Letters · Erster Band · Theil I (1773)

God alone is enough and our resting-point, and how one is to look to Him in all things.

Bd I · Th I · Brief 140 · Der hundertundvierzigste Brief

Addressee — An Catharina Krabbe (III) (gest. 1760) of Mülheim — a new correspondent, who attached herself closely to Tersteegen in her youth; he prized her "tendresse" and spiritual experience. Her first letter in this run. Addressed "In JEsu hertzlich geliebte Schwester!" and, within, "meine liebe Tochter" / "mein liebes Kind," with the intimate du ("dich im Geist zu grüssen," "richte deine Meynung," "was du thust," "Nimm alles an," "Merckst du," "mein liebes Kind"; subscription "Dein verbundener Mitbruder").
Date — Undated in the print; ~December 1733, from Mülheim (implied). The 1773 gives no dateline (the subscription runs straight to the tail-piece).
Provenance — Translated from the public-domain 1773 first edition (Theil I, pp. 391–394), in normalized GS 1845 orthography, collated against the 1845 Gesammelte Schriften, Hartman's 1819 reprint. All public-domain.

The Hundred and Fortieth Letter.

God alone is enough and our resting-point, and how one is to look to Him in all things.

In JEsus, dearly beloved sister!

Sitting in inward stillness as before the face of God, I find myself moved to greet you in the spirit, and to ask and to wish for you, from our good God, inward stillness and contentment. Yes, my dear daughter, God is so inwardly enough for us; when He is in us, and when we hold ourselves in Him: O! then we have it all, whatever we could ever desire; and if we then desired any single thing beside Him, that very thing would make us discontented and distressed. He is our resting-point; when we come into Him, then we have nothing more to seek, to strive for, or to disquiet ourselves about; there the spirit becomes aware that it has arrived where it wished — it has found the place where it can rest. There we not only need not turn aside to seek comfort in any created thing, because we have enough in the One; but we have also, for the present, no need to look at our good or our evil, which would be but a distraction; in the one Good we have all good, and to remain in this Good annihilates all evil. Let us then leave all — and ourselves too — behind, and give it over to the Lord. Only look upon God; direct your intention in all things purely to Him, both in what you do and in what you suffer; see, love, and embrace God in everything, and rejoice in Him and in His will, without regarding your own will and your own pleasure. Take everything as the will of God, suffer everything as the will of God, and do everything as the will of God; then you will never sin; but you will find something precious in the least thing, something sweet in the bitterest, and something helpful in what might seem to you to be a hindrance. May the sweet Child Jesus bless you, and press you to His heart; yea, lead you right into His heart; that you may become, as an inward child of the heart and of eternity, one with Him! and in Him my soul too blesses you, and remains united with you eternally in this point and ground of inwardness in JEsus. JEsus has left the bosom of His Father, and comes to lead us poor children back again into this bosom of love: do you not mark it with me, how this sweet little Child so graciously beckons us, and calls us in to Himself? Yes, you mark it: so then let yourself go, give room to His drawing and working, without anxiety over deception; the Spirit Himself will bear witness that the Spirit is truth; whatever would disquiet you or lure you out, do not lightly trust it, nor those demands that come upon you with so much anxiety: We have not received the spirit of fear, but the spirit of pure love and inward freedom. This Spirit lifts up and inclines the heart to the reverence, adoration, and love of the blessed God; and to a withdrawn walk in the spirit, and hidden fellowship with this God so near. There one forgets creature and self-hood; nothing impure, false, hard, or self-loving can remain beside this pure, most innocent, gentle Being of love; His divine Nearness and inflowing makes us like Him, and gives us divine properties. In a word: one thing only is needful, and in this One all is fulfilled that the law and the whole Scripture require: namely, separation, or withdrawnness from all, and loving union with God in the ground of the heart. Follow, then, with me this track — gently, innocently, and will-lessly — and the Lord Himself will cover you beside Himself, keep you, and lead you into all His will! Amen, Jesus. Now, my dear child, I greet you once more tenderly; and as I greet you, I wish and say to you more than I can express: O JEsus, Thou seest it! fulfil it! and hold us, that we may rejoice in Thee, here and eternally!

