Laubach - Letters by a Modern Mystic

Originally published in the United States of America in 2007 by Purposeful Design Publications, a division of the Association of Christian Schools International, Colorado Springs.

First published in Great Britain in 2011

Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge

36 Causton Street

London SW1P 4ST

www.spckpublishing.co.uk

Copyright Robert S. Laubach 2011

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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 9780281066124

eBook ISBN 9780281066131

First printed in Great Britain by Ashford Colour Press

Subsequently digitally printed in Great Britain

Produced on paper from sustainable forests

eBook by Graphicraft Limited, Hong Kong

Contents

You hold in your hands a treasure provided by Christ to all people who long to live their real life today in the constant presence and power of God. It comes through the soul of a man who lived such a lifeFrank Laubach. He was a quintessentially modern man, totally at home in world affairs at all levels, but in all contexts the constant servant of Christ and of his fellow human beings. An international statesman for Christ, Laubach had the most profound simplicity, intelligence, and spirituality. As you will find, the man himself is even greater than his message. He himself is the assurance that what he says about a constant life with God and in God is true.

What Frank Laubach brings to us, with his poetic imagery and limpid prose, is a simple and effectual way into a life in which God is always near and all of the intimacies and empowerments extolled in Scripture and in hymns and other praise songs form the texture of daily life. In a way well known to Christ followers of other times but largely lost to followers of more recent forms of Christianity, he shows us the simple, practical steps that we can takeno matter our qualifications or circumstancesto fill our minds with the reality of God, of Christ, and of His Kingdom.

The method is simple, and it can be learned with some sustained practice in such a way that it is not a burden but a blessing that gives much more strength than it requires. In the briefest of descriptions, we learn to call Him to mind at least one second of each minute. We practice this, learning as we go, until it is as routine as breathing. Then our life is flooded with light and joy and strength for all that is good. Other things are helpful, such as periodic, intense study of the Gospels and fellowship with others who are walking the same way and practicing the same life. But the heart of the matter is turning the mind to God for one brief second of each minute. When we set ourselves to do this, we will discover many ways of doing it and many things that can help us. God will assist the eager soul to learn as it goes.

Frank Laubach was well educated in how the mind works. He knew how we are capable of keeping many things before the mind at once, and he knew that when something is drawn before the mind it does not disappear immediately. Rather, it lingers around the mind, and the fragrance of its being stains the atmosphere of consciousness. So God and His works are always there, from horizon to center.

Anyone who wants to actively love God all the time can do this. A child can do it, as well as those who have no special qualifications or advantages. If you will patiently begin to follow the instructions given in this book, you will very quickly see the astonishing results. Why not begin now? The door is open, and the Master calls. You certainly have nothing better to do. As you follow these instructions, everything else you do will go better than ever before.

Dallas Willard

Why read a diary kept by a man who lived three-quarters of a century ago? Because it is a diary of a ma n s walk with God. That manFrank C. Laubach, my fatherkept this diary at a time when his life was at its most discouraging depth.

He was alone in an alien land, among a people whose language he had yet to learn and whose religion he had yet to appreciate. Their indifference rebuffed this missionary, who was so well trained and so eager to help them. In despair, he spoke with God night after night on Signal Hill, a convenient knoll just outside the town of Dansalan in the Philippines.

As this prayer diary tells, he gradually learned to talk and to walk with God. As he did so, God humbled him and taught him to walk and work with his new Maranao friends. From this spiritual journey emerged the unique concept of Gods love in action expressed by a literate person teaching an illiterate person.

Anyone who understands the spiritual depth on which each one teach one rests should return frequently to this little book.

Robert S. Laubach

Syracuse, New York

3 JANUARY 1930

To be able to look backward and say. This, this has been the finest year of my lifethat is glorious! But anticipation! To be able to look ahead and say, The present year can and shall be better!that is more glorious!

If we said such things about our achievements, we would be consummate egotists. But if we are speaking of Gods kindness, and we speak truly, we are but grateful. And this is what I do witness. I have done nothing but open windowsGod has done all the rest. There have been few if any conspicuous achievements. There has been a succession of marvelous experiences of the friendship of God. I feel, as I look back over the year, that it would have been impossible to have held much more without breaking with sheer joy. It was the lonesomest year, in some ways the hardest year, of my life, but the most gloriously full of voices from heaven.

And it closed very beautifully. The young men and girls of Silliman were gathered for a watch night service. We were resolving new high resolves until nearly twelve oclock.

As for me, I resolved that I would succeed better this year with my experiment of filling every minute full of the thought of God than I succeeded last year.

And I added another resolveto be as wide open toward people and their need as I am toward God. Windows open outward as well as upward! Windows especially open downward where people need most!

20 JANUARY 1930

Living in the atmosphere of Islam is provingthus fara tremendous spiritual stimulus. Mohammed is helping me. I have no more intention of giving up Christianity and becoming a Mohammedan than I had twenty years ago, but I find myself richer for the Islamic experience of God.

Islam stresses the will of God. It is supreme. We cannot alter any of His mighty decrees. To try to do so means annihilation. Submission is the first and last duty of man.

That is exactly what I have been needing in my Christian life. Although I have been a minister and a missionary for fifteen years, I have not lived the entire day of every day in minute-by-minute effort to follow the will of God. Two years ago a profound dissatisfaction led me to begin trying to line up my actions with the will of God about every fifteen minutes or every half hour. Other people to whom I confessed this intention said it was impossible. I judge from what I have heard that few people are really trying even that.