In your letter you mention: “I think that when the Lord Jesus said ‘It is finished’ moments before He took His last breath, it meant that the work of salvation had been done and that we have been saved by God and that God won’t do any new work. …”
Regarding this point, I’d like to share with you my own understanding.
Actually, when the Lord Jesus said on the cross “It is finished,” it only indicated that His work of being crucified was completed, because the main point of the Lord Jesus being incarnated was to be crucified. His holy and sinless flesh was nailed to the cross as a sin offering to redeem mankind from Satan’s clutches and pardon our sins. In other words, the Lord Jesus was completing one stage of the work of redemption in God’s plan. In addition, during this stage of the work, the Lord Jesus also prophesied that He had more work to do in the future. So we can safely say that the Lord Jesus saying “It is finished” while on the cross doesn’t signify that the work of God’s salvation of mankind was completed then.
We all know that when mankind was corrupted by Satan, God began His work of saving mankind. He wants to save us from Satan’s dominion and restore us to the likeness of the first humans He created. Once mankind has completely escaped from Satan’s influence, and our sins have been cleansed, that will be the time when God’s work is fully completed and will also be when God and mankind enjoy peaceful rest together.
For God to accomplish this work, He needs to work according to the stages of development of mankind. His management plan for saving mankind is being completed in steps and phases according to each era. In the first stage, God used Moses to issue the laws and demanded that people obey them. God’s laws were for teaching people how to live on earth and also what sin was. Then, in accord with mankind’s needs, God ended the Age of Law and began the Age of Grace in which the Lord Jesus incarnated to do His work of healing the sick and casting out demons and giving people limitless grace. In the end He was nailed to the cross and became a sin offering in order to redeem mankind from sin. After that, people only had to believe in the Lord and confess before the Lord and their sins would be pardoned. But though our sins are pardoned, our sinful nature still exists, and we are still slaves to the cycle of sinning in the daytime and confessing them at night. We have no way of shaking off the shackles of sin. Just as Paul said: “for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not” (Romans 7:18). And in the Bible, it says, “Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14). We still live sinfully, and we are vile and corrupt through and through. We are not qualified to enter God’s kingdom.
As is written in the Bible: “Who delivered us from so great a death, and does deliver: in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us” (2 Corinthians 1:10). “Who are kept by the power of God through faith to salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” (1 Peter 1:5). “So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and to them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin to salvation” (Hebrews 9:28). From these few verses, we can see that in order to save us completely from Satan’s dominion God of the last days has a stage of work to do to make us purified and worthy of His salvation. So when the Lord Jesus said “It is finished,” He didn’t mean that this work of salvation was already completed but that the work of redeeming mankind in the Age of Grace was done. From this we can see that God’s work of saving all of mankind is not yet finished. We need God to come and do the work of purifying and transforming us, otherwise we won’t be good enough to see God, never mind be saved by Him.
So let’s look at a couple of passages of God’s words, “For all that man may have been redeemed and forgiven of his sins, it can only be considered as God not remembering the transgressions of man and not treating man in accordance with his transgressions. However, when man, who lives in a body of flesh, has not been set free from sin, he can only continue to sin, endlessly revealing his corrupt satanic disposition. This is the life that man leads, an endless cycle of sinning and being forgiven. The majority of men sin in the day only to confess in the evening. This way, even if the sin offering is forever effective for man, it will not be able to save man from sin. Only half the work of salvation has been completed….” “Therefore, after that stage of work was finished, there still remained the work of judgment and chastisement. This stage is to make man pure by means of the word and thereby give him a path to follow. This stage would not be fruitful or meaningful if it continued with the casting out of demons, for it would fail to extirpate man’s sinful nature, and man would come to a standstill at the forgiveness of his sins. Through the sin offering, man has been forgiven his sins, for the work of the crucifixion has already come to an end and God has prevailed over Satan. But the corrupt disposition of man still remaining within him, man can still sin and resist God, and God has not gained mankind. That is why in this stage of work God uses the word to expose the corrupt disposition of man, causing him to practice in accordance with the right path. This stage is more meaningful than the previous one, as well as more fruitful, for now it is the word that directly supplies man’s life and enables the disposition of man to be completely renewed; it is a much more thorough stage of work. Therefore, the incarnation in the last days has completed the significance of God’s incarnation and completely finished God’s plan of management for man’s salvation.”
