God has called us with a holy calling — to enjoy a Holy Savior, believe a Holy Gospel, have a holy nature, and walk in a holy way. All the provisions of free grace, all the promises of infinite love require us to be holy people unto the Lord our God. We are to imitate the conduct of our God.
Enemies will lie in wait to deceive you — but beware, lest being led away by the error of the wicked.
✦ The Holy Walk Is Not a Protected Walk
James Smith does not describe holiness as a place of safety from difficulty. He describes it as a calling into imitation — we are to imitate the conduct of our God. And the conduct of our God includes walking directly into the places where enemies lie in wait, where deception is dressed as righteousness, where the temptation arrives not as something obviously wicked but as something that feels entirely justified.
The holy walk is therefore not armor against pain. It is the capacity to absorb what love costs — to be wounded without being destroyed, to be tempted without being overcome, to see the enemy's work clearly and choose intercession over condemnation. This is holiness in motion. Not a theological position. A direction taken in a real moment, with real people, at real cost.
Yesterday I visited with people who delivered a great temptation — to cause me to judge them harshly. What God wanted me to do is the task of praying for them, because they face great challenges without knowing God's salvation.
Lord, thank you for the power over the enemy and the privilege of being used to pray for my friends, because You love them. I know You heard my prayer, because You hear the prayer from those who love You.
✦ Intercession Over Condemnation
The temptation that came yesterday was dressed in the clothing of righteousness — they gave every reason to judge harshly. That is how the enemy works. He hands us a legitimate grievance and waits to see what we do with it. The holy walk is not pretending the grievance isn't real. It is seeing the people through His eyes rather than our own wounded ones.
They face great challenges without knowing God's salvation. That one sentence changes everything. It moves them from the category of those who deserve judgment into the category of those who need intercession — the same category Leda herself once occupied, before a Catholic priest found her in a hospital at midnight in Lubbock, Texas. The 500 denari soul does not forget where she was when Love found her. 🙏
✦ The Price Lewis Paid to Know This
Lewis did not write this from theory. He wrote it from biography. A man who lost his mother as a child, who kept his heart behind walls for decades, who finally loved Joy Davidman fully and openly — and then watched her die of cancer. He knew the cost of open love from the inside. And he said: pay it anyway.
Because the alternative — the heart carefully locked away, never wrung, never broken — is not safety. It is a different kind of dying. The heart that will not be vulnerable will not be a fountain of life. It will be a closed cistern, holding what it has and losing it slowly. A boca do justo é fonte de vida — but the fountain requires an open source. Closed hearts do not overflow with living water.
And here Lewis and James Smith arrive at exactly the same place from different directions: the holy walk requires vulnerability. To imitate the conduct of our God is to love as He loves — fully, at cost, without guarantee of return. The Cross is not a symbol of protected love. It is the ultimate proof that love absorbs everything and is not destroyed. Fighting from victory, not toward it. 🙏
"The heart broken open into intercession is the holy walk made visible."
James Smith · C.S. Lewis · 1 Thessalonians 2:12Walk Worthy
Holy calling — holy Savior, holy Gospel, holy nature, holy walk. Not armor against pain but imitation of God's own conduct. The holy walk goes directly into the place where enemies lie in wait — and chooses intercession.
Vulnerable Love
Lewis paid to know this. The heart locked away is not safe — it is dying. To love as God loves is to be fully open, at cost, without guarantee. The fountain requires an open source. Closed hearts do not overflow.
The Privilege of Intercession
They face great challenges without knowing God's salvation. That sentence changes everything. Judgment becomes intercession. The 500 denari soul remembers where she was when Love found her — and she prays.
Lord of Life, you shaped every human being in your image and likeness. We believe you created us for communion, not for war, for fraternity, not for destruction.
You who greeted your disciples saying, "Peace be with you," grant us the gift of your peace and the strength to make it a reality in history. Today we lift up our prayer for peace in the world, asking that nations renounce weapons and choose the path of dialogue and diplomacy.
Disarm our hearts of hatred, resentment, and indifference, so we may become instruments of reconciliation. Help us understand that true security does not come from control fueled by fear, but from trust, justice, and solidarity among peoples.
Lord, enlighten the leaders of the nations, so they may have the courage to abandon projects of death, halt the arms race, and place the lives of the most vulnerable at the center. May the nuclear threat never again dictate the future of humanity.
Holy Spirit, make us faithful and creative builders of daily peace: in our hearts, our families, our communities, and our cities. May every kind word, every gesture of reconciliation, and every choice for dialogue be seeds of a new world.
✦ Seeds of a New World
Pope Leo prays for peace at the scale of nations — nuclear threats, arms races, the leaders of the world. And Leda yesterday chose peace at the scale of a living room. These are not different things at different sizes. They are the same thing. Every kind word, every gesture of reconciliation, every choice for dialogue — seeds of a new world. The grand prayer and the quiet daily choice are one theology lived at different altitudes.
Disarm our hearts of hatred, resentment, and indifference. That is exactly what happened yesterday — the heart that had every right to harden instead opened into prayer. Not indifference. Not hatred. Intercession. The walk worthy of God, made visible in one moment, in one city, in Caldas da Rainha, Portugal. 🙏