Going Home to God

“I am going there to prepare a place for you.” — from John 14

Brother Lawrence grew to be an old man. In one of his letters he wrote, “I am almost eighty.” By then he had walked with God for more than forty years, ever since that winter day when he saw the bare tree.

In his old age he was often very ill. But he didn’t ask God to take the pain away. Instead he asked for strength to bear it with courage and love. He said he was always happy, because God was with him.

In his very last letters, he wrote that he hoped to see God soon. Just two days after one of those letters, he went to bed ill, and before the week was over, he died, and went home to be with the God he loved.

But his letters and his words were kept, so that we could read them. And in them he kept giving the same invitation. Think of God often. Talk with him. Trust him. “Let us begin,” he wrote. When someone told him he always said the same thing, he agreed! It was the best and easiest way he knew, so he told everyone.

The clumsy young footman had learned to live every day with God, and he wanted everyone else to know how.

Brother Lawrence’s invitation is for you too. You don’t have to be grown up, or clever, or careful. You can begin today: remember that God is with you, and talk with him all through the day.

Dear God, thank you that you are with me always. Help me to begin today to talk with you and trust you, all my life long. Amen.