Day 3 – A Clumsy Oaf
Brother Lawrence “was a clumsy oaf who broke everything.” Klutzy, awkward, bunglesome, accident prone – he frustrates himself while frustrating others. Perhaps he heard more than once: “I wouldn’t trust him carrying dishes in the kitchen. Wherever he goes, things seem to break.” Consider his full résumé: Lives in poverty. Lacks a formal education. Experienced the injustices of war as a soldier. Wounded in battle. A household servant. A lay brother. Works in a kitchen. Repairs sandals. In his conversations, we learn that
Day 2 – Grace-Filled Moments
The ancient Greeks had two words for time: chronos and kairos. Chronos refers to chronological time as in “the exact time the star had appeared” for the Magi (Matthew 2:7). Kairos refers to opportune and decisive moments as in “now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation” (2 Corinthians 6:2). Brother Lawrence had such a grace-filled, karios moment. We are told: “I saw Brother Lawrence for the first time, and he told me that God had granted him a special grace of conversion at the age of eighteen when he was
Day 1 – Introducing Brother Lawrence
Brother Lawrence was an ordinary Christian man who loved and served God in France in the 17th century. He described himself as a clumsy oaf who broke everything. He worked in the kitchen of a church monastery and as he grew older repaired sandals. At first he was overwhelmed and frustrated with all the rules for prayer that he was encouraged to follow. So in simplicity, he gave himself to one spiritual habit – practicing the presence of God. He discovered that he
Day 38 – Sin Is Sin
“If you see any brother or sister commit a sin that does not lead to death, you should pray and God will give them life. I refer to those whose sin does not lead to death. There is a sin that leads to death. I am not saying that you should pray about that. All wrongdoing is sin, and there is sin that does not lead to death” (1 John 5:16-17). God uses four levels to move us to repentance: Each
Day 37 – Assurance
When I was growing up, our family visited Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. I remember with awe and delight watching Old Faithful powerfully and majestically erupting its water and steam 130-140 feet into the air and lasting almost five minutes. Old Faithful is the world’s most famous geyser and erupts around 20 times a day. These eruptions are predicted with a 90% confidence rate, within a 10 minute variation, based on the duration and height of the previous eruption. While it’s uncommon