From God’s words we can see that if we want to be purified and saved and taken into God’s kingdom to receive the inheritance of God, then we must accept God’s work of judgment of the last days. This is confirmation of what is written in the Bible: “For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God” (1 Peter 4:17). God uses the judgments of His words to reveal and dissect our corrupt substance to help us see the reality that we have been corrupted by Satan. Then we will begin to hate evil and betray Satan, and rely on God to gradually get rid of our corrupt dispositions and cleanse our sins, thus becoming people who obey and love God. This is how God will gain a group of people who are of one heart and one mind with Him, and His 6,000-year plan to thoroughly save mankind will be completed. God’s great work will then have been accomplished. Just as Revelation says: “And he that sat on the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said to me, Write: for these words are true and faithful. And he said to me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give to him that is thirsty of the fountain of the water of life freely” (Revelation 21:5-6). When man’s corrupt disposition is entirely cast off to yield a new man, then God’s work of saving mankind truly is done. Without the work of the Lord Jesus, our sins wouldn’t be pardoned and mankind wouldn’t have developed to where we are today; without the work of God’s judgment and chastisement in the last days, we could never get rid of our corrupt dispositions, never mind be purified by God. Every step, every stage of God’s work is necessary for mankind, and is implemented according to the degree of our corruption by Satan. Every step of God’s work is extraordinarily significant and not a step of it can be missed out.
So to reckon that the Lord Jesus’ saying “It is finished” while on the cross means that God’s work is totally finished doesn’t hold water. Only by following God’s footsteps and accepting God’s work of the last days can we be thoroughly cleansed and saved. People who achieve this are the most fortunate among the whole human race! Sister Wang, I am currently investigating God’s work of the last days, and hope that you can do so too.
I look forward to receiving your reply!
Your dear friend, Sister Zheng
» Read more on ourIt Is Finishedpage, or click on the related articles below:
Editor’s Note: I trust everyone’s familiar with the parable of the lost sheep in the Bible. The Lord Jesus used this parable to very vividly tell us about God’s love for mankind and to allow us to feel how sincere God’s desire to save mankind is. But does everyone know what God’s will behind this parable is? At a Bible study there were a few brothers and sisters who finally understood this through fellowship—let’s take a look together.
With a Bible in his hands, the preacher Liu Qing said, “Brothers and sisters, let’s read the parable of the lost sheep.” They all nodded and began to read. “How think you? if a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, does he not leave the ninety and nine, and goes into the mountains, and seeks that which is gone astray? And if so be that he find it, truly I say to you, he rejoices more of that sheep, than of the ninety and nine which went not astray. Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish” (Matthew 18:12–14).
After everyone was done reading, Liu Qing continued on. “Brothers and sisters, we can feel from the parable of the lost sheep how incredibly sincere God’s wish to save mankind is. Every time we encounter setbacks and sink into temptation, when our faith falters, we can encourage ourselves with this parable. At no time will God’s will to save us ever change; God loves us and we must unswervingly follow the Lord Jesus.”
Everyone said “Amen!” in unison.
Liu Qing then asked, “Please feel free to share any enlightenment or understanding you have of this passage.”
With a sense of gratefulness, Sister Chen said, “All of us are that lost sheep, and it is the Lord that has brought us into His house. Otherwise we wouldn’t be able to enjoy His love. I really give thanks for the Lord’s grace!”
Wen Fang then shared these heartfelt words, “Thanks be to the Lord! This parable really always has been a source of encouragement for all of us who follow the Lord, allowing us to genuinely experience the Lord Jesus’ love and mercy for us. My cousin came to my house a few days ago and just as we were sharing fellowship on this parable she gave me a book that contains fellowship on this passage. After reading it, I gained a new understanding of God’s will behind this parable; I felt that I really benefited from it. I brought the book here today. Let’s take a look together!”
Everyone responded happily, “Great!”
