Holy inactivity: How to pray like Brother Lawrence

Tom Harper April 28, 2025

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I have been deeply impacted by the teachings of Brother Lawrence, who ironically tried to keep his writings secret.

He was so humble that when he wrote to a friend who'd asked how the monk was able to practice God's presence, he required the recipient to agree that he wouldn't show the letter to anyone else!

Millions of unintended recipients later, we're still being discipled by this unique monk. After reading the aforementioned letter myself (with apologies to the brother), I was blessed to discover a deeper way to pray that I'm excited to try.

In the letter, Brother Lawrence reveals how he prays. The following mental pictures from his letter are striking:

"Sometimes I consider myself there as a stone before a carver, whereof he is to make a statue; presenting myself thus before God, I desire Him to form His perfect image in my soul, and make me entirely like Himself.

"At other times, when I apply myself to prayer, I feel all my spirit and all my soul lift itself up without any care or effort of mine, and it continues as if it were suspended and firmly fixed in God…."

The next time you pray inside the quiet of your mind, why not picture yourself as uncarved stone or unformed clay, and ask the Father to remake you in his image?

Some might think this really isn't praying. Where are all the words, all the requests for help?

I'll let this wise man respond, from his same letter:

"I know that some charge this state with inactivity, delusion and self-love. I confess that it is a holy inactivity, and would be a happy self-love if the soul in that state were capable of it, because, in effect, while she is in this repose, she cannot be disturbed by such acts as she was formerly accustomed to, and which were then her support, but which would now rather hinder than assist her."

In other words, when we approach God as a block of stone, waiting to be chiseled, we're not thinking about getting our needs met. We're focused on what he wants. Any specific requests or explanation of what we want God to do actually hinder this kind of receptive prayer.

Will you join me in this vulnerable, inactive prayer?

Lord, make me in your image. Make me like Christ.

Amen.

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Tom Harper is publisher of BiblicalLeadership.com and executive chairman of Networld Media Group, a business-to-business publisher and event producer. He has written five books, including Servant Leader Strong: Uniting Biblical Wisdom and High-Performance Leadership (DeepWater Books, 2019) as well as the Christian business fable Through Colored Glasses and its sequel Inner Threat (DeepWater, 2022). Learn More »

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