When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought me joy. Psalm 94:19
“Here’s the preface to Brother Lawrence’s Seventh Letter: At the age of nearly fourscore exhorts his correspondent, who is sixty-four, to live and die with God and promises and asks for prayer.
I pity you much. It will be of great importance if you can leave the care of your affairs to, and spend the remainder of your life only in worshiping God. He requires no great matters of us; a little remembrance of Him from time to time, a little adoration: sometimes to pray for His grace, sometimes to offer Him your sufferings, and sometimes to return Him thanks for the favors He has given you, and still gives you, in the midst of your troubles, and to console yourself with Him the oftenest you can. Lift up your heart to Him, sometimes even at your meals, and when you are in company: the least little remembrance will always be acceptable to Him. You need not cry very loud; He is nearer to us than we are aware of.
It is not necessary for being with God to be always at church; we may make an oratory of our heart, wherein to retire from time to time, to converse with Him in meekness, humility, and love. Every one is capable of such familiar conversation with God, some more, some less: He knows what we can do. Let us begin then; perhaps He expects but one generous resolution on our part. Have courage. We have but little time to live; you are near sixty-four, and I am almost eighty. Let us live and die with God: sufferings will be sweet and pleasant to us, while we are with Him: and the greatest pleasures will be, without Him, a cruel pun- ishment to us. May He be blessed for all. Amen.
Use yourself then by degrees thus to worship Him, to beg His grace, to offer Him your heart from time to time, in the midst of your business, even every moment if you can. Do not always scrupulously confine yourself to certain rules, or particular forms of devotion; but act with a general confidence in God, with love and humility. You may assure – of my poor prayers, and that I am their servant, and yours particularly.”
Brother Lawrence (c. 1614-1691) in The Practice of the Presence of God: The Best Rule of Holy Life (Grand Rapids: CCEL) 24.
Are you troubled in these uncertain times? Brother Lawrence would echo David, the psalmist, and say that finding our hope consolation in God alone is the only pathway to joy.
At nearly 80 he tells a troubled 64 year old to make a generous resolution: have courage. This might be the best form of generosity we can share everywhere as we start another week. Think about it.
Regardless of your financial assets, you can extend this form of generosity richly. Receive it from me with the same poor prayers that Brother Lawrence prayed. You got this. I’ve got this. We’ve got this, because God’s got us.