Run to Jesus

I read The Practice of the Presence of God when I was in my early 20s. It was written by Brother Lawrence, a seventeenth-century monk for whom the presence of God in his life was his goal and his joy.

It was Brother Lawrence's desire to live his entire life out of his love for God. He made it a habit to consciously bring his mind back to the Lord several times an hour, until his awareness of being in God's presence was second nature to him. This impressed me, and I began to incorporate this practice into my own life. I can't say I ever conquered it, but I was learning to be more conscious of living in the presence of Jesus, and it was very sweet.

Then life got in the way. Although I continued to grow in my walk with Christ, I did not keep the practice of calling myself back to the presence of Christ as I had in my younger days.

But over the past several years I have been reminded that I am always in the presence of God if I love Him and am walking with Him. And I have sensed Him calling me more and more into a place of recognizing His presence in every part of my life. One tool He is using to remind me is Sarah Young's book, Jesus Calling. Daily I am reminded to rest in Him, to trust Him, to recognize trials as opportunities to let Him work in my life. It is a precious experience to hear Him through the words of scripture and through this devotional book and to respond.

When we love the Lord and desire to walk with Him there are times we wander off -- we try to do things on our own, we are filled with worry, we seek our own glory and not His (and so many other things). I find it easy to think of myself as the rebellious child who is picked up by the scruff of the neck, kicking and screaming as she is delivered to her father, shaking his head as if to say, "Will you never learn?"

But that is not how it really is. We convince ourselves that we are bad, but to the Lord we are simply out of contact with Him. And it is His love for us that draws us back. We need not fear His judgment; if we are sincerely walking with Him, we can expect only love and grace from Him as we turn back.

And He will receive us as a child who, on a walk with her daddy, has gotten separated from him. She runs to him and hugs him and says, "Oh, Daddy, I didn't know where you were!" He takes her hand and says, "I've been here waiting for you. Shall we go on now?" And there is great love and joy in the reunion.