When the soul is yet in itself, it draws all things to itself, and sees God and all creatures in itself. But when the soul is in oneness with God, it carries all creatures with it in God, and sees nothing separate from God.
Seeing all in God, it sees all things in the true light, as with the eye of God. This is what David calls, "Seeing light in your light."
✦ How You See Is the Evidence
When the soul sees with its own eyes, it draws everything to itself — judges by its own standards, its own experience, its own reason. But when the soul sees with God's eyes — in His light — it sees things as they truly are. The evidence of His presence is not what you see. It is how you see.
Psalm 36:9 — in Your light we see light. The light by which we see is not our own. It is borrowed — received — the way the moon borrows the sun's light. And what is seen in that borrowed light is seen truly, because it is seen from inside God, not from inside self. 🙏
Seeing light in your light is the real evidence of God's presence in your life. 🙏
Do not measure yourself by others, who may not be led as you are. God has chosen you, stripped of all, in the depths of spiritual poverty. This is the perfect self-renouncement, without which one cannot be the disciple of the Lord Jesus.
All other states, however elevated they may be, are inferior to this pure, naked state of the soul. It is a state which despoils the lover of all he possesses in favor of his Beloved. It is a state in which the soul is shielded from all inroads of the enemy, who can reach only what remains of self in the creature, and not what is enclosed in God.
God has chosen you for Himself alone. You are the sanctuary, which is open only to the High Priest, in which is contained the ark of the covenant — the essential will of God — the sacred place, encompassed by the clouds, where the glory of God appears. Oh! blessed poverty of spirit, in which state the soul is enriched with the best gifts a God can bestow!
God has chosen you for Himself alone. This is my reality. It is not a dream. It is not a fantasy. It's a real relationship to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. 🙏
✦ Not a Dream — Reality
Le speaks this as fact — the way you would say I am married or we live in Portugal. The relationship to the Trinity is as real as any other relationship in her life. Not theology. Not aspiration. Reality.
And Guyon confirms what the 500 denari soul knows from the inside: the soul stripped of everything is the richest soul. The poverty of spirit is the sanctuary — open only to the High Priest, containing the ark, encompassed by clouds where the glory appears. The enemy cannot reach what is enclosed in God. He can reach only what remains of self. And the soul stripped of self has nothing left for the enemy to touch. Yesterday's beast skins — concealment. Today's poverty — protection. Blessed poverty. Blessed stripping. Blessed reality. 🙏
"This is my reality. It is not a dream. It is not a fantasy."
Le · A real relationship to the Father and the Son and the Holy SpiritMy Lord teaches me, that while there are no writings so profound as the Gospels, there are none so simple. Simplicity of soul gives simplicity of expression.
The word of God enters the centre of the soul; it has a penetrating quality, an operative efficiency. No words of man can produce the same effect — at least, none but such as come from souls who are pure channels of the word of God.
When God created man, He formed him of the dust of the earth — the lowest form of matter — made of dust, that he might not rob God of His glory! But man thus created received the spirit — the breath of the Word. This dust of the earth became the living breath of God.
When Jesus Christ is formed in the soul, He imparts not only a clear understanding of the word, but is Himself the Word, reproduced in the soul. Those only in whom Christ dwells fulfill the word, or have the word accomplished in them. It is not learning which best explains the truths of God, but the reproduction of these truths in the life — the experience of them.
To understand and live the Word, I needed to receive the Word in my life. The Word was a seed in my life that grew with much testing and pruning. 🙏
✦ Not Studied — Born
The Theology of Experience — named two days ago — reaches its deepest expression here. The Word is not merely read or understood. It is reproduced. Formed in the soul the way Christ was formed in the womb of Mary. Not studied. Born. And the soul that has the Word born within it does not need learning to explain the truth — the truth explains itself by the life that lives it.
Le's image is Luke 8 — the parable of the sower, from her sequential reading. The seed that fell on good ground and brought forth fruit with patience. The testing and the pruning are the conditions of the growth. Not obstacles to it. The seed does not grow without the soil being broken. And what grows is not knowledge about the Word. It is the Word itself — alive, operative, penetrating — reproduced in the life of the one who received it.
This dust of the earth became the living breath of God. Guyon traces the line from Genesis to the soul: dust formed, breath given, Word received, Christ reproduced. The dust has never been the point. The breath has always been the point. And the breath — the Word — does not need impressive vessels. It needs dust. It needs poverty. It needs the stripped soul. Because dust does not rob God of His glory. 🙏
Seeing in His Light
The evidence of God's presence is not what you see — it is how you see. In His light, we see light. The borrowed light of the moon. The eye of God, not the eye of self.
The Sanctuary
God has chosen you for Himself alone. The stripped soul is the sanctuary — open only to the High Priest, containing the ark, shielded from the enemy. Blessed poverty. Not a dream. Reality.
The Word Reproduced
Not studied but born. The seed that grew with testing and pruning. Dust that received the breath. Christ formed in the soul. The truths of God explained not by learning but by living them.
Guyon's twenty-eighth day. And today she gives the three things that hold the entire series together: how the soul sees, where the soul dwells, and what the soul carries.
Day one — the religion of the heart: Enter the closet. Retire within the heart. And today: the soul is the sanctuary, open only to the High Priest. The closet from day one is the sanctuary of day twenty-eight. The same interior — seen now from the inside, where the ark dwells and the glory appears.
Day nine — unction of grace: "Souls are won by the unction of grace, by the weapons of love, not the power of argument." And today: "It is not learning which best explains the truths of God, but the reproduction of these truths in the life." The unction and the reproduction are the same. The truth that transforms is the truth that is lived, not the truth that is argued.
Day twenty-four — the Theology of Experience: "God teaches only His children, who having abandoned their own wisdom, He has Himself become their wisdom." And today: "When Jesus Christ is formed in the soul, He is Himself the Word, reproduced in the soul." The Theology of Experience is the Word reproduced. Not knowledge about God. God Himself — formed within.
Le's reality: "This is my reality. It is not a dream. It is not a fantasy." Twenty-eight days with Guyon — and Le speaks as a woman who knows where she stands. Not hoping for a relationship with God. Living in one. The 500 denari soul — stripped, forgiven, enriched with the best gifts a God can bestow. The sanctuary is real. The ark is real. The relationship is real. And the Word is not a book on a shelf. It is a seed that grew — with much testing and pruning — into the life she lives today. 🙏