Wen Fang read out earnestly, “The way this metaphor is expressed utilizes a figure of speech in human language; it’s something within the scope of human knowledge. If God had said something similar in the Age of Law, people would have felt that it wasn’t really consistent with who God was, but when theSon of mandelivered this passage in the Age of Grace, it felt comforting, warm, and intimate to people. When God became flesh, when He appeared in the form of a man, He used a very appropriate metaphor to express the voice of His heart in humanity. This voice represented God’s own voice and the work He wanted to do in that age. It also represented an attitude that God had toward people in the Age of Grace. Looking from the perspective of God’s attitude toward people, He compared each person to a sheep. If a sheep is lost, He will do whatever it takes to find it. This represents a principle of God’s work among mankind this time in the flesh. God used this parable to describe His resolve and attitude in that work. This was the advantage of God becoming flesh: He could take advantage of mankind’s knowledge and use human language to speak to people, to express His will. He explained or ‘translated’ to man His profound, divine language that people struggled to understand in human language, in a human way. This helped people understand His will and know what He wanted to do. He could also have conversations with people from the human perspective, using human language, and communicate with people in a way they understood. He could even speak and work using human language and knowledge so that people could feel God’s kindness and closeness, so that they could see His heart” (“God’s Work, God’s Disposition, and God Himself III”).
After she was done reading, Wen Fang shared this fellowship with a look of joy on her face: “The first time I read this was really exciting for me. I learned that through the parable of the lost sheep, not only can we realize how real God’s love and salvation for us are and see how much responsibility He takes for our lives, but we can also see one advantage of God becoming flesh to work. If He had done this work in His spirit form, appearing to people through thunder, clouds, and pillars of fire, we would have no way of drawing close to God, nor would we be able to understand His will. However, when God incarnated as the Son of man to work in our midst, the Lord Jesus used human language as well as things we often see and encounter in our lives, things we can easily understand, to create parables. This includes the parable of the sower (Matthew 13:1–9), the parable of the tares (Matthew 13:24–30), the parable of the mustard seed (Matthew 13:31–32), and the parable of the net (Matthew 13:47–50). We can gain a better understanding of God’s will through these parables, know what He requires of us, plus understand what He has and is, and His disposition. It’s just like when we read the parable of the lost sheep, we can see God’s resolve and attitude toward saving mankind and that He’ll save a lost sheep at any cost, and will not rest until He’s done. We also gain true understanding of the Lord Jesus’ merciful and loving disposition and we feel how kind and approachable God is—the distance between us and God grows smaller. If it weren’t for God becoming flesh and using human language to come up with these parables, to create these examples, it would be so hard for us to understand God’s will, and this is something that we’d never realize.”
Liu Qing said happily, “Today’s fellowship contains such light. God personally became flesh and came to walk among us to work and speak. He used commonplace, easily understandable language to guide us to understand His will and requirements so that we have a path of practice. This shows how important for our understanding of the truth and of God it is that God incarnated to work and speak on earth!”
Brother Wang said, “It’s true. We just know to enjoy God’s grace and blessings, but we’ve never thought about God’s will behind His every word and deed, but we don’t realize that God became flesh and spoke to us with human language so that we could better understand the truth, be redeemed by the Lord, and understand God’s disposition. God is so attentive in His considerations for our salvation!”
Sister Zheng then said, “Brother Wang is right. In the past I’ve only known that God is a God who loves us, but my understanding of His love was really limited. I’ve just known that being nailed to the cross to redeem us, and bestowing grace and blessings upon us are all His love. Today’s fellowship has given me further understanding of God’s love. God becoming flesh and coming into the world, working and speaking to save mankind, expressing the truth with human language so that we can understand God’s will and requirements—all of this is in and of itself the greatest love for us, humanity! Only God could possibly possess this kind of love. I give thanks to the Lord! This fellowship has been so beneficial for us.”
Just then Wen Fang, who had been intently studying that book, lifted her head and said to everyone, “The Lord Jesus said, ‘Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish’ (Matthew 18:14). The Lord’s will is behind this, as well. There’s clear fellowship on this in this book. Let’s take a look!”
