and contemporary songs in large print. I’ve done this so often that certain parts of a hiking trail or bike-riding route immediately bring to mind certain songs.

What is such a life like? Brother Lawrence was lame, and at times had to buy wine for the community even though he had no head for business. He went by boat, and because of his lameness, he could not walk on the boat and remain upright, so instead he resorted to “rolling himself over the casks.” Imagine how humiliating and miserable such a journey would be! Yet, “he gave himself no uneasiness about it, nor about the purchase of the wine. That he said to God it was His business he was about, and that he afterwards found it very well performed.”Lawrence, Practice of the Presence (Revell Publishing House ed.), 16. Picturing Brother Lawrence’s awkwardness and considering he didn’t have a head for business has helped me imagine (and then live out) that it’s possible for us to practice God’s presence in miserable circumstances and find joy and contentment.

Practicing God’s presence creates a life of flourishing, even in hardship. Brother Lawrence described it this way: “I do know not how God will dispose of me. I am always happy: [though] all the world suffer; and I, who deserve the severest discipline, feel joys so continual, and so great, that I can scarce contain them.”Lawrence, Practice of the Presence, 58. A life lived in God’s presence is a life lived well.