Secrets of Life
Disclosures about important questions of life
- Chapter 11 -
FAITH, TRUST AND CONFIDENCE
4 October 1870
SINCE you have read yesterday these three words in a spiritistic book (Adelma, "Book of Contemplation", Vienna 1857), which you cannot dismiss from your memory, upon your request I too will give you some words on these three important qualities that are very necessary, particularly for you, and also for your whole company. For also they are lacking in faith, even more in trust, and there is hardly any confidence. So listen:
Faith, this beautiful and noble word which expresses that man, or his spiritual being, surrenders totally to that which he has grasped as truth and, basing his future actions on it, derives his peace from, and founds his future happiness on, the same, how few have it and even if it occurs with individual people, how minute its dose is!
Faith, as I have only recently said in My words to your doubting friend, is the fundamental basis of everything. In the absence of faith, there is nothing that has to be spiritually substantiated. Faith, together with the infant's first comprehension, is the first bond binding it to its mother and to the world. What the mother trustingly lays into the heart of the child, that is, of its awakening spirit, it accepts faithfully. It is convinced that its mother tells it only the truth; it has arrived at this firm conviction, achieved through spiritual and physical bonds, as the only one binding it to the mother and the surrounding world. The faith in these first imprinted truths is often so lasting and, if pure and sincere, so strong that even in his last days on earth, man does not forget the effect the first impressed precepts of his early years, coming from his mother, which he accepted, childlike, in their entirety, preserving them as the first spiritual treasures in his heart.
Many a person among you will often exclaim: "Oh glorious time of the first days of youth, when as a dependent child I listened to the instructive tales of my mother and accepted everything as truth, and nothing but the truth, which at that tune she laid into my heart and which even now, despite all the vicissitudes of life and all the negative experiences, cannot be blotted out from the heart!"
Indeed, faith, this virtue of adhering with childlike faith is the first support which should lead man into the temple of peace and serve him as prop against all doubts assailing him.
When I now apply faith in the religious sense, how much more it should then be! The holy banner which the inspired man swears never to forsake, as basis of all precepts and truths once given you by Me visibly, and now invisibly through spiritual influence!
Many have sworn by this banner, defending it to their last breath and often sealing it with their own blood. But how many others have left it without ever returning to it. And how many have incidentally allowed their fine religious zeal to be perverted into fanaticism, which then led to the immense number of abominations as witnessed by the annals of the priesthood to this very day.
Thus, faith can be likened to fire. Although fire is such a beneficial and useful element for the one who uses it wisely, it is terrifying for the one who disregards and neglects its effect and to whom in the end it can do the greatest damage instead of being useful to him.
Everything I have created has two aspects, a good and a bad one. This applies also to faith. As total surrender to the divine will, what gentle warmth it spreads all over the human heart, and how burning, wildly blazing and intolerant it is if, used by the wrong hand, it presses a firebrand instead of a small lamp as a road-sign into the hand of the man seeking peace!
Therefore, My children, beware of extremes! Particularly in our time; use faith as healing balm and take good care lest it become a consuming poison for you.
So as to be on the safe side, believe only Me, listen only to My voice in your hearts, which does not deceive, and do not let yourselves be deluded by clever, sell-seeking interpreters of My Word. Here the word holds good:
"Examine what you hear and read; adhere to the good and eliminate the bad."
If you will always faithfully observe this rule, the banner of faith will at all times be for you the most sacred palladium (sanctuary) by which you will surely and safely find the road to your bliss and to My heart.
In order to consolidate your faith more and more you must also possess the second word in the highest degree, that means you must have implicit trust in My words; for, strictly speaking, faith and trust are almost one and the same.
Faith is the firm acceptance of truth and trust likewise signifies merely the innermost conviction that what was said and faithfully accepted can be nothing else and leads to the desired goal only through the firm trust that no matter what the action, what is believed has to be confirmed through it.
In order to metaphorically elucidate for you these two concepts, let us presume a man has completely lost his way in a forest. By chance he meets another man who has gone into the forest to gather wood. The one lost asks the other about the right path to take. The wood gatherer gives him precise instructions as to the direction to be followed. And the one lost believes the explanations of the wood gatherer and proceeds on the described path, firmly trusting that it will lead him out of the forest.
