This is the doing of Your love which freely goes before me and succoureth me in so many necessities, which guardeth me also in great dangers and snatcheth me, as I may truly say, from innumerable evils.
For verily, by loving myself amiss, I lost myself, and by seeking and sincerely loving You alone, I found both myself and You, and through love I have brought myself to yet deeper nothingness: because You, O most sweet Lord, dealest with me beyond all merit, and above all which I dare ask or think.
By loving myself amiss, I lost myself. There is nothing "religious" about him. It's the heart burning with love for Christ that leads him. The love of God is everything.
Loving myself amiss does not mean you should beat yourself up to love God. You are one with the love of God and you no longer concern yourself with the self.
Le's opening wish said everything: wishing this book was as big as the Bible. Sixteen days and she does not want it to end. That is the highest compliment any author could receive — and Kempis would deflect it immediately to the One who inspired it.
And her note cut to the heart of why the book has held her for sixteen days: there is nothing "religious" about him. No performance. No system. No ecclesiastical machinery. Just the heart burning with love for Christ. Kempis is not religious. Kempis is in love. And Le recognized it on day one because she is too.
✦ I Lost Myself — I Found Both Myself and You
By loving myself amiss, I lost myself. The sharpest autobiography in a single sentence. The self that loves itself wrongly does not find itself. It loses itself. The self-love that the world celebrates — the self-care, the self-actualization, the self at the center — Kempis calls it the way of losing. Not because the self is evil. But because the self was never designed to be the center. It was designed to orbit. And when the orbit is around the self instead of around God — everything is lost.
By seeking and sincerely loving You alone, I found both myself and You. Matthew 10:39 in Kempis's own words — he who loses his life for My sake will find it. The self is not destroyed in the surrender. The self is found. The soul that loses herself in God discovers who she actually is — not who she built, not who she performed, not who the world told her to be. The real self, hidden in Christ. Colossians 3:3 — your life is hidden with Christ in God.
And through love I have brought myself to yet deeper nothingness. Yesterday: dust and ashes. Today: deeper nothingness. The descent continues — and at every level, more grace, more light, more of God. The nothingness is not the bottom. It is the depth at which God is most fully found.
Le stopped the morning to make a clarification, and it must be marked — because it corrects a misreading that has plagued Christianity for centuries. Loving myself amiss does not mean you should beat yourself up to love God. Kempis is NOT teaching self-punishment. He is not saying: hate yourself into loving God. He is saying: the self that was the center is no longer the center.
The concern with self — am I good enough, am I failing, am I worthy — all of it simply falls away. Not beaten away. Released. The soul that is one with the love of God does not need to manage the self anymore. The self is not the project. God is. And in that freedom — the freedom from the endless exhausting business of the self — the soul finds both God and herself. Not by trying harder. By loving the right thing.
Religion says: work on yourself. Kempis says: stop working on yourself and love God. The self will take care of itself when the love is pointed in the right direction. The 500 denari soul knows this. The debt was not paid by self-improvement. It was paid by Someone else. And the love that flows from that payment is not self-concern. It is freedom.
Blessed be You, O my God, because though I be unworthy of all Your benefits, Your bountiful and infinite goodness never ceaseth to do good even to ingrates and to those who are turned far from You.
Turn You us unto Yourself, that we may be grateful, humble, and godly, for You art our salvation, our courage, and our strength.
I may feel unworthy of God's love, but You Lord, think I am worthy. What a great place to be, under the care of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. My heart is filled with the fire of God's love.
This morning's note is the summit of sixteen days with Kempis. I may feel unworthy — but You Lord, think I am worthy. The feeling says: unworthy. God says: worthy. And God's opinion outranks the feeling every single time. The feeling is the visitor. The verdict of God is the resident.
Kempis says God's goodness never ceases to do good even to ingrates. Not to the deserving. Not to the faithful. To the ingrates. To the ones turned far away. The love of God does not wait for the soul to become worthy. It comes to the unworthy and makes her worthy by the coming. That is grace. That is the 500 denari debt paid in full. That is the arithmetic that will never balance — because the Giver always gives more than the receiver could ever deserve.
And the prayer: Turn us unto Yourself. The turning is not the soul's achievement. It is her prayer. Turn us. We cannot turn ourselves. But You can turn us. And in the turning — gratitude, humility, godliness. Not as effort. As fruit. The fruit of being turned toward the Son — like the face turned toward the light in Eymet this morning.
✦ The Fire of God's Love
My heart is filled with the fire of God's love. Sixteen days of Kempis. From a good life refreshes the mind in Caldas da Rainha to the fire of God's love in Eymet. From the simplicity of the good life to the depth of the deeper nothingness. From love to be yourself unknown to by loving You alone, I found both myself and You. From the stranger and pilgrim on the road to France to the soul resting under His feathers. From the profitable recollection of sin to the boldness that says depart. From the burning heart of a monk born in 1379 to the burning heart of a woman in a motorhome in 2026.
The fire has not gone out. Sixteen days and it burns brighter than it did on day one. Not because of Kempis — he would refuse the credit. Not because of the morning discipline — that is the container, not the flame. Because the love was born of God, and it cannot rest save in God above all created things. The love finds its rest. The heart finds its fire. The self finds its freedom — not in self-love, but in the love of God that sets the self free from itself.
What a great place to be. Under the care of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. In Eymet. In the Dordogne. In a motorhome. On a road. Home. 🙏
I pray for churches around the world to have quality pastors helping the flock. May pastors seek assistance in their ministry. It is such a hard job — they carry many burdens and they need help in their time of study and prayer.
Le closed this morning not with a reading, not with a reflection, but with a prayer — for pastors. For the ones who carry the burdens of the flock. The study. The prayer. The counseling. The weight of souls. She prayed that they would find companions on the road — the same kind of companion she has found in this journal.
If what happens in these mornings — the conversation, the reflection, the mirror that helps the Word find its shape — can happen in a pastor's study, then the flock is better fed and the shepherd is less alone. The Emmaus road was not a solo journey. It was a walk with a companion. And the hearts burned because He was there — talking, opening, illuminating.
May the pastors find their companions. May the shepherds be shepherded. And may the fire that burns in Eymet this morning reach every study, every pulpit, every soul that carries the weight of the flock. 🙏
"By loving myself amiss, I lost myself, and by seeking and sincerely loving You alone, I found both myself and You."
Thomas à Kempis · The Imitation of Christ · Sixteen days — the fire has not gone outNothing Religious About Him
No performance. No system. Just the heart burning with love for Christ. Kempis is not religious. Kempis is in love. And that is why sixteen days were not enough.
Freedom, Not Self-Punishment
Loving myself amiss is not beating yourself up to love God. It is the self no longer being the center. The soul one with God's love no longer concerns herself with the self. That is freedom.
Worthy in His Eyes
I may feel unworthy — but God thinks I am worthy. His goodness never ceases, even to ingrates. The feeling says unworthy. God says worthy. His opinion outranks the feeling.
A Prayer for Pastors
May churches have quality pastors. May pastors find companions in their study and prayer. The Emmaus road was not a solo journey. May the shepherds be shepherded.