I Appeal to You
... through Bertha Dudde  - 18.09.1944 

3259   Destiny .... Free will - God’s will ....

The human being can derive a spiritual benefit from every situation if he tries to associate it with God’s will and considers it to be in line with his development. No matter what happens to a person, God has known this person’s will from the start, and thus he shapes his life according to His will, but He also always uses the person’s own will as the basis of his destiny .... thus human will is in accordance with divine will insofar as God determines and directs the destiny of life such that the human will nevertheless comes into its own, or, in other words .... God gives His approval to anything the human being wants, yet the consequence of what human will accomplishes corresponds to His plan of eternity and serves the person as an opportunity for maturing, since the consequence of every thought, word and action cannot be enforced by the human being’s will. Thus a person can apply his will at all times, he can want to shape his life’s destiny according to this will but he can never predetermine the outcome with certainty, for then so-called destiny will come into force .... everything takes place according to God’s wise and predetermined plan of eternity .... Nevertheless, free will cannot be disputed, the human being will always remain an independently thinking and wanting being which also has the vital energy at its disposal to put his thoughts and intentions into action. Whereas the direction of his entire earthly life, which God reserves for Himself, only relates to the creation of opportunities for the maturing of the soul. For since the human being’s meaning and purpose on earth concerns the transformation of his will, of his inner being, since earthly life was given to him for his soul to attain maturity, God, in His love, will also always show him the means and ways to achieve it, and He will place him into life so that he can always and from every event derive a benefit for his soul. However, if life on earth entirely corresponded to the person’s will his soul would never mature, especially if he were materialistically minded and only looked to benefit the body.

Consequently, God has to reduce or redirect the effect of what the person deliberately strives for and puts into practise in order to launch a constant battle for the person, for the human being only matures through struggle. Even so, divine will adapts itself to the human being’s will, He allows him to carry it out and does not curtail his independent thinking and activity, yet He helps where human will intends to accomplish something detrimental for his soul, so that this accomplishment will not result in the desired worldly success but that he, by his failures, should learn to recognise the will of a higher Power, because recognition of This is already an advantage for the soul. However, in a spiritual respect God does not impose limitations on the human being’s free will .... in a spiritual respect his will shall remain sacrosanct and the effect, too, will be accordingly. For the effect is already the maturity of soul, which is never raised or reduced through divine will but entirely depends on the human being’s free will. Every earthly situation can be used by the human being to mature spiritually if only his will strives to gain an advantage for his soul. And then God will always grant him .... blessings upon blessings .... for if free will has turned to Him by striving to improve the shape of his soul first then God will only arouse this will increasingly more and also give him the strength to remain strong in the face of opposition. Thus, in a spiritual respect, human will is entirely free, but even in an earthly respect free will can be spoken of, even if destiny is shaped according to divine will, since God has known the human being’s direction of will for eternity and, accordingly, how the course of his life will proceed. Wanting and accomplishing and effect must be distinguished .... the human being can want and accomplish according to his will, yet the effect is God’s privilege, on account of which the human being subsequently believes himself to be constrained and subject to his destiny or he refuses to acknowledge a Controller of his destiny .... Yet all happenings in Heaven and on Earth are subject to the Guidance of the One Who upholds everything, Who is in charge of everything in His supreme wisdom ....

Amen