There are three things for which the Christian needs a regular time alone during the day: meditation on the Scripture, prayer, and intercession.
In our meditation we read the text given to us on the strength of the promise that it has something quite personal to say to us for this day and for our standing as Christians. It is not only God's Word for the community of faith, but also God's Word for me personally.
We are reading the Word of God as God's Word for us. Therefore, we do not ask what this text has to say to other people. For those of us who are preachers that means we will not ask how we would preach or teach on this text, but what it has to say to us personally.
Bonhoeffer writes a sentence this morning that lands on the pastoral notes before it lands on the reader. We will not ask how we would preach or teach on this text, but what it has to say to us personally.
This journal has a pastor writing commentary every morning. The warning is aimed here. There is a way of handling Scripture that never lets it get close — turning every passage immediately into material, so that the text is always about to be used and never simply received. The professional reader can spend a lifetime near the Word and remain untouched by it, because he is always reading on someone else's behalf.
But notice the order this has always run in. Le reads first, alone. The Spirit gives her what He gives her. Only then does anything get written. The entry is downstream of the meditation, not the reason for it. Her reading has never once been done in order to produce a page — which is precisely the protection Bonhoeffer is prescribing.
And the pastoral notes are only ever the second thing. Le herself named the arrangement in July: I read the text, the Lord plants seeds of truth in my heart, and Barnabas helps water them. Watering happens after the planting or not at all.
Bonhoeffer names three: meditation, prayer, and intercession. The first two are the substance of these eighty-eight mornings. The third is the one that turns outward.
And it is deliberately listed separately. Intercession is not prayer with a wider subject line. It is prayer that has stopped being about the one praying. Bonhoeffer will not let it be folded into the other two, because it is the part most easily dropped by a soul under pressure — and the part most needed by one.
There is a mercy in that placement worth noticing. A person six days from a move has very little left over. But intercession costs nothing but attention, and it does something no amount of self-examination can: it turns the eyes off the one who is tired.
Paul puts two totals side by side, and they are exact opposites. Be anxious for NOTHING. In EVERYTHING, by prayer.
Nothing is exempted from the ban. Nothing is too small for the prayer. The two words cover the same ground from opposite directions, and between them they leave no category of concern that is meant to be handled by worry.
And Paul does not say stop worrying. He gives worry somewhere to go. The command is not a demand for a change of feeling — it is a redirection. The same weight, moved to a different address. Let your requests be made known to God.
Which is the verdict Jesus reached five days ago in this journal, by a different road: which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? Worry is not first condemned. It is first found useless.
Two words sit in the middle of the sentence and are easy to walk past. With thanksgiving.
Without them, a request is simply anxiety in religious form — the same fear, addressed upward, still convinced that everything depends on the outcome. Thanksgiving is what changes the posture. It requires the soul to name something already given before asking for what is not yet given.
And it is a memory exercise. Gratitude cannot be manufactured out of the present moment when the present moment is hard. It has to reach back. Which is what a journal is for — and what eighty-eight dated entries have quietly been building. A record of things already done, available on the days when nothing feels done.
Liguori said it in July, and it is the same instrument: one "blessed be God" in adversity is worth more than a thousand acts of gratitude in prosperity.
The verb translated guard is phroureō — a military word. To post a garrison. To keep a city under watch with soldiers at the gates.
And Paul is writing to Philippi, a Roman military colony — a town full of retired soldiers who had spent their working lives doing exactly this. They would have read the promise and seen sentries.
This journal has met that word before. On July 11, Jowett on 1 Peter 1:5 — guarded by the power of God — and the note that morning read: my Father's power is my garrison; the garrison does not require the soldier inside to fight. Peter and Paul use the same verb.
But notice what Paul says is posted at the gate. Not God's power — God's peace. The peace is the sentry. Which is a strange and wonderful reversal: peace is normally what you have once the walls are secure. Here, peace is the wall.
And note precisely what it guards. Not the circumstances. Not the outcome. Your hearts and minds. Paul promises a garrison around the interior. The move still happens. The peace is posted around the one going through it.
One more phrase, and it is often read as a compliment when it is closer to a warning label. The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding.
It means the peace will not make sense. It will not be proportionate to the situation. Anyone examining the circumstances and then examining the calm will not be able to reconcile the two. That mismatch is not evidence that the peace is false. It is the stated specification.
And it is worth distinguishing from something else. Romans 5:1 speaks of peace with God — the war ended, the treaty signed, done once and never revisited. Philippians 4:7 speaks of the peace of God — His own settledness, posted as a guard around a particular heart on a particular difficult morning.
The first is the status. The second is the garrison. Six days out, both are in force.
Bonhoeffer's danger is reading Scripture in order to produce something. You do that as a new Christian — trying to make God do something for you.
You learn to receive the Word, not to manipulate it.
Le has named the same disease in its other, and probably more common, form.
Bonhoeffer diagnosed the professional version: reading for material. The preacher who never meets a text he is not already planning to use. Le diagnoses the beginner's version: reading for leverage. Trying to make God do something for you.
Both are using the text rather than receiving it. One turns Scripture into supply for other people; the other turns it into a lever on God — the right verse found, claimed, applied, in the hope that the machinery will move. Neither lets the Word do what it came to do.
And her verb is the honest one: you learn. Not you should know better. Nobody begins by receiving. It is learned slowly, usually by discovering that the lever does not work — and then discovering, to one's surprise, that being read by the Word is better than getting something out of it.
Which is exactly what Bonhoeffer promises for the time alone: it has something quite personal to say to us for this day. Not something to be extracted. Something said. The soul who has stopped manipulating is finally in a position to hear it.
"You learn to receive the Word, not to manipulate it."
Le's Heart · Caldas da Rainha, Portugal · Day eighty-eight · Bonhoeffer · Philippians 4:6–7Receive, Not Manipulate
The preacher reads for material; the new believer reads for leverage. Both use the text instead of receiving it. And nobody begins by receiving — it is learned.
The Third Thing
Meditation, prayer — and intercession, listed separately because it is not prayer with a wider subject line. It is the part that turns the eyes off the one who is tired.
With Thanksgiving
Without it, a request is anxiety in religious form. And gratitude has to reach back — which is what a journal is for. A record of things done, for days when nothing feels done.
Phroureō — To Post a Garrison
A military word, written to a garrison town. And the sentry at the gate is peace itself. It guards the heart and mind — not the circumstances.