Knowing God

Brother Lawrence told me he'd served as a footman to a Mr. Fieubet, a government accountant. He also said that during that time, he was a big, clumsy guy who broke everything. Thinking he could pay for his clumsiness and sins, he decided to enter a monastery, where he would sacrifice the pleasures of his life. But God suprised him by giving him a life of satisfaction instead. He explained that we should practice God's presence through a continuing conversation with Him, that it would be shameful to trade such a relationship for trivial foolishness, and that we should feed our souls on the highest thoughts of God. We can find deep joy, he said, by simply being with the Lord.

This was taken from an experience a priest had after meeting Brother Lawrence. A simple man of God: uneducated, coarse, and given the most simple of tasks. Yet he had a contentment doing these things like no one else I had ever heard of in recent memory. It is very rare these days for people to be satisfied in any situation, as Paul would have put it.