On the day after I had healed the royal man’s son in Capernaum from Cana, Matthew finished his few verses and showed Me his work. I praised it, for in all its brevity it was quite good and conveyed everything. But after packing his writing materials, he comes to Me again and asks how much writing material he will need in Capernaum. For the time being he has kept only four tablets outside the bundle for use there; if he should keep more tablets ready, he could take them out of the main bundle more easily here than in Capernaum.
I say, ‘The four are enough. But I must nevertheless draw your attention to a small error in the ordering of your own affairs. At bottom it does not matter, but since everything with Me must be done in a sure order, it is unwise of you to tie up your bundle of writing materials first and only afterward ask Me how many tablets you will need. If I had now said, “You will need five tablets in Capernaum,” you would have had to undo your whole bundle for that one tablet, which would plainly have caused you quite unnecessary trouble. But compelled by My secret inflowing, you kept precisely the right number ready and so spared yourself the trouble of undoing your bundle again. As I already told you, it does not matter at bottom; but the benefit of proper order in all things, however trivial they may often appear, is not infrequently very useful.
You see, if someone washes in the morning, at midday or in the evening, washing his face first and his hands only at the end, his face will not become clean so quickly, because he rubs it with dirty hands. But if he cleans his hands first, his face too will soon and easily become clean when rubbed with clean hands.
A man had a stony field and cleared the stones from it with much effort and diligence. But in doing so he observed the following good order: first he collected the largest stones in the field and laid them outside it in a regular, right-angled pile. Then he collected the less large ones and laid them in a second, likewise right-angled pile. He did the same with the remaining, naturally ever smaller kinds of stones, and thus made ten piles, each containing stones of exactly the same size.
Now the neighbors who saw this, and who did not clear their fields of stones in this way but simply threw large and small stones together in very clumsy heaps, said, ‘Look at the fool, what a game he is playing with the stones!’
But soon a master builder seeking stones for a building traveled along the same road that passed this field. When he saw the ten orderly piles, he went over and, for forty silver groschen, bought them all from the man his neighbors had declared a fool, for arranged in this way they were immediately very useful to him. When the neighbors noticed this, they also came over and said, ‘Sir, why did you not come to us? Look, we have the same stones and will give them to you for a few groschen, while you have bought the same stones here for forty silver groschen!’ But the master builder said, ‘I would first have to sort your stones, which would cost me much work, time and trouble. These are already arranged just as I need them now, so I would rather overpay for them than take yours for nothing!’ Of course the neighbors now began to put their own heaps of stones in order, but it was too late: the master builder had enough of those he had bought from the first man, and the neighbors had given themselves nothing but wasted trouble.
So always be in the best order in everything. When someone comes who brings profit, he will certainly reach first for the place where he finds the best order. Later effort is often and many a time in vain. Do you grasp this image?’
Matthew says, ‘Lord, how could I not understand it? It is as bright and clear as the sun at midday!
But now there is only one more thing I would like to learn from You: how was it possible for You to know that I would need just four tablets in Capernaum? For divine omniscience remains a greatest riddle to me. Sometimes You know everything without asking anyone, and arrange Your journeys accordingly; at another time You ask again like one of us and act as though You did not know what has happened or will happen here or there. How does that come about? Lord, I beg You, give me some little light on it!’
I say, ‘Friend, I would gladly reveal this matter to you, but you would not grasp it, so let us leave it for now. Yet a time will soon come when you will easily grasp such mysteries and understand them clearly.
But for now I can tell you this much: because of human freedom of will, God can indeed know everything He wishes to know. But what He does not wish to know, so that a person may act freely, He then does not know either. Do you understand that?’
Matthew says, ‘Lord, if that is so, human life on this earth is a most dangerous matter! What even moderately educated person does not know the countless enemies that confront poor humanity with every possible evil and thereby prepare its downfall? If You simply allow this to happen without taking notice, things will one day look desperately bad for the salvation of souls!’
I say, ‘Not as bad as you now think. For first, everyone will live according to his faith and chiefly according to his love; and second, every person is free at any moment to turn to God and implore His help, and God will turn His face toward the supplicant and help him out of every distress.
Besides, every person is already given an invisible guardian spirit who is to accompany him from birth to the grave. Such a guardian spirit constantly acts upon a person’s conscience, and only begins to keep farther and farther away from the person entrusted to him when that person, led by self-love, had voluntarily abandoned all faith and all love for his neighbor.
A person on this earth is therefore by no means as forsaken as you think. For everything depends on his freest willing and acting, whether he wants to be watched over and guided by God or not. If the person wants it, God will want it too. But if the person does not want it, he is completely free as far as God is concerned, and God no longer concerns Himself with him, apart from what the most universal order appoints for the natural person: natural life and everything necessary as a condition for it. Beyond that God does not engage with the person, nor may He do so because of that person’s inviolable freedom. Only if a person seeks God from the free will of his heart and asks Him will God always come to meet that person’s asking and seeking by the shortest path, provided that the person is completely earnest in seeking and asking.
But if a person seeks and asks merely as an experiment, to convince himself whether there is anything to God and His promises, God will neither regard nor hear him. For God in Himself is the purest love and turns His face only toward those who likewise come to Him in the pure love of their hearts, seek God for His own sake, wish with the deepest gratitude to know Him as their Creator, and have the ardent desire to be protected and guided by Him Himself.
Ah, for those who come in this way, God knows only too well at every moment how things stand with them, and He Himself teaches and guides them on every path. But for those who want to know nothing of Him, God then, in the fullest earnest, knows nothing either.
And when one day they are brought before God in the beyond, however much they cry out and say, “Lord, Lord!” God will answer them, “Depart from Me, you strangers, for I have never known you!” Such souls will then have much to endure and to combat before they can draw near to Him as ones known by God. Do you understand this now?’
Matthew says, ‘Yes, Lord, now I understand all this quite well, purely and clearly. But should I not record this magnificent teaching at once, which surely should and must greatly spur people to seek God unceasingly and ask Him to lead and guide them on the right paths?’
I say, ‘No, My dear friend and brother. For no one would yet grasp such teaching in its proper and living fullness. So you need not record it at all, unless later you wish to do so only for yourself and a few brothers.
But now, if you are ready to continue the journey to Capernaum, let us set out. Whoever wants to come, let him follow us; whoever wants to stay, let him stay. I must go there, for there is much misery there and in the little towns around the lake, which is a sea of Galilee.’