Here you have the difference between faith and trust metaphorically presented. If you want to apply this picture to your own life, to the confession of My teaching and the practical application of the same, I must tell you that you believe many a thing spoken by Me, but lack the firm trust that its application and the living according to it will be followed by the desired and predicted result.
Hence it follows that although you seemingly believe in everything I say in My Gospels and in My words now being given to you, you still lack the unlimited trust in the infallibility of what has been said. You will then fare like the aforementioned lost one: Unless he absolutely believes the wood gatherer, is firmly convinced and trusts that the described path is the only true one, he will not find the way out of the forest, for he will on the way, plagued by doubts, begin to waver.
This is often the case with you. You believe, are convinced, at least for the moment, but as soon as it is a matter of carrying out what you believe, slight mists of doubts arise, here and there a "Why", or: "who knows if the success of my action will be as predicted!" etc. What is lacking is trust, and nothing however zealously believed helps, or, in other words: The words without action are an empty sound.
Thus the right faith must be coupled with the right trust. The former is the tree that is to be planted; the second is the blossom to be cultivated, and the third, the firm confidence that is to be harvested as fruit. Where these three qualities are united together in a heart, My Word is valid which I once spoke to My disciples, where it says: "If you believe and will it unwaveringly, you will even move mountains!" - which means as much as: If you have the faith in the power of the word, uttered with the firm trust in its truth, also the firm confidence is present that the desired result will follow!
But where is this trio of divine attributes united in any of you? Everywhere there is shallow faith, little trust and no confidence at all. A hundred times I repeat it to you: "Act and live in accordance with My words, and you will see miracles!"
Faith's most beautiful attributes, crowned by unshakeable trust, will enhance your heavenly confidence that also you, like Me, can rule the elements and perform deeds contrary to all ordinary laws of nature which to others must appear as miracles because they do not know that your will, coupled with Mine, is the foremost law to which all other laws are subservient.
I know quite well that at every attempt, numerous doubts will arise in you. For such invasions into the essence of My natural laws can only be attempted by one who has become reborn and who invokes only My help for such actions, provided they are necessary for the benefit of mankind, and not as a joke or out of ambition or vanity, when his action would result in failure.
I only tell you that it is possible and has been achieved already by My disciples and by other inspired men, although it cannot be easily attained unless these three qualities - faith, trust and confidence - are present in the highest degree in a human being.
A firm confidence in the success is the fruit of faith and trust; do strive after that.
First strengthen your faith lest it wavers like a reed, but stands fast like a wall. Then build on this foundation wail the unshakeable edifice of trust, and the completion of the whole will then lend you confidence. In this house, built on such ground, you can weather all storms from within and without and proceed unimpeded on your path to perfection.
This, My children, is meant by these three words!
Also you, My dear scribe, are greatly lacking in these three virtues; and if also these virtues should be expressed in numbers, as are the love of God, the love of the fellowman and the love of self (significance of the number 666, as the just number of the spiritual man: 600 = love for God, 60 = love for fellowman, 6 = love for self - with the devil in the reverse order), the numerical result for you would be very low and not in your favor. For you have little faith, still less trust and almost no confidence that My words which I gave you will be fulfilled, although day in and day out I keep telling you: Let people talk, stay with Me, for with Me there is trust and no falsehood!
However, I know your heart and the reasons that urge you to doubt. It is the tests which I am sending you; you will pass them and then your capital of faith, trust and confidence will surely increase so that you will be able to enrich the rest of your company with these gifts and will then become the first, instead of the last, as now. Ponder these few words; much is contained in them, as in everything issuing from My mouth.
20 January 1871
All of you, however, must not think that I chose him as My scribe on account of his special moral qualities, considering him better than you. By no means. I chose him because his circumstances leave him more time to adapt his knowledge to Me for the reception of sublime explanations another could not grasp so readily. However, as for his moral worth and his trust in Me, he is not any better than many of you. For this reason you must not think that I am with him whenever he enters your gathering; there you would accord him a veneration far exceeding his due. The situation is that of a Father who writes to His children, but he is only the pen or the agent, nothing more. When you receive a kind letter, what do you long for when reading it? Certainly not for the pen with which the letter was written, but for the author himself.
