Greco-Christian stream·The Imitation of Christ·Book III — On Inward Consolation·Chapter XXIX. How When Tribulation Cometh We Must Call Upon And Bless God
XXIX. When tribulation cometh, call upon and bless God
The double response to tribulation: calling upon God for help and blessing Him for the trial. Not because the trial is good in itself but because by it the soul is brought closer to God than prosperity would have done.
Source context
- Theme
- invocation and blessing of God as the soul's primary response to tribulation
- Soul-faculty
- Consciousness Soul
Steiner
not engaged in the GA corpus
Cross-tradition
- Psalmic tradition (Hebrew Bible)The Psalms of lament (e.g. Ps. 22, 88) establish the same structural movement: tribulation becomes the occasion for direct address to God, with praise-amid-suffering as the prescribed response.
- Stoic philosophy (Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius)Stoic practice of voluntarily accepting adversity as providentially ordered shows cross-tradition congruence with the chapter's instruction to bless rather than resist tribulation, though the Stoic frame is impersonal fate rather than personal divine address.
- Sufi devotional practice (tawakkul)The Sufi principle of tawakkul — complete reliance on and surrender to God in hardship — parallels the chapter's insistence that affliction must turn the soul toward God rather than toward self-pity or resistance.
Chapter XXIX. How When Tribulation Cometh We Must Call Upon And Bless God
HOW WHEN TRIBULATION COMETH WE MUST CALL UPON AND BLESS GOD
Blessed be thy name, O Lord, for evermore, who hast willed this temptation and trouble to come upon me. I cannot escape it, but have need to flee unto Thee, that Thou mayest succour me and turn it unto me for good. Lord, now am I in tribulation, and it is not well within my heart, but I am sore vexed by the suffering which lieth upon me. And now, O dear Father, what shall I say? I am taken among the snares. Save me from this hour, but for this cause came I unto this hour,(1) that Thou mightest be glorified when I am deeply humbled and am delivered through Thee. Let it be Thy pleasure to deliver me;(2) for what can I do who am poor, and without Thee whither shall I go? Give patience this time also. Help me, O Lord my God, and I will not fear how much soever I be weighed down.
2And now amid these things what shall I say? Lord, Thy will be done. I have well deserved to be troubled and weighed down. Therefore I ought to bear, would that it be with patience, until the tempest be overpast and comfort return. Yet is Thine omnipotent arm able also to take this temptation away from me, and to lessen its power that I fall not utterly under it, even as many a time past thou has helped me, O God, my merciful God. And as much as this deliverance is difficult to me, so much is it easy to Thee, O right hand of the most Highest.
(1) John xii. 27. (2) Psalm xl. 16.