What Devotion Is — Follow Me

✦ An Act of the Will

Thomas Aquinas — the angelic doctor, the greatest systematic theologian the church has produced — enters the journal. And he walks in not with a complex philosophical argument but with a definition so precise it reads like something Le herself would say. Devotion is the will to give oneself readily.

Not a feeling. Not an emotion. Not the mountaintop experience that comes and goes. An act of the will. The readiness — the willingness — to give yourself to God's service. Le said it two days ago in her own words: my personal time with the Lord is who I am. Aquinas would read that sentence and recognize it immediately: that is devotion. The will given readily. The self offered before the morning begins. 🙏

✦ A Body Without a Soul

Three sentences that cut through every formula, every routine, every religious performance that lacks the willing heart. Sacrifice without devotion — mere routine. The motions performed, the boxes checked, the schedule kept — but the will absent. Prayer without devotion — mere words. The lips moving, the phrases spoken, the time logged — but the self not offered. Worship without devotion — a body without a soul. Everything present except the one thing that makes it alive.

Owen said yesterday: it is useless to call scattered persons to contemplations of the glory of Christ. Aquinas says the same from eight centuries earlier: without the willing heart, the entire structure is empty. The form without the devotion is a corpse. It may look like worship. It may sound like prayer. But the soul is missing.

Le's mornings before dawn are not routine. They are not mere words. They are not a body without a soul. They are the will given readily — morning after morning — because the devotion is the root, and everything else grows from it. 🙏

✦ God Alone Can Move the Will from Within

Aquinas meets Tozer across seven centuries. Tozer said: prevenient grace — before a man can seek God, God must first have sought the man. Aquinas says: God alone can move the will from within. The devotion that Le practices every morning was planted by God before it became her practice. The will that gives itself readily was first moved by the One it gives itself to.

Deuteronomy 30:6 — He will circumcise your heart. Not you will circumcise your own heart. He will. The cutting away of the resistance, the removing of what blocks the love, the opening of the heart to love God with all its fullness — that is His work. Jeremiah 31:33 — I will put My law in their minds and write it on their hearts. He writes. He inscribes. He puts the law where it belongs — not on tablets of stone but on the living tissue of the human heart.

Le said: it's all Him, nothing of myself. Aquinas would say: that is precisely correct. The principal cause of devotion is God. The will that rises before dawn was moved by Him. The readiness that never wavers was planted by Him. The love that flows into worship — He kindled it. 🙏

✦ God's Goodness and Our Weakness

God is the principal cause. But meditation is the secondary cause — the human side of the equation. And Aquinas names two meditations that together produce devotion.

First: God's goodness. The consideration of what He has done. The 500 denari forgiven. The Prince who stooped. The bags of mercy never yet untied. The river that rose to uncrossable. The Shepherd who said I have waited a long time. Every entry in this journal is a meditation on God's goodness — and the meditation kindles love. And the love produces devotion. Devotion is the willingness that flows from love. Not duty from obligation. Willingness from love.

Second: our weakness. The wretched machine Lewis named. The malformed feet Much-Afraid wept over. The abyss Augustine confessed. The cheap university student apartment where the Prince found Le. When we see our own insufficiency, we lean — not on ourselves but on God. Psalm 121 — I lift my eyes to the hills; my help comes from the Lord. The meditation on weakness produces humility. And humility produces self-surrender. And self-surrender is the heart of devotion.

The first produces delight and love. The second produces humility and surrender. And both together produce devotion: the willing, ready, joyful offering of ourselves to the service of God. 🙏

✦ Joy First

The surprise at the center of Aquinas's teaching on devotion: the primary effect is not what the world expects. Not solemnity. Not gravity. Not the heavy burden of religious duty. Joy.

Devotion springs from love. Love rests upon its object — God. And when love rests upon God — joy is the result. Not as a bonus. Not as an occasional mountaintop feeling. As the first and primary effect. The devout person experiences joy from the very act of giving herself. The offering is not a loss. The offering is where the joy lives.

Le said after reading James Smith's preface: today I read him with joyfulness and thankfulness. That joyfulness — Aquinas would say — is the primary fruit of devotion. The will given readily, resting in the love of God, producing joy. Not manufactured. Not willed into existence. Flowing naturally from the love that flows naturally from the grace that God planted first. 🙏

✦ Weeps with Joy — Rejoices Through Tears

Aquinas holds what lesser minds would separate. Joy and sorrow. Laughter and tears. The mountaintop and the valley — both present in the same morning, in the same heart, in the same act of devotion.

Le has lived this from the beginning. The joy of reading Smith — and the sorrow of remembering the valley where Smith fanned the flame. The delight of Bunyan's bags of mercy — and the grief of knowing the 500 denari debt that made those bags necessary. The joy of Easter — and the sorrow of Good Friday that preceded it. Augustine knew it: the soul that praises and the soul that weeps are the same soul. And both are devotion.

Le said: some days I feel I'm there, but there are days where the valley is your reality for today. Aquinas says: both days are devotion. The mountaintop morning is the joy of love resting in God. The valley morning is the sorrow of knowing our own insufficiency. And both are the fruit of a will given readily — because the will does not withdraw on the hard days. It stays. It weeps. And it rejoices through tears. 🙏

✦ What Is That to You?

Lewis closes the morning with the quietest, most devastating exchange in all of Scripture. Peter had just been restored — three times told to feed the sheep, undoing the three denials. And then Peter looked at John and asked: Lord, what about this man? What will happen to him? What is his future? What is the plan?

And Jesus said: what is that to you? Follow Me.

Not harshly. Not dismissively. But clearly. There are questions that will not be answered this side of heaven. There are mysteries that the angelic doctor himself cannot resolve. The uprooting that may come. The future that is uncertain. England in May. The health concerns. The road ahead. What is that to you?

The answer to every unanswered question is not more questions. It is two words. Follow Me. That is all. That is enough. Aquinas defined devotion as the will given readily. Lewis shows what the will is given to: following. Not understanding. Not knowing the plan. Not having the answers. Following. One step at a time. One morning at a time. One entry at a time. Behind the Shepherd. On the Emmaus road. Through the valley and up the High Places.

Bowen said yesterday: stubbornly keep trusting. Lewis says: follow. Aquinas says: the will given readily. And all three are saying the same thing — the thing Le has done for fifty-six mornings and for years before that. Follow Him. When the questions have no answers. When the uprooting has no explanation. When the terrifying liberties make no sense. Follow. That is devotion. That is the will given readily. And the joy — Aquinas promises — is the first fruit. 🙏