Thus he too is a man like all of you, with his weaknesses and shortcomings, his desires and worries. He too baffles daily to be rid of all this and often begs Me to release him from the vale of tears, thereby showing, like all of you, that he has very little trust in Me and ought to have far more. From all this you see that the main shortcoming with you and the main obstacle with your progress is everywhere the weakness in trust.
None of you have as yet understood why I uncover and explain to you all the depths of My creation, all the innermost aspects of My divine self. Behold, My dear ones, the reason for all this is, to instill into you the very thing lacking in all of you, meaning, the trust in Me. For when together with Me you traverse the immeasurable spaces of My infinity, when I open up to you My spiritual heavens, giving you an inkling of what is there being kept and prepared for you; when I reveal to you My own self, which is nothing but love and in return wants only love; when I prove to you down to the smallest atoms that I, the Creator and Father, sustain everything with the same love, I only want to prove to you that a Being possessed of this might and strength, as which I am showing Myself to you, should surely be worthy of trust and that, compared to My omniscience and omnipotence, all your activity and behavior must be considered as below the level of Zero.
Ponder these few words; they are very important, like everything flowing from My mouth. Enter deeply into the meaning of that which all of you were given, and you will not only find consolation and peace but, and this is the main thing, you will more and more realize your own standpoint and then, consolidating what is unstable, be able to draw closer to Me.
Not a word I send you through My servant was, and still is, without its own purpose. Also these three words I was just now bringing before the eyes of My scribe because right now it is beginning to be somewhat unstable in your company. There is no true spiritual life present. Many of you are again living only for their businesses and pet interest, almost wholly forgetting Me and My teaching and only remembering it when by chance one or the other has made a speech to that effect.
Be watchful and pray, lest you fall into temptation. Do not make fun of My grace! I do not, as some believe, bestow it on those who only concern themselves with Me and My teaching when they have nothing else to do. They should take care, for they may be struck by lightning out of a blue sky and be forced to realize that they had considered as a matter of secondary importance that which really should be their main concern.
Whosoever knows nothing of My teaching and sins against it, is not so culpable. However, if someone has read My teaching and, half believing, shows no true trust in its activation and no confidence in the attainment of the actual purpose, I shall be forced to wake him up through a direct jolt lest he drop off to the sleep of worldly things, thereby forgetting My spiritual school. Today I still admonish; who, apart from Me, knows what I shall do tomorrow? The piece of ground on which you live and peacefully walk about enjoying your life, is hollow under your feet. This thin shell covers terrible chasms and you with firm faith and trust look up to Me with great confidence and hope that I shall not let this thin shell give way, thereby letting all of you taste death unawares. Calmly you lie down above these chasms with the firm trust and confidence of again rising the next day hale and strengthened while perhaps under your feet to you incomprehensible baffles of the elements are taking place. Why do you have such trust in this case and not in spiritual matters? You see, because you believe I shall not do it! And why shall I not do it? Because you put your trust in a loving Father, who will not without reason punish His children with destruction. What, then, is your confidence? It is that, what you hope for, namely, the constant granting of My grace to you, may not waver.
Now, since in this respect you put such firm faith, trust and confidence in Me, do allow also Me to demand of you, if not at this rate of divine forbearance, then with human indulgence, to have also in spiritual matters a firmer faith, greater trust and greater confidence; and to understand that all I have already bestowed on you happened only for your benefit and by no means for My entertainment, but only in order to confer on you the honor of being able to become My children.
You demand of Me unlimited grace, and I demand of you unlimited love. With the exchange of these two conditions it is only you who gain, since I want to accord you a might that shall make you lords of all that was created!
Since I promise you such great graces, I am also allowed to wake up those on the road to Me, should they fall asleep while walking, through gentle nudges as I am now doing to you. Then you will realize that one must not walk My paths with one's eyes closed, but with open eyes and ears so as not to miss the right way and go astray.
So again, let all of you consider what I am giving you here. Be watchful and pray, lest you fall into temptation! Let this be your device towards a steady growth in firm faith, trust and confidence! Amen.