Harvesting The Fruits of Contemplation

At times, we may tell ourselves it is too difficult to be conscious of and with God each day. There is not enough time, we moan, to complete the unending tasks in front of us - projects which frequently leave us feeling overburdened and exhausted with little time for our Lord . We would be mistaken. (Image source: Wikimedia Commons ) In his classic book , The Practice of the Presence of God ,  Brother Lawrence tells us that everything we do during the course of the day can place us in God's Presence if all is done for the love of God. "I began to live," Brother Lawrence wrote, "as if there were no one save God and me in the world." As one author wrote: "Together, God and Brother Lawrence cooked meals, ran errands, scrubbed pots, and endured the scorn of the world". St. Catherine of Siena had her "interior spiritual cell" where she could seek refuge with the Lord she loved, no matter what she might be physically doing a...

One of the most frequently recommended spiritual practices is to be ever conscious that wherever we are, whatever we are doing, thinking, speaking - all of our earthly actions and failures to act - are done in the presence of God, Who is always at our side. If our goal is to give Him glory we will soon amend our lives.

If we really love God, we would try harder not to offend Him. One long-standing spiritual tool to help us minimize the frequency at which we sin, is to constantly remind ourselves that He is always at our side.   We engage in this practice not out of fear that He is taking detailed notes of every one of our sins, but rather as a means of motivating ourselves to strive harder to love Him, to please Him and to act as a child of God ought to do.