Of Meditation on the Hidden Judgments of God that We May Not Be Lifted Up Because of Our Well Doing

I am not one who regularly reads "devotional" books.  However... I do keep a copy of Thomas a Kempis' The Imitation of Christ near my bed and often read from it.  This passage is one of my favorites.




*I've updated this post to add an instrumental version of the song.  Enjoy. -tjc

Feel free to download this song and to share it with friends.

I used the following sounds from the Freesound Project

Thin Cloud
Beneath Ambient 2
Fake Vinyl 
and a Librivox recording of The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis - Book 3 Chapter 14 

CHAPTER XIV

Of Meditation Upon the Hidden Judgments of God, that We May Not

Be Lifted Up Because of Our Well-Doing

Thou sendest forth Thy judgments against me, O Lord, and shakest

all my bones with fear and trembling, and my soul trembleth

exceedingly.  I stand astonished, and remember that the heavens

are not clean in thy sight.[i]  If Thou chargest Thine angels

with folly, and didst spare them not, how shall it be unto me?

Stars have fallen from heaven, and what shall I dare who am

but dust?  They whose works seemed to be praiseworthy, fell into

the lowest depths, and they who did eat Angels' food, them have I

seen delighted with the husks that the swine do eat.

2. There is therefore no holiness, if Thou O Lord, withdraw Thine

hand.  No wisdom profiteth, if Thou leave off to guide the helm.

No strength availeth, if Thou cease to preserve.  No purity is

secure, if Thou protect it not.  No self-keeping availeth, if Thy

holy watching be not there.  For when we are left alone we are

swallowed up and perish, but when we are visited, we are raised

up, and we live.  For indeed we are unstable, but are made strong

through Thee; we grow cold, but are rekindled by Thee.

3. Oh, how humbly and abjectly must I reckon of myself, how must

I weigh it as nothing, if I seem to have nothing good!  Oh, how

profoundly ought I to submit myself to Thy unfathomable

judgments, O Lord, when I find myself nothing else save nothing,

and again nothing!  Oh weight unmeasurable, oh ocean which cannot

be crossed over, where I find nothing of myself save nothing

altogether!  Where, then, is the hiding-place of glory, where the

confidence begotten of virtue?  All vain-glory is swallowed up in

the depths of Thy judgments against me.

4. What is all flesh in Thy sight?  For how shall the clay boast

against Him that fashioned it?[ii]  How can he be lifted up in

vain speech whose heart is subjected in truth to God?  The whole

world shall not lift him up whom Truth hath subdued; nor shall he

be moved by the mouth of all who praise him, who hath placed all

his hope in God.  For they themselves who speak, behold, they

are all nothing; for they shall cease with the sound of their

words, but the truth of the Lord endureth for ever.[iii]

---

[i]  Job xv. 15.  

[ii] Psalm xxix. 16.  

[iii] Psalm cxvii. 2