Do Now What You Would Do Then — And You Shall Be Very Secure

✦ Here Have We No Continuing City

Of all the passages in the Imitation — of all the words Kempis could have brought this morning — he brought the pilgrim passage on the first day in the new country. The motorhome has crossed from Portugal through Spain and into France. Caldas da Rainha is behind. Dax is tonight. And Kempis says: keep yourself as a stranger and a pilgrim upon the earth. You already are one. You have been one for years — Dallas to Portugal, Portugal to France, the Benimar rolling through the landscape like the tent of Abraham.

Keep your heart free, and lifted up towards God. Free — not tied to the apartment that was sold, not tied to the city that was left, not tied to the country that is new. Lifted up. The heart that is lifted up cannot be weighed down by the change of address. The things of the world appertain not to the pilgrim — not because the world is nothing, but because the heart belongs somewhere else.

Here have we no continuing city. Hebrews 13:14. The writer of Hebrews said it to exiles. Kempis said it to monks. And tonight it arrives in a motorhome in Dax, France — spoken to a soul who has just left one city and has not yet arrived at the next. The focus stays where it needs to be. Not on the city left behind. Not on the city ahead. On the One who is present in both — and in between. 🙏

✦ The Same Confidence

Bethink you often why you have renounced the world. Kempis asks the soul to remember — not the facts of the renunciation, but the reason for it. Was it not that you might live to God? Was it not that you might become a spiritual person? The renunciation was not loss. It was exchange. The world was released so that God could be held.

And the promise follows: neither fear nor sorrow shall come any more into your borders. Not tonight — tonight there is a long road behind and a new country around. But shortly. The labour is little. The rest is great. The joy is everlasting. Remain faithful, remain zealous — and doubt not that God shall be faithful and bountiful in rewarding you.

But the warning comes with the promise: you must not fall into security. Never promise yourself security in this life — Kempis said it two days ago, and he says it again tonight. The danger is not the difficulty. The danger is the comfort that forgets. The slothfulness that creeps in when the trial pauses. The soul that grows lifted up because things are going well.

I have renounced the world — I did it with such confidence in Jesus Christ and I must keep the same confidence. The same. Not a new confidence for France. Not a different confidence for the new chapter. The same one. The one that said yes when a buyer appeared at the door. The one that said yes when Father Joe James came at midnight. The one that has been saying yes every morning before dawn for decades. The same confidence. Kept. 🙏

✦ Do Now What You Would Do Then

On the first night in France, Kempis tells the story of a man tossed between hope and fear — overwhelmed with grief, cast down before the altar — crying: if I but knew that I should persevere! The cry of every soul that faces the unknown. If I but knew. If I could see. If someone would just tell me it will be all right.

And God answers — not with a vision, not with a prophecy, not with a map of the future. With a question. And if you did know it, what would you do? What would you do if you knew for certain that the outcome was good? You would pray. You would trust. You would rise before dawn. You would read. You would live the good life. You would keep the same confidence.

Then do that now.

Do now what you would do then, and you shall be very secure. The security is not in knowing the future. The security is in living as though the future is already held. Because it is. The soul does not need to know what will happen. The soul needs to do what she would do if she knew. And what she would do — is exactly what she is already doing. Rising before dawn. Reading Kempis. Trusting. Praying. Keeping the heart free and lifted up.

And the perturbation ceased. Neither had he a mind any more to search curiously to know what should befall him hereafter. The curiosity about the future — the anxiety, the need to know — it simply stopped. Not because the future was revealed. Because the present was surrendered. The soul committed itself to the will of God and found the peace that no amount of knowledge about the future could ever provide.

All humans are in the same boat — we get worked up for nothing. The fear has a zero percent success rate. Every time. Every uprooting. Every new country. Every change. He has never failed to make the way. And He hears our voice and responds. Out of all the noises of the world — out of the engine of a motorhome crossing borders, out of the anxiety of a first night in France — He hears. And He answers. 🙏