Author Archives: S. Rae Wood

Vehicle of Prayer

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I sit this morning in my prayer closet with the crisp air’s embrace, the sweet chirping of birds in the garden and the delightful smell of frankincense. This is a gift. For me alone, I imagine, it seems the world has only just awoken. The celebration of God’s glory has begun and all the earth cries out His praise. I sit in awe.

Ever watch the fruit of incense make its way ever so gently and purposefully upward? I’m not sure I can call that a pastime, but I can easily lose awareness of my surroundings as I watch the smoke flip and twirl about, rising higher and higher without hesitation. The Bible and the pages of history and cultures long past and present take care to include the burning of incense. The Bible refers to the fruit of incense as a fragrant offering to the Lord. The Holy of Holies, in fact, housed a “golden altar of incense” next to the ark of the covenant (Hebrews 9:4). Burning fragrant incense was part of the levitical priests’ duties. They were to burn it in the morning and at twilight.

When I think of incense, I remember it as the vehicle of prayer. The book of Revelation paints this picture:

3 Another angel came and stood at the altar, holding a golden censer; and much incense was given to him, so that he might add it to the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar which was before the throne. 4 And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, went up before God out of the angel’s hand. (Revelation 8:3-4)

Regardless of the emotion behind my prayers, whether it be desperation, urgency, thanksgiving, or joy, I know they are carried upward into the hand of God, my Peace. This is a gift. I sit in awe.

Perspectives, 6

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Brother Lawrence, whose life of devotion continues to amaze me, writes a letter describing ever so briefly “the method by which [he] arrived at that habitual sense of GOD’S Presence.”  I pause here. I have been elevating Bro. Lawrence’s life of devotion and wondering if I will ever be able to match it. I’ve even commented, “if I could be half the man that Bro. Lawrence was. . .(except that I’m a woman, of course!).” An all too familiar phrase that elevates one by de-elevating ourselves. Trap! Wrong perspective. . .especially considering the title of this blog series: “Perspectives from Brother Lawrence.”

On the 6th blog of this series, I pause to meditate on the title of this collection of writings regarding Bro. Lawrence. Practice of the Presence of God. The key word, of course, is “practice.” I desperately seek what Bro. Lawrence references as the “habitual sense of God’s Presence.” With great joy, I am discovering that this is not a supernatural gift or an experience for the few. On the contrary, it is a discipline that requires practice. And, if I may add, patience! With practice, the Presence of God becomes a Divine Habit, if you will.

Bro. Lawrence shares from his own experiences in developing such a Divine Habit,

I worshipped Him the oftenest that I could, keeping my mind in His holy Presence, and recalling it as often as I found it wandered from Him. I found no small pain in this exercise, and yet I continued it, notwithstanding all the difficulties that occurred, without troubling or disquieting myself when my mind had wandered involuntarily.

What I appreciate most in this confession is his humanity. My mind wanders from the Presence of God all the time!! Sadly, I have a tendency to beat myself up when it happens. Not Bro. Lawrence. He simply recalled his mind to focus upward and continued in his practice.

Prayer:

Father, I seek you most earnestly. Teach me to practice the Presence of God by Your grace. Be ever before me in all that I do. May my mind linger on you giving praise, glory, and adoration for all things come what may.

P5

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As I continue in this journey toward greater intimacy with the Divine Presence, the Spirit of God reveals a transforming fire for which I am both hopeful and fearful. I tremble. My spirit longs to love God with more than this finite flesh is capable; a love, a union that transcends the natural world and embraces the supernatural. How I thirst!

O God, You are my God; I shall seek You earnestly;
My soul thirsts for You, my flesh yearns for You,
In a dry and weary land where there is no water. (Psalm 63: 1)

Though I seek His Presence all the day long, there are times, some great, some small, when I cease to look up. I take my gaze away from the only One that matters. I take His Presence for granted. You see, I know that when I look back, He will still be there. Grace. Jesus walked in daily communion with His Father. He knew God as we can never know Him (and how I desperately long to know Him). How precious must His Presence have been to the Son! How great the sacrifice when Jesus took on the sins of humanity, became an object of abhorrence to His Father, and found He was no longer in communion with God. “My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?” The utter cry of His soul must have been devastating to the Father. It is devastating to me now. I can neither imagine such loss, nor even consider bearing it. Yet in this triumphant moment of the Son, the veil was torn and all who desired could enter the Presence of God. Jesus experienced the absence of God so that I might never experience such grave loss.