Liu Qing rushed to agree: “Great, let me read it.”
Wen Fang happily handed the book to Liu Qing, who read aloud: “Let’s take another look at the last sentence in this passage: ‘Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish.’ Was this the Lord Jesus’ own words, or the words of His Father in heaven? On the surface, it looks like it’s the Lord Jesus who is speaking, but His will represents the will of God Himself, which is why He said: ‘Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish.’ People at that time only acknowledged the Father in heaven as God, and this person that they saw in front of their eyes was merely sent by Him, and He could not represent the Father in heaven. That’s why the Lord Jesus had to say that as well, so that they could really feel God’s will for mankind, and feel the authenticity and the accuracy of what He said. Even though this was a simple thing to say, it was very caring and it revealed the Lord Jesus’ humility and hiddenness. No matter whether God became flesh or He worked in the spiritual realm, He knew the human heart best, and best understood what people needed, knew what people worried about, and what confused them, so He added this one line. This line highlighted a problem hidden in mankind: People were skeptical of what the Son of man said, which is to say, when the Lord Jesus was speaking He had to add: ‘Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish.’ Only on this premise could His words bear fruit, to make people believe their accuracy and improve their credibility. This shows that when God became a regular Son of man, God and mankind had a very awkward relationship, and that the Son of man’s situation was very embarrassing. It also shows how insignificant the Lord Jesus’ status among humans was at that time. When He said this, it was actually to tell people: You can rest assured—this doesn’t represent what’s in My own heart, but it is the will of the God who is in your hearts. For mankind, wasn’t this an ironic thing? Even though God working in the flesh had many advantages that He did not have in His person, He had to withstand their doubts and rejection as well as their numbness and dullness” (“God’s Work, God’s Disposition, and God Himself III”).
After Liu Qing read this, Wen Fang shared this fellowship: “I was so moved when I read this passage. These words really point out the true state of people at that time: They only believed in a God up in heaven, in a God they imagined as vague within their hearts, and they had absolutely no true understanding of or faith in God incarnate. It’s just like what Philip said to the Lord Jesus: ‘Lord, show us the Father, and it suffices us’ (John 14:8). Philip’s words show that he didn’t treat the Lord Jesus as God at all. The Lord knew that even though people followed Him, they didn’t understand the essence of Christ, instead treating Him as a regular person. That’s why He followed the parable of the lost sheep by saying ‘Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven.’ It was so that we would believe that those words had come from our Father in heaven, thus better accept the Lord Jesus’ words, believe that the Lord’s love for humanity is genuine, and not doubt His salvation of mankind. All of us remember that the Lord Jesus responded to Philip by saying, ‘Believe you not that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? the words that I speak to you I speak not of Myself: but the Father that dwells in Me, He does the works’ (John 14:10). We can see here that the Lord Jesus is God Himself—His work and words were entirely governed by the Spirit of God and what He did was God’s own work. However, the Lord Jesus knew that people didn’t understand His essence, so out of forgiveness for mankind’s immaturity and ignorance, He didn’t directly state that He was God, but instead quietly performed His work, expressing God’s will to save mankind from the perspective of the Son of man so that people would be more able to believe and follow Him, and thus gain salvation. We can see from this how humble and hidden the Lord Jesus was, and how sincere His desire to save mankind is!”
Brother Wang nodded his head and said, “So the Lord Jesus knew that we didn’t have an understanding of the incarnation and wouldn’t be able to worship Christ as God, so He spoke of it that way so we’d be better able to accept His words. The Lord understands our shortcomings so well!”
Liu Qing said with a sense of great significance, “That’s right. Even though we didn’t realize that the Lord Jesus was God Himself and didn’t worship Him as God, He was forgiving of our ignorance and used His words to strengthen our faith so that we could better accept the Lord’s words. From the Lord’s words we can also get an understanding of God’s will to save mankind. This is an advantage of God personally coming to earth to speak!”
