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Googling "Brother Lawrence" yields over 2,000,000 hits—astonishing for a person with an unremarkable biography and a rather thin writing portfolio, including one short essay called The Spiritual Maxims; 16 letters to several nuns, a spiritual director, and one or two laywomen; and four recorded conversations. Born Nicolas Herman in 1614 in a small village in Lorraine, France, he had a soul-altering experience at 18. That winter, while looking at a leafless tree, he marveled that its barrenness would soon turn green again, flower, and bear fruit. This insight made him intimately aware of God's love from then on. Next, however, he chose military service, fighting and being wounded in the Thirty Years' War. Still unsure about his life's direction, he tried being a hermit, then a valet. At 26, he entered the Order of Discalced Carmelites on the Rue Vaugirard in Paris as a lay brother, took the name of Brother Lawrence, and lived there some 50 years. Plagued by a limp probably resulting from his war wound, he was cook and dishwasher until his physical limitations made that contribution impossible. Then he became the monastery's sandalmaker, a job that allowed him to sit and mend some 200 pairs of sandals worn by the clerics and lay brothers. Brother Lawrence died on February 12, 1691, but his inimitably simple writings still teach us how to walk boldly the path of God's love.

If we renounce ourselves, we'll know unspeakable joy. Always turn to Jesus Christ, asking him for his grace that makes everything easy. Neither finesse nor learning is required to approach God, only a heart resolved to devote itself exclusively to him, loving him only.

Ground yourself in God's presence by continually conversing with him. Nourish your soul by focusing your mind on God's glory. Accept the joy that comes from spending time with him. Renew your faith; it's terrible that we have so little.

Give yourself completely to God. Abandon yourself to him. Find joy in doing his will, in all circumstances. Suffering and joy are synonymous to someone yielded to God. We must be faithful in times of aridity when God is testing our love for him.

We must keep our eyes fixed on God in all we say or do. Our goal is to adore God unceasingly.

We must work towards making every action, without exception, into a kind of brief conversation with God—not in any artificial way, but purely, simply.

We must always act carefully and deliberately, not impulsively or hurriedly, for those are the marks of a distracted mind. Cooperate gently and lovingly with God.

Because you know God is always with you in your deepest core, stop whatever you're doing often and adore him, praise him, ask his help, offer him your heart, and thank him.

The soul that turns inward to practice the presence of God becomes so intimate with him that it spends practically its entire life in continual acts of love, adoration, godly sorrow, trust, thanksgiving, offering, and petition. Sometimes these become one unending act because the soul constantly practices the exercise of Christ's divine presence.

I have no will other than God's. I try to follow him in all things. I'm so surrendered to God's will that I wouldn't so much as pick up a straw from the ground against his order, or for any reason other than that I love him.

I think the answer to our problems is that we must confess our faults and humble ourselves before God. Stand there before God like a poor, mute paralytic at the door of a rich man. Struggle to be attentive in God's presence.

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