Bernard of Clarivaux writes:

To shame our sins He blushed in blood;

He closed eyes to show us God;

Let all the world fall down and know

That none but God such love can show.

I greatly desire to grow in the knowledge and love of God. To continually be in His Presence and rely on Him for all things. Brother Lawrence says the “greater perfection a soul aspires after, the more dependent it is upon Divine grace.” As my soul professes love for the Living God, I profess also my dependence.

Prayer:

Thank You for Your Presence that I strive always to practice. I seek You each day anew. Forgive me for taking Your Precious Presence for granted, for turning away to things that matter so little. May the work of the Cross be ever before me. Remind me, O Spirit that lives within, of the gift of Your Sacrifice. Be my Divine habit! Let all my thoughts begin and end with You. Teach me how to love You in the Kingdom Among Us so that I might love you all the  more in the Kingdom that is coming.

Perspectives, part 4

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I truly hope to encourage you with the encouragement I received this morning in my devotional readings with Bro. Lawrence. How can one small chapter seem to  contain a lifetime of wisdom? How does one take it all in?! I wish I could breathe it in in one large breath, but I cannot; my lungs are far too small. Even if I spend the next week or more in the “Fourth Conversation” with Bro. Lawrence, it will not be enough to grasp in its entirety. Truly devotion is a lifetime study!

My spirit is in pursuit of the Divine Love. From the early days of my journey, Psalm 27:4 captured my heart’s endeavor:

One thing I have asked from the LORD, that I shall seek:
That I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life,
To behold the beauty of the LORD
And to meditate/inquire in His temple.

I pray to never lose sight of this great endeavor, that is simply to be in continuous communion with God, a magnificent obsession. Yet, how often during the day do I forget and find myself bogged down by things of the world! This morning I read of Bro. Lawrence’s great endeavor:

“his prayer was nothing else but a sense of the presence of GOD, his soul being at that time insensible to everything but Divine love: and that when the appointed times of prayer were past, he found no difference, because he still continued with GOD. . .”

Prayer and devotion are a lifestyle. I know this in my head, but to exercise it in my heart and life is another matter altogether. But, that is the goal—to never leave the presence of God. He is not some far off reward that we receive in the afterlife. Quite the contrary! Jesus preached the Kingdom of God Among Us. He taught the availability and the accessibility of God now. I say let every breath exhale praise and inhale His presence. Let everything we do, no matter how small, be done in worship. “[T]he end we ought to propose to ourselves is to become, in this life, the most perfect worshippers of GOD we can possibly be, as we hope to be through all eternity.”

 

Prayer:

Consume my heart, soul, and mind. Fill every part of me today and teach me to look ever upward. I want to know Your Presence more than ever before. You are my greatest desire.

Perspectives, part 3

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There is a great cost to discipleship but in the end, when all things are measured, the cost of nondiscipleship is far greater. How costly to live a life enslaved to the world, enslaved to the flesh, enslaved to corruption! This is death. In this light, I would pay any cost for a life filled with love, true love, the love that penetrates all darkness and fear, the love that brings safety, the love that lifts to the highest heights, the love that causes our hearts to beat and sing praise. The love of God, the reason we were created. His love is life.

Why, then, is the battle so arduous between flesh and spirit? Ah! That is the crux of life, is it not? Jesus says to find life, you must lose it (Matthew 16:24-25). Plain and simple. Yet once is never enough. No, the battle between flesh and spirit is never ending as long as flesh lives. Therefore, the rise of each sun requires a death in exchange for life. We must crucify our flesh along side Jesus knowing that what we experience He also experienced 100-fold and more.

I am struck by the immeasurable love of God and the measurable love I have for Him. I seek so much more. In fact, I insist there be more! There must be. There is a promise from God that says if we draw near to Him, He will draw near to us. If I may imitate Brother Lawrence in any area of his life, let it be his love for God. Like him, I am determined to apply myself (my heart, my inner self) to nothing but Him and to love Him only.

Perspectives, part 2

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“. . .when [Brother Lawrence] had failed in his duty, he only confessed his fault, saying to GOD, I shall never do otherwise, if You leave me to myself; it is You who must hinder my falling, and mend what is amiss. . .after this, he gave himself no further uneasiness about it.”

This is a perspective I seek. It demonstrates that our identities are not enmeshed in our actions and/or the results of our actions (either falling or victory), but in Christ alone. Our security is not in what we do, but in Christ. Therefore, if we fall or fail, our security as sons and daughters of God remains in tact. His love for us does not falter. Likewise, any victory we celebrate is not due our own effort. Nor does does it cause God to love us more. The victory, in fact, belongs to Him. He extends His grace in that He celebrates His victory with us as His beloveds.