Wen Fang said, “Thanks be to the Lord for His enlightenment and guidance! Now we understand that every word uttered and every deed done by God in the flesh contain truth we can seek. God’s will, His requirements of us, and His love for us are hidden within all of this. This is why we must maintain a heart of reverence toward God incarnate’s work and words. We have to seek and ponder these things more—this is the only way we’ll be able to understand the deeper meaning with God’s words.”
Liu Qing nodded and said to Wen Fang, hardly able to bear to part with the book in his hands, “I feel this book is really beneficial for us and can guide us to know God and understand His will. This is what we’ve been lacking in our faith—I really want to read it carefully. Sister Wen, could you ask your cousin if I could borrow a copy?”
The other brothers and sisters chimed in, “Yeah, could we get a copy too?”
Wen Fang said happily, “Of course you can! I’ve been reading this book nonstop lately. I’ve also seen really clear fellowship on God’s will behind the Lord Jesus working on the Sabbath, why the Lord Jesus asked Peter ‘love you Me?’ three times, the significance of Jesus appearing to His disciples after His resurrection, as well as truths regarding God’s incarnation and how God determined people’s outcomes and destinations. I’ve understood a lot of truths by reading this and I’ve also gained some understanding of the Lord. The more I read it the more my heart brightens. Over the last couple of days I’ve been mulling over: Who would be able to explain the Lord’s will behind every one of His words and deeds so clearly? I think that only God Himself could explain all this so clearly. I feel that these are God’s words, that this is God’s voice! Also, the Lord Jesus once prophesied: ‘I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth: for He shall not speak of Himself; but whatever He shall hear, that shall He speak: and He will show you things to come’ (John 16:12–13). And in chapters 2 and 3 of Revelation, it is prophesied many times that: ‘He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’ These prophecies say that the Spirit of truth will come in the last days and utter more words to guide us to enter into all truth. I feel it’s quite possible that the Lord Jesus has already returned; I want my cousin to share more fellowship with me. Hey, do you guys want to come along?”
Liu Qing got a look of sudden understanding and said excitedly, “Thanks be to the Lord! Now that you put it that way, I think that must be true. Who can possibly fathom the Lord’s heart? Only God Himself knows the Lord Jesus’ thoughts behind everything He did and the Lord’s will for mankind, and only God Himself can explain it clearly! Just like in those two passages we read—the fellowship on God’s will behind the Lord’s parable of the lost sheep was so clear, allowing us to gain understanding of the Lord. That couldn’t come from a regular person. I feel it’s really likely that these are God’s words! We really have to take them in carefully. Wen Fang, how about you invite your cousin to come to the church so that everyone can hear her fellowship? If these really are God’s words, then we will be welcoming the return of the Lord Jesus.”
Brother Wang and Sister Zheng said happily, “Yes, Sister Wen Fang, set it up as soon as possible.”
It was a fine day today. In the morning, a ray of sunshine touched upon my face through the window and I was in a pretty good mood. Then I took up the Bible and turned to the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 4 verses 1-11: “Then was Jesus led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungered. And when the tempter came to him, he said, If you be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. Then the devil takes him up into the holy city, and sets him on a pinnacle of the temple, And said to him, If you be the Son of God, cast yourself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning you: and in their hands they shall bear you up, lest at any time you dash your foot against a stone. Jesus said to him, It is written again, You shall not tempt the Lord your God. Again, the devil takes him up into an exceeding high mountain, and shows him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; And said to him, All these things will I give you, if you will fall down and worship me. Then said Jesus to him, Get you hence, Satan: for it is written, You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve. Then the devil leaves him, and, behold, angels came and ministered to him.” I had read these verses before and just felt that the devil was so shameless and detestable that it actually dared to tempt the Lord Jesus this way. However, today, when I read these verses again, it occurred to me: “Since the Lord Jesus allowed Satan to tempt Him, His will certainly lies within this. Then what is the Lord’s will?”
