brother Lawrence

"Today Brother Lawrence spoke to me quite openly and with great enthusiasim about his manner of going to God. He said the most important part resides in renouncing, once and for all, whatever does not lead to God. This allows us to become involved in a continuous conversation with Him in a simple and unhindered manner.
All we have to do is recognize God as being intimately present within us. Then we may speak directly to Him every time we need to ask for help, to know his will in moments of uncertainty, and to do whatever He wants us to do in a way that pleases Him. We should offer our work to him before we begin and thank Him afterward for the priviledge of having done it for His sake. This continuous conversation should also include praising and loving God incessantly for His infinite goodness and perfection.
Brother Lawrence declared that we ought to ask confidently for God's grace in everything we do, trusting the infinite merits of our Lord rather than our own thoughts. He said that God would never fail to give us His grace, and that he could testify to this personally. This brother in the Lord sinned only when he strayed from God's company or when he forgot to ask Him for His help.
When we are in doubt, he continued, God never fails to show us the right way to go, as long as our only goal is to please Him and show our love for Him.
He thought it was a shame that some people pursued certain activities (which, he noted, they did rather imperfectly due to human shortcomings), mistaking the means for the end. He said that our sanctification does not depend as much on changing our activities as it does on doing them for God rather than for ourselves.
The most effective way Brother Lawrence had for communicating with God was to simply do his ordinary work. He did this obediently out of pure love of God, purifying it as much as humanly possible. He believed that it was serious mistake to think of our prayer time as being different from any other. Our actions should unite us with God when we are involved in our daily activities, just as our prayers unite us with Him in our quite devotions." - "The Practice of the Presence of God" by brother Lawrence