The apostle Peter urged us to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18). Knowing that’s what God wants, my friend brought up very practical issue: “If I have 1,001 things to do every day, how can I grow in my relationship with the Lord when sometimes a quick prayer is all I have time for?”

 

A reasonable question! Especially with the busy lives all of us experience. Is the answer to get up earlier so we have quiet time with the Lord? Or, how about learning to say “No” to some of the requests for our time? Perhaps. But more important, I think, is bringing God into the details of our days.

 

There is a man who lived in the 1600s who is famous for doing just that. He is known as Brother Lawrence, the name he took when he joined a Carmelite monastery. Assigned to kitchen duty, he developed an intimate relationship with God by bringing God into his daily duties. Here’s what he wrote:

 

The time of business does not differ with me from the time of prayer; and in the noise and clatter of my kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for different things, I possess God in as great tranquility as if I were on my knees.[1]

 

 

He described how to put this into practice:

 

. . . merely a thought of Him from time to time, a little act of adoration, sometimes to ask for His grace, sometimes to offer Him your sufferings, at other times to thank Him . . . , in the midst of your troubles to take solace in Him as often as you can.”[2]

 

 

No, we can’t always sit around with a Bible in our lap or be on our knees for hours. But we can communicate with God moment by moment as we work. As my daughter Bonnie says, “Make sure you keep spiritually “nibbling” when a “sit-down dinner” isn’t possible!”

 

[1] Brother Lawrence, http://www.azquotes.com/author/18695-Brother_Lawrence, accessed 8-10-2016.

 

[2] Brother Lawrence, https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/2133549-the-practice-of-the-presence-of-god, accessed 8-10-2016.