Your bound fellow-brother.

❦

German

Der hundertundvierzigste Brief.

GOtt allein ist genug und unser Ruhepunkt, und wie man in allem auf Ihn sehen müsse.

In JEsu herzlich geliebte Schwester!

Sitzende in inniger Stille als vor GOttes Angesicht, finde ich mich bewogen dich im Geist zu grüßen, und von unserm guten GOtt innige Stille und Vergnügen zu erbitten und zuzuwünschen.

— 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 letter of spiritual direction, written about December 1733 to Catharina Krabbe of Mülheim — a young woman newly close to Tersteegen, whom he addresses tenderly as "my dear daughter" and "my dear child." It is the first of his letters to her, and its subject is announced in the title and never left: God alone is enough. The whole letter is an unfolding of one conviction — that the soul which has God has everything, and needs to seek nothing else.

Its argument. Tersteegen begins from rest. "God is so inwardly enough for us; when He is in us… then we have it all, whatever we could ever desire." To want anything beside God is precisely what makes the soul restless: "if we then desired any single thing beside Him, that very thing would make us discontented." So God is "our resting-point" — the place where striving stops: "when we come into Him, then we have nothing more to seek… it has found the place where it can rest." From this rest flows a simple rule for daily life — to refer everything back to God's will: "Take everything as the will of God, suffer everything as the will of God, and do everything as the will of God; then you will never sin," finding "something precious in the least thing, something sweet in the bitterest, and something helpful" even in what looks like a hindrance.

Then the letter turns, as so many of Tersteegen's December letters do, to the Christ-child. "May the sweet Child Jesus bless you, and press you to His heart… Jesus has left the bosom of His Father, and comes to lead us poor children back again into this bosom of love." The gospel is that God has come near — has become a child to draw us in — and the right response is not fearful striving but trustful surrender: "let yourself go, give room to His drawing and working, without anxiety." "We have not received the spirit of fear, but the spirit of pure love and inward freedom." At the last Tersteegen gathers the whole life with God into a single sentence — "one thing only is needful… loving union with God in the ground of the heart" — and ends by turning from Catharina to Christ, in a prayer he lets her overhear: "O Jesus, Thou seest it! fulfil it! and hold us, that we may rejoice in Thee, here and eternally!"

A few words and echoes.

"God alone is enough." The letter's watchword, and a phrase famously dear to the mystics (Teresa of Ávila's "solo Dios basta"). The soul's whole restlessness is cured by finding all it needs in God — cf. Psalm 73:25, "there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee."
"Our resting-point." God as the place where all seeking and striving comes to rest — an echo of "Come unto me… and I will give you rest" (Matthew 11:28) and "Return unto thy rest, O my soul" (Psalm 116:7).
"Take everything as the will of God." The heart of Tersteegen's practical counsel: to receive doing, suffering, and every circumstance as God's will, so that nothing is wasted and nothing separates from Him (Romans 12:2; 1 Thessalonians 5:18).
"Jesus has left the bosom of His Father." The incarnation as a coming-down in love: the Son "which is in the bosom of the Father" (John 1:18) comes forth (John 16:28) to carry us back into that same bosom.
"The spirit of fear… the spirit of pure love." A close echo of 2 Timothy 1:7 — "God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind." Tersteegen reads the Christian's freedom as release from anxious striving into love.
"The Spirit is truth." From 1 John 5:6, joined to Romans 8:16 ("The Spirit itself beareth witness") — the inner witness of the Spirit is what steadies the soul against every anxious "demand."
"One thing only is needful." Luke 10:42 — the "one thing" Mary chose. For Tersteegen it is "loving union with God in the ground of the heart," in which "all is fulfilled that the law and the whole Scripture require."

Cite this letter

Gerhard Tersteegen, Geistliche und erbauliche Briefe, Erster Band, I. Theil, Brief 140 (Solingen, 1773–75); trans. Jarred Fenlason, https://gerhardtersteegen.com/letters/bdi-thi-140.html.

← Bd I · Th I · Brief 139 Bd I · Th I · Brief 141 →