Source: https://www.bertha-dudde.org/en/proclamation/3132

3132 Condition to the truth - path to God....

May 25, 1944: Book 41

Only a few people take the straight path to reach the truth, the direct path to God, Who offers it to them unreservedly. People do not become small and humble in the sense of the word and bow before Him in the realization of their own inadequacy and weakness. They overestimate their intellect and their own strength. And so they believe that they can acquire the truth through research and pondering. But they forget that spiritual truths are only handed out by God Himself, that no human being can take them for himself but that they have to be given to him, and that the giver of truth considers those who come to Him like begging children and ask Him for His gift of grace in a feeling of spiritual poverty. Man should wrestle and pray.... wrestle against the enemy of his soul, who wants to make him incapable of recognizing God by feeding him error, by taking possession of his thinking, thus this wrestling requires a strengthened will.... and pray for strength, grace and truth. The gift of grace, which God conveys to earth, fully enlightens the human being so that he need only follow the path (prescribed to him) in order to be introduced to the truth. And even if people try to reach it in various ways, they have to take this one path.... the path to God, otherwise they will never be able to penetrate the profound knowledge, even if knowledge is intellectually made accessible to them through fellow human beings. It will only gain life when its spirit is enlightened by God and this requires humble prayer. Therefore, faith in a being must first be present Who, as the giver of truth, connects Himself with the human being if he strives for a connection with Him. Faith in this being is a prerequisite in order to be able to be introduced to the truth. However, if this faith is not present then the intellect will only be active in a negative way, i.e. it will draw conclusions which deviate from the truth, because then it will be a welcome object for the forces of darkness, which will then take it upon themselves to confuse its thoughts. God can only express Himself where He is acknowledged.... but acknowledgment is faith.... And this initial faith in a perfect being will soon experience an all-encompassing expansion, for as soon as this perfect being is asked to enlighten the spirit, to convey the pure truth, it will also become possible for the human being to believe everything that is mentally presented to him, for this is the characteristic of truth, that its conveyance is accompanied by the strength of recognition, that the human being therefore recognizes the truth as such and that this is convinced faith. If a person tries to attain knowledge intellectually he is indeed just as convinced of the truth of his intellectual results as every representative of a school of thought proves, yet the person who seriously struggles for truth must also seriously ask himself whether prayer to God in all humility of heart for the pure truth and the right knowledge has formed the basis of his knowledge.... For God is the giver of truth, and God also distributes it to the one who consciously turns his will to Him and expresses this through heartfelt prayer. This is a condition from which God does not deviate and which is therefore the touchstone where various results claim the right to be recognized as pure truth....

amen

Translated by Doris Boekers