That we should be content only with God's good pleasure, and let our office be to love God and to be obedient.
The Hundred and Twenty-sixth Letter.
That we should be content only with God's good pleasure, and let our office be to love God and to be obedient.
In grace, heartily-beloved sister!
However gladly I too would have wished to come thither, yet it has by no means been able to arrange itself thus far; we must therefore lose our inclinations — however good and innocent they may be — once again in God's good pleasure, who alone is enough. Ah! this we ought indeed to do so heartily gladly, and with no vexation or burden, in the occasions that daily present themselves to us for it; and to let all else that wills otherwise sink away in a moment, but softly; and to say unceasingly, and in everything, from the heart: Yea, Father! for so it was well-pleasing before Thee! How often do we not say, even unthinkingly, No! — which indeed no father gladly hears from his child. What have we to do with how things fall out? A king must rule his land, a burgomaster the city, a housefather his house — and God over them all. If we had one of these offices, we should have to see to it how we tended our office. But now our office is only to love God and be obedient; all else does not concern us; all else cannot hinder us therein, but rather gives us continual occasion for it — if only we otherwise remain within the bounds of our office, and do not take upon ourselves what is not commanded us.
Ah Lord! how good it is that Thou givest to each one an office for which he is fit, or is made fit by Thee! Were we to rule, how strangely would it go! Had we the commanding, we should never follow anything but our own self-will, and yet never get it as we would gladly have it. Now we have but one thing to do — to love Thee and be obedient; how well does that not suit us, and our circumstances! We should otherwise be of use for nothing else. Ah! that we might become truly of use and fit for this, through Thy grace, O my God!
Beloved sister! do not picture the dear Savior to yourself as ever so far off, but as a faithful Heart-Friend, who has ever to do with you: forget Him not too much and too long, else we go to work without Him, and then nothing avails. Out of His heart draw all the friendliness, patience, meekness, life, and power that are needful to you; there all lies open to childlike faith. Let Him be our heart's Object and treasure, eternally! In His name I heartily desire to greet you, and to commend myself to your remembrance; I too do not forget it —
Your weak friend and brother.
Mülheim, the 23rd of August 1732.
German
Der hundertundsechsundzwanzigste Brief.
Daß wir nur mit GOttes Wohlgefallen zufrieden, und unser Amt seyn lassen sollen, GOtt zu lieben und gehorsam zu seyn.
In der Gnade herzlich-geliebte Schwester!
Wie gern ich auch hätte wollen dorthin kommen, so hat sich's dennoch bis daher noch gar nicht schicken wollen; wir müssen demnach unsere Neigungen, wie gut und unschuldig die auch seyn möchten, nur wiederum in GOttes Wohlgefallen verlieren, der allein genug ist.
— Opening lines of the original German. The complete transcription of all 605 letters appears in the forthcoming Encounter Press critical edition; Brief 1 is shown in full as a sample.
German text: public domain (1773–75 first edition / 1845 Gesammelte Schriften).
Translator’s notes
What this letter is. A short, bracing letter of direction, written 23 August 1732 to Christiana Maria Griesenbeck — the fifth in this run of letters to her. It begins from a small disappointment: Tersteegen had hoped to come to her, and it simply "would not arrange itself." Rather than fret, he turns the disappointment into the letter's whole lesson — that we should be content with nothing but God's good pleasure, and make it our one "office" to love God and obey. Both of them must "lose their inclinations, however good and innocent, once again in God's good pleasure, who alone is enough," and learn to say, with Christ in the Gospel, "Yea, Father! for so it was well-pleasing before Thee" — instead of the reflexive "No!" that, he says with a homely touch, "no father gladly hears from his child."
The center of the letter is a striking picture of vocation. "A king must rule his land, a burgomaster the city, a housefather his house — and God over them all." Each has an office; ours, however, "is only to love God and be obedient." Everything else in life, then, is not an interruption of that office but its raw material: it "cannot hinder us therein, but rather gives us continual occasion for it," so long as we "remain within the bounds of our office, and do not take upon ourselves what is not commanded us." He breaks, for a moment, into direct prayer — "Ah Lord! how good it is that Thou givest to each one an office for which he is fit" — glad that we are not the ones who have to govern the world. Then the letter softens into its real warmth. "Do not picture the dear Savior to yourself as ever so far off, but as a faithful Heart-Friend, who has ever to do with you." Don't forget Him "too much and too long," or "we go to work without Him, and then nothing avails"; instead, "out of His heart draw all the friendliness, patience, meekness, life, and power that are needful to you." It ends on the note the whole letter has been tending toward: "Let Him be our heart's Object and treasure, eternally!"
A few words and echoes.
- God's good pleasure. The letter's keynote — Wohlgefallen, God's gracious will and delight. To be "content only with God's good pleasure" is to want what He wants, and to lose even our best wishes in His.
- "Yea, Father!" Christ's own words in the Gospel (Matthew 11:26 / Luke 10:21) — the great "Yes" to the Father's will, set against the thoughtless "No" we so often say.
- Our one office. The central idea — that amid all the roles people hold (king, burgomaster, householder), the Christian's one true "office" (Amt) is simply "to love God and be obedient." Everything else becomes occasion for it, not obstacle to it (an echo of Romans 12, on the diversity of callings).
- "And God over them all." The quiet climax of the vocation image — every earthly authority is real, but God governs them all; we are relieved of having to run the world.
- A faithful Heart-Friend. The tender turn at the close — the Savior not as a distant figure but as an ever-present friend "who has ever to do with you," from whose heart one draws patience, meekness, life, and power.
- "Our heart's Object and treasure." The closing wish — Vorwurf here in its older sense of the object the heart is fixed upon (not "reproach"); Christ as the one thing worth gazing at and keeping, "eternally."
trans. Jarred Fenlason · gerhardtersteegen.com/letters/bdi-thi-126 · all rights reservedEnglish translation © Jarred Fenlason · All rights reserved · gerhardtersteegen.com.