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The Imitation of Christ
Thomas à Kempis
The Thirty-Eighth Chapter
THE RIGHT ORDERING OF EXTERNAL AFFAIRS; RECOURSE TO GOD IN DANGERS
THE VOICE OF CHRIST
MY CHILD, you must strive diligently to be inwardly free, to have mastery over
yourself everywhere, in every external act and occupation, that all things be
subject to you and not you to them, that you be the master and director of your
actions, not a slave or a mere hired servant. You should be rather a free man
and a true Hebrew, arising to the status and freedom of the children of God who
stand above present things to contemplate those which are eternal; who look upon
passing affairs with the left eye and upon those of heaven with the right; whom
temporal things do not so attract that they cling to them, but who rather put
these things to such proper service as is ordained and instituted by God, the
great Workmaster, Who leaves nothing unordered in His creation.
If, likewise, in every happening you are not content simply with outward
appearances, if you do not regard with carnal eyes things which you see and
hear, but whatever be the affair, enter with Moses into the tabernacle to ask
advice of the Lord, you will sometimes hear the divine answer and return
instructed in many things present and to come. For Moses always had recourse to
the tabernacle for the solution of doubts and questions, and fled to prayer for
support in dangers and the evil deeds of men. So you also should take refuge in
the secret chamber of your heart, begging earnestly for divine aid.
For this reason, as we read, Joshua and the children of Israel were deceived by
the Gibeonites because they did not first seek counsel of the Lord, but trusted
too much in fair words and hence were deceived by false piety.
