This is really more a short essay, but it is profound and important. It is one of the best things I have ever read and applying it will change your life. This is a reread for me as I have paired it with my reading of Letters by a Modern Mystic by Laubach in the past, but it is good all on its own, and we have our Kingdom training groups read it every time we do this curriculum, and people usually really like it! We pair it with reading The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence which I have read on a regular basis over the last 35 years. Laubach was like a modern day Brother Lawrence, but practicing God's presence in the midst of real life rather than in a monastery.
Here is a PDF download: "The Game with Minutes"
(the link I had before was not the whole thing)
Here is a PDF download of Letters by a Modern Mystic
Here is a helpful summary of it by Dallas Willard if you are not convinced of its importance:
http://dwillard.org/articles/individual/frank-laubachs-letters-by-a-modern-mystic
For years, I had read quotes by Frank Laubach everywhere. Willard and Ortberg both quote him. I finally thought it would be good to read him directly a few years ago. OH MY!
Here is a blurb about him and this essay from Amazon:
Frank Charles Laubach was an Evangelical Christian missionary and mystic known as "The Apostle to the Illiterates." One of his most widely influential devotional works was a pamphlet entitled "The Game with Minutes." In it, Laubach urged Christians to attempt keeping God in mind for at least one second of every minutes of the day. In this way Christians can attempt the attitude of constant prayer spoken of in the Epistle to the Colossians. The pamphlet extolled the virtues of a life lived with unceasing focus on God. Laubach's insight came from his experiments in prayer detailed in a collection of his letters published under the title, "Letters by a Modern Mystic."Since God has for my focus to be "Ceaseless Abiding in Emmanuel" this year. I will be reading another book by Laubach, Prayer, the Mightiest Force in the World, soon.
2 comments:
Carol - 50 years ago during high school, the Lord Jesus called me to himself. One of the first tracts i came upon in 1970/71 was "a game with minutes." It so completely matched the experience i had in coming to the Lord that it was fruitful to me. About five years later, i was introduced to a compilation of Laubach's "game...," "letters to a MM," and Bro L's "the practice..." in a title called "Practicing His Presence" published (now) by seedsowers.com. That, too, was and is still fruitful in my life. I commend it to you.
Blessings,
Ken J, Maine
I first read Practicing the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence and The Game with Minutes (a small booklet) when I was in graduate school at the School of Journalism, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY. Robert Laubach of Laubach Literacy taught two courses there, Adult Literacy and Writing for New Literates. I took both of them. I was very impressed with those titles and took them to heart.
One day, Robert Laubach's father, Frank Laubach, came to speak to the class. He must have been in his eighties then (1967), about three years before he died. When he walked into the room, I was stunned. It was like Jesus Himself walked into that room. As I thought about it later, I think that he had practiced the presence of Jesus so intently for so many years, that the very presence of Jesus could be felt. At least I felt it that day.
Post a Comment