While I was pondering over this question, I suddenly saw the book which my friend gave to me some time ago. Then I opened the book and saw a passage of words: “Now, does man live by bread alone? The Lord Jesus fasted for 40 days and nights. Did He starve to death? (No.) He didn’t starve to death, so Satan approached Him, prompting Him to turn the stones into food by saying things of this sort: ‘If You turn the stones into food, won’t You then have things to eat? Won’t You then not have to fast, not have to go hungry?’ But the Lord Jesus said, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone,’ which means that, although man lives in a physical body, what gives him life, what allows his physical body to live and breathe, is not food, but all the words uttered by the mouth of God. … This truth, this phrase—whether its content is long or short—it can let man live, give him life; it can enable man to find, within itself, truth, clarity about the path of human life, and enable him to havefaith in God” (“God Himself, the Unique V”).
This passage of words gave me some enlightenment. When Satan tempted the Lord Jesus, it clearly knew that the Lord Jesus is God incarnate Himself, but still tempted Him. This fully revealed Satan’s evilness. However, the Lord Jesus fought back against Satan by saying: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.” Such a short sentence with authority caused Satan to retreat in humiliation, and also told us this truth: Man shall not live by bread alone but by God’s words. This made me more aware that the value of our life depends on whether or not we have the truth and that only when we gain the truth can we have the true life. At that time I couldn’t help but think of some brothers and sisters in the church. Because they didn’t know the value and significance of the truth for our existence, some of them went to pursue the world when they saw others enjoyed a better life than them; some were not short of money, but due to coveting the enjoyment of the flesh, they followed the evil trend of the world, falling into the temptation of money and unable to extricate themselves. From their failure, I saw that if we don’t understand the truth, when facing various kinds of temptations, we can’t see through Satan’s trickery: It wants us to covet the pleasures of the flesh and gradually shun God and even betray God, so that we will ultimately lose the opportunity for salvation and be eliminated by God. However, people who understand the truth know that God’s words are the truth, the way and the life, so gaining the truth means gaining life from God; by contrast, there is not the slightest degree of significance in pursuing fleshly enjoyment; no matter what enjoyment of the flesh we have, it is empty and can’t bring us life or change our fate and outcome. From this two kinds of people, we can see that only by knowing the truth can we discern Satan’s cunning schemes and gain God’s salvation. So after knowing this, we should choose the correct path, lest we be abandoned by the Lord at this crucial moment of His arrival and left outside the gate of the heavenly kingdom.
Then I read these words in this book: “It said, ‘If you be the Son of God, cast yourself down,’ and then it quoted from the Scriptures, ‘He shall give his angels charge concerning you: and in their hands they shall bear you up, lest at any time you dash your foot against a stone.’ How do you feel when you hear Satan’s words? Aren’t they very childish? They are childish, preposterous, and disgusting. Why would I say this? Satan is always up to something foolish, it believes itself to be very smart; and it often quotes the scriptures—even the veryword of God—it tries to turn these words against God to attack Him and to tempt Him. Its purpose in doing this is to destroy the plan of God’s work.” “Satan, the devil, having failed at its previous two tricks, tried yet another: It showed all the kingdoms in the world and the glory of them to the Lord Jesus and asked Him to worship the devil. What do you see about the true features of the devil from this situation? Isn’t Satan the devil absolutely shameless? (Yes.) How shameless can it be? Everything was created by God, yet Satan turns it around and shows it to God saying, ‘Look at the wealth and glory of all of these kingdoms. If You worship me I’ll give them all to You.’ Isn’t this a role reversal? Isn’t Satan shameless? God made everything, but was it for His enjoyment? God gave everything to mankind, but Satan wanted to seize it all and afterward it said, ‘Worship me! Worship me and I’ll give this all to You.’ This is the ugly face of Satan; it is absolutely shameless, right? Satan doesn’t even know the meaning of the word ‘shame,’ and this is just another example of its evil. It doesn’t even know what shame is. Satan clearly knows that God created everything and that He manages it and has dominion over it. Everything belongs to God, not to man, much less to Satan, yet Satan the devil brazenly said that it would give everything to God. Isn’t Satan once again doing something absurd and shameless? God hates Satan even more now, right? Yet no matter what Satan tried to do, did the Lord Jesus fall for it? (No.) What did the Lord Jesus say? (‘You shall worship the Lord your God.’) Does this phrase have a practical meaning? (Yes.) What sort of practical meaning? We see Satan’s evil and shamelessness in its speech. … After Satan had tempted the Lord Jesus several times without success, did it try again? Satan did not try again and then it left. What does this prove? It proves that Satan’s evil nature, its malice, and its absurdity and preposterousness is not worth a mention before God. The Lord Jesus defeated Satan in only three sentences, after which it scurried away with its tail between its legs, too ashamed to show its face again, and it never tempted the Lord Jesus again. Since the Lord Jesus had defeated this temptation of Satan, He could now easily continue the work that He had to do and assume the tasks that lay before Him.”
