Source: https://www.bertha-dudde.org/en/proclamation/6720

6720 Distress as a means of rescue....

December 23, 1956: Book 72

You humans still have to go through great hardship, you are still completely devoted to the world and have not yet found the path to Me. I try to save everyone, I throw the lifeline to everyone, yet whether you take it is up to you, for I cannot force you to do so. But spiritual adversity dictates that earthly adversity should come upon you.... For you don't know what it means when you experience the end in this adversity.... You only see the world, and you reach for its goods and don't realize that your feet touch the edge of the abyss.... And if I want to pull you back from it, then a distress must come over you which causes you to look around.... And when you then step back, when you see the abyss and flee it, then the adversity was a blessing for you. After all, in a short time you humans will lose everything you own in earthly possessions because you are facing a great turning point, a spiritual turning point which includes the passing away of earthly creations. But in this short time you could acquire a great treasure of spiritual possessions which are everlasting. And I want to help you humans achieve this through hardship and suffering which cause the desire for earthly goods to die in you.... I Myself want to enter your circle of thoughts through these hardships, I want you to remember Me again, you who have forgotten Me.... I want you, in great earthly adversity, to turn to the one in Whom you did not want to believe.... that I, your God and creator, will be recognized by you as the last resort after all if you no longer know any other way out. And I would truly make it easy for you to believe in Me through unusual help which you can no longer describe as coincidence.... But I can only ever use such means of help on you which do not force you. Adversity is indispensable and will approach you humans in the most diverse ways but only have the one purpose to let you find Me. For whether I address you, whether I send messengers to you who bring you My word, whether the gospel is proclaimed in the world and you are informed of the end.... none of this brings about a great change in the thinking of those people who are slaves to the world, who are so under its spell that only its goods seem desirable to them. And they must turn away from the world through tangible earthly hardship if they still want to find salvation from ruin. These words are incomprehensible to all worldly people, for they don't know that their souls are in distress, that they are in a terrible state due to the fact that the lord of this world still has them under his control and that they cannot become free as long as the human being clings to the world, as long as he is still unable to detach himself from it. For this reason they do not see adversity as a means of salvation for their souls, but they can become disgusted with the world and its goods if they can no longer enjoy them due to physical infirmities or illnesses or other hardships, and then their thoughts can still move in another direction. But as long as the world still tempts them with its pleasures and delights they will not resist these temptations and the last time until the end will pass unused for eternity. But great adversity can still touch hearts, great adversity can still open the eyes of individual people and make them recognize the staleness of the world and its goods. And blessed is he whose heart lets itself be addressed by adversity.... Blessed is he who can now himself do without for the benefit of his fellow human beings in need.... For he turns back on the path he had taken, and the danger of falling is averted.... and he will bless the hardship that saved him from death....

Amen

Translated by Doris Boekers