Leave yourself therefore in the hands of Love. Love is always the same, although it causes you often to change your position.
He who prefers one state to another, who loves abundance more than scarcity, when God orders otherwise, loves the gifts of God more than God Himself.
✦ The Gift or the Giver
One sentence — and Guyon exposes a condition so common that most souls never notice it. We say we love God. But what we often love is what God gives us — the abundance, the consolation, the high states, the answered prayers, the sensible confidence. And the proof of our misplaced love is this: when the state changes, our joy changes with it. If the joy depends on the state, the joy is attached to the gift, not the Giver.
Guyon says: leave yourself in the hands of Love. Not in the hands of comfort. Not in the hands of abundance. Love. And Love does not always look like what we would choose. Love sometimes orders the scarcity. Love sometimes causes us to change our position. And if we trust the hands — not the state — then the changing of position does not disturb the peace. Because the hands have not changed. Love is always the same. 🙏
Paul tells us to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, on whom our faith depends from beginning to end. Eyes fixed — not wandering eyes. Keep your eyes where it is safe. 🙏
✦ Where It Is Safe
Le anchored Guyon's teaching in Hebrews 12:2 — looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. Eyes fixed. Not wandering eyes that look at the state — am I in abundance or scarcity? Am I on a high or a low? — but eyes fixed on the One who is the same in every state. The author who began the faith. The finisher who will complete it.
And that word safe is Le's own — and it is the right word. The states are not safe. Abundance is not safe — it can produce complacency. Scarcity is not safe — it can produce despair. Neither state is a safe place to fix the eyes. Only Jesus is safe. The unchanging centre in the changing circumstances. The immutable One from day three — holding what He holds, regardless of the weather. 🙏
"Keep your eyes where it is safe."
Le · Hebrews 12:2 · Not the states. Jesus. Only Jesus is safe.God loves you — let this thought equalise all states.
Let Him do with us as with the waves of the sea — and whether He takes us to His bosom, or casts us upon the sand, that is, leaves us to our own barrenness — all is well.
✦ All Is Well — Spoken from a Prison
All is well. Two words — spoken from the Bastille by a woman who had lost her freedom, her reputation, her standing in the Church. And we believe her. Without a doubt. Because she earned those words. They were not spoken from comfort. They were spoken from the place where every earthly support had been removed — and what remained was God. Only God. And that was enough.
Whether He takes us to His bosom or casts us upon the sand. Guyon wrote this without ever standing on Sword Beach. But Le reads it here, where the waves of the English Channel are doing exactly what she described — taking and casting, taking and casting, endlessly, on the same sand where young men were cast eighty-two years ago. The sea does not ask permission. The waves do not consult our preferences. They take us to the deep or leave us on the shore — and all is well. Because it is the same God in both movements. The same Love. The same hands. 🙏
✦ Equalise
God loves you — let this thought equalise all states.
Equalise. That is the word that does everything. Not eliminate the states. Not pretend the scarcity is abundance or the barrenness is fruitfulness. Equalise them — make them level — by placing them both under the same truth: God loves you. In the abundance — He loves you. In the barrenness — He loves you. On His bosom — He loves you. Cast on the sand — He loves you. The state changes. The love does not.
Madame Guyon's "all is well" went through my heart with power. Guyon can say all is well — and we believe her without a doubt. 🙏
We believe her — because the authority of those two words comes from the place they were spoken from. Not a palace. Not a comfortable study. Not a church that celebrated her. A prison that condemned her. All is well — said by a woman who had nothing left but God. And God was enough. Every earthly support removed. Every human consolation taken. And from that place of absolute barrenness — two words that have rung true for three centuries. All is well. 🙏
Equalise
Not eliminate the states — equalise them. Place abundance and scarcity under the same truth: God loves you. The state changes. The love does not. In every condition, on His bosom or cast on the sand — equalised by one unchanging love.
The Gift or the Giver
He who prefers abundance to scarcity when God orders otherwise loves the gifts of God more than God Himself. The proof: when the state changes, does the joy change with it? Love is always the same. The hands have not changed.
All Is Well
Spoken from a prison. Earned, not borrowed. Every earthly support removed — and what remained was God. We believe her without a doubt. Because two words, spoken from that place, have rung true for three centuries. All is well.
Guyon's twelfth day. A Sunday at Sword Beach. And two words that hold everything: all is well.
Day three — Assurance: "It is the work of God upon my heart, and partakes of His own immutability." And today: "Love is always the same." Immutability and constancy — two words for the same truth. The work of God does not fluctuate. The love of God does not change. The soul that rests in the immutable rests in the always-the-same. The states change. The Love does not. All is well.
Day four — Divine Communications: "As the air rushes to a vacuum, so God fills the soul emptied of self." And today: "Leave yourself in the hands of Love." The soul emptied of self is the soul that has stopped preferring one state to another. It has stopped grasping at abundance and fleeing from scarcity. It has let go — and the Love rushes in. Blessed freedom. All is well.
Selwyn Hughes — "The love of God is not the fruit of our labor": And Guyon today: the soul that loves the gifts more than the Giver is still laboring — laboring to maintain the state, laboring to stay in the abundance, laboring to avoid the scarcity. But the soul that loves the Giver more than the gifts has stopped laboring. It has left itself in the hands of Love. And Love does the rest.
James Smith — "Only Believe": "Give God credit for meaning what He says." And Guyon: "God loves you — let this thought equalise all states." The simplest act of faith is to take God at His word about His own love. Not to calculate whether the current state proves or disproves it. Not to measure the love by the abundance or question it by the scarcity. Just to believe it. Only believe. And let it equalise everything.
Nahum 1:12 — where this journal began: "Though I have afflicted thee, I will afflict thee no more." The same God who sent the affliction sets its limit. The same Love that allows the scarcity appoints its season. And in every season — in affliction and in deliverance, in the barrenness and in the abundance — all is well. Because the God who holds the seasons is the God who loves. And His love does not change.
Sword Beach on a Sunday: Three days on sacred ground. The anniversary passed yesterday. The sand that held sacrifice now holds a pilgrim reading Guyon. And from this beach — where the waves still take and cast as they did eighty-two years ago — two words rise that hold everything the journal has built since Caldas da Rainha: all is well. Not because the circumstances say so. Not because the state is comfortable. But because God loves you. And that thought — believed, received, trusted — equalises all states. 🙏