Daily Encouragement: Day 217

From Handbook to Wisdom, Day 217

THE IMITATION OF CHRIST

Your lovingkindness, O Lord, reaches to the heavens,
Your faithfulness to the skies.
Your righteousness is like the mountains of God;
Your judgments are like a great deep.
O Lord, You preserve man and beast.
How priceless is Your lovingkindness, O God!
The children of men find refuge in the shadow of Your wings.
For with You is the fountain of life;
in Your light we see light.
(Psalm 36:5–7, 9)

I acknowledge this day and take it to my heart
that the Lord is God in heaven above and on the earth below;
there is no other.
(Deuteronomy 4:39)

“O my soul, above all things and in all things always rest in the Lord, for He is the eternal rest of the saints.

“Grant me most sweet and loving Jesus, to rest in You above every other creature, above all health and beauty, above all glory and honor, above all power and dignity, above all knowledge and precise thought, above all wealth and talent, above all joy and exultation, above all fame and praise, above all sweetness and consolation, above all hope and promise, above all merit and desire, above all gifts and favors You give and shower upon me, above all happiness and joy that the mind can understand and feel, and finally, above all angels and archangels, above all the hosts of heaven, above all things visible and invisible, and above all that is not You, my God.”

—Thomas à Kempis, in The Imitation of Christ