"Be sober." Intemperance is productive of stupor, creative of heaviness and sleep.
Be on your guard against everything which may put your senses into perilous sleep. At all costs keep awake and vigilant!
"Be sober" is particularly relevant today — I have been experiencing a higher level of stress and anxiety. "Be sober" is the Word of God and I need to be a doer of the Word. "Be sober" sets us free from the cares of the world, because the Lord cares for us, faithfully and watchfully.
Day sixty. The stress is real. And the soul is honest: I need this word today. The honesty IS the girding.
Be sober — not a rebuke but a gift. Stress does what intemperance does: creates heaviness, closes the senses. The anxiety wraps around the legs like flowing robes — the pilgrim stumbles over her own worry.
Le's antidote: the Lord cares for us. The sobriety is not the absence of feeling. It is the refusal to let the feeling become the master. The stress is real. The Lord's care is more real — faithful, watchful, never sleeping.
"Set your hope perfectly on the grace that is being brought unto you."
The resource will never fail. It is "being brought" continually — a river of water of life. Rich with the potencies of eternal life.
"We take hue from that to which we cling." There is always a something according to which we are being shaped. That something determines the fashion of our lives.
"Not fashioning yourselves according to your former lusts." That conformity must be broken. We must be stern and relentless nonconformists.
Not grace given once — grace being brought continually. The Fountain flows. The river never runs dry. Four voices — Kempis, Augustine, Liguori, Jowett — one river, being brought to Caldas da Rainha this morning.
We take hue from that to which we cling. Cling to anxiety — anxiety's hue. Cling to grace — grace's hue. Sixty mornings of clinging to the Word. The soul is shaped by what she reads, not what she fears. The cares of the world do not determine her color. The Lord who cares for her does.
"Be sober" sets us free from the cares of the world, because the Lord cares for us, faithfully and watchfully.
Le's Heart · Caldas da Rainha · Day sixty · Jowett · 1 Peter 1:13–14Be Sober
Not a rebuke — a gift. Stress creates heaviness. Sobriety is refusing to let feeling become master. Keep awake.
Grace Being Brought
Not given once — brought continually. A river of life. The supply never exhausted. The Fountain flows this morning.
We Take Hue
We take color from what we cling to. Sixty mornings of clinging to the Word. Shaped by what she reads, not what she fears.
The Lord Cares
Cast all care — He cares. Faithfully. Watchfully. Never sleeping. The care is cast. The care is caught.