I could spend a lifetime in this text (Practice of the Presence of God) and urge all who want to experience a deeper love for God to read and meditate on the conversations with Brother Lawrence, a lowly kitchen worker and exalted son of God.

Prayer:
Whether I fail or succeed, may all I do point to the glory of Christ, our Lord.

Perspectives from Bro. Lawrence

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Today I begin a journey of rest. Not rest in the physical sense, but a journey to enter the rest of God – a promise I intend to claim (Matthew 11:28)!

I began a devotional reading of Brother Lawrence’s Practice of the Presence of God. What devotion he demonstrated! What a model! Brother Lawrence (Nicholas Herman) was an unlearned, low class man who was admitted as a Lay Brother to an order of Carmelites in 1666. He had a remarkable conversion experience at the age of 18 that propelled him into a love with God of unmatchable proportions.

Not making it beyond the first page of this text, I find myself in utter awe and astonishment of his love and devotion to God. His great disappointment in God is this: “he had desired to be received into a monastery. . .so he should sacrifice to God his life, with its pleasures” but he “met with nothing but satisfaction” in his sacrifice. Truly, he embraced the Apostle Paul’s perspective that all things are loss compared to knowing the glory of Christ (Philippians 3:7-9).

This simple man also shares the value of continual conversation with God and how shameful it is “to quit His conversation, to think of trifles and fooleries.” What wisdom!

O Lord, create in me a heart designed only for You. May I consecrate my time and my heart to knowing and living by Your Truth. Keep me in Your Presence, O God.

Children of God

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I wonder if we sometimes take it for granted that we are “children of God.” More rightly spoken, that we can be called “children of God.” In order to understand the value and worth, the great honor and privilege, the humbling magnificence of such a claim, one must intimately know the Father. Otherwise, it is simply a phrase without depth or meaning that one bystander might state in passing to another.

The Apostle John knew what it meant to be a child of God. He knew Jesus personally and therefore knew the Father. He exclaimed, “see how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God” (1 John 3:1). How great a love!! Can we even fathom such a love? The truth is, we cannot. Our finite minds cannot comprehend the love of the Father, the triune God, without the grace and power of the Holy Spirt. Even then we barely touch the cusp of his infinite love for us, which is more than enough to sustain our hearts and minds on the journey to Christlikeness.

To be called and known as a child of the Most High, the Creator of All, the Lord and Savior. . .what a sweet gift! Yet what fear accompanies it! I reference the fear of the Lord, that awesome understanding that He is God and I am not, and that my life is for His pleasure and will to be done vice my own. So I pray raise me as Your own, dear Father of the Stars. Fill me with Your wisdom and instruction. As the psalmist sings, “make me know Your ways, O LORD; teach me Your paths. Lead me in Your truth and teach me, for You are the God of my salvation; for You I wait all the day” (Psalm 25:4-5).

Come in!

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Song of Solomon 5:2 “ I was asleep but my heart was awake. A voice! My beloved was knocking: ‘Open to me, my sister, my darling, My dove, my perfect one!

Revelation 3:20 Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me.

Thoughts of the Cross

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When I sit in the silence of my prayer closet, I discover in great surprise each time that I am not alone. The Most High, the Maker of the Heavens and of Earth, the Magnificent Lord of All draws near. How can it be? The Greatest of Greats in my weak and humble state. Breathe deeply. Every breath is not only by the grace of God, but is a gift of His presence–an intake of His Spirit into mine. From the beginning He breathed life, His Spirit, into humanity. Into eternity. He’s still breathing.

When Jesus breathed His last breath on the glory of the cross, I breathed my first. His Life became mine while mine became His, purchased by His pain and suffering–the Passion of the Cross. What a divine mystery! The miracle of the Gospel of Jesus, my Lord.

From the anguish of the cross, He looked deep into my soul and professed His love to me amidst my rebellion. How could I resist those eyes, those tears of love? Together we weep. I weep for His pain; He for mine. I weep for His love; He for mine. I weep because I am unworthy of Him; He because He sees my worth to Him. I weep because He chose me; He because I chose Him. My tears are tears of freedom–the beginning of life and life to the fullest. This is why He came (John 10:10).

O Lord, I profess to You. . .You have my full attention. I devote my life to your apprenticeship. May Your beauty be ever before me as You bring me into deeper intimacy with You.