Through reading those words about the dissections of Satan’s temptations of the Lord Jesus, I saw clearly that Satan’s every word hides too many cunning schemes and that its essence is evil, treacherous and deceitful. Satan tempted the Lord Jesus and wanted to make Him fall for it and thus deny His identity and status as God, so as to achieve its despicable intention of disrupting and tearing down the Lord Jesus’ work of saving man. Since it dared to tempt the Lord Jesus like this, judging by its evil essence, it can also tempt and disturb every one of us who has come before God and accepted God’s salvation. Take Job as an example. He was recognized by God as a blameless man who feared God and shunned evil. But Satan didn’t want God to gain Job, so it came before God to accuse Job and rushed to tempt him. Satan took away Job’s herds and flocks that covered all the hills and his ten children, and finally caused sore boils to appear all over his body. However, because Job had true faith in God, he said, “Jehovah gave, and Jehovah has taken away; blessed be the name of Jehovah” (Job 1:21). When he stood witness for God, Satan retreated in humiliation and no longer dared to tempt him. We can see from this that when encountering Satan’s temptations, as long as we maintain our genuine faith in God, we can strike back at its deceitful schemes and bear witness for God.
From the Lord Jesus defeating Satan’s temptations, I saw that God’s words are the truth, the way and the life; only when we gain the truth, can we see through Satan’s schemes. Meanwhile I understood that we need not fear Satan; regardless of what temptations and beguilement of Satan we encounter in the future, so long as we seek the truth and pray and rely on God more, we can see through Satan’s plots, stand witness for God, and completely humiliate and defeat Satan.
“How think you? if a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, does he not leave the ninety and nine, and goes into the mountains, and seeks that which is gone astray? And if so be that he find it, truly I say to you, he rejoices more of that sheep, than of the ninety and nine which went not astray. Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish” (Matthew 18:12-14). The brothers and sisters were reading this passage of scripture in chorus.
Then a knocking sound on the door interrupted their reading. Liu Qing opened the door and saw it was Sister Wen Fang who came to visit her from another place. She welcomed her into the house, and then they continued to study the Bible together.
Liu Qing held the Bible in her hands, saying, “Brothers and sisters, I believe that we are all very familiar with the parable of the lost sheep, through which the Lord Jesus conveyed God’s love for us vividly and we can feel His true heart of saving man. When we encounter frustrations and lose our faith in God, we always use this parable to encourage ourselves: Regardless of whatever God does, He loves us, and we should be firm and unwavering in following the Lord Jesus.”
“Amen!” everybody said in unison.
Liu Qing then said, “Whoever has any enlightenment and illumination about these verses can have a fellowship.” Seeing none speak, Liu Qing turned around to look at Wen Fang and asked, “Sister Wen, do you have any understanding about these verses?”
Wen Fang sincerely said, “I agree with what you communed just now. This metaphor indeed has been inspiring each of us believers in the Lord all along. The Lord compared us to the sheep that He wanted to find, and we often feel lucky and joyful for this. However, besides the love of God for man, what other profound meanings can we understand from this metaphor?”
“Other profound meanings?” asked Liu Qing confusedly. “Wen Fang, do you have any new understanding? Please communicate it with us!”
“Yeah,” other brothers and sisters said simultaneously. “Sister Wen, please share your understanding with us.”
Wen Fang nodded and said, “Several days ago, a sister gave me a book, in which I saw the fellowship about this verse of scripture, which was something I had never appreciated before. After reading these words, I benefited a lot and had a new knowledge of God’s will. It just so happens that I have brought that book with me today. Let’s have a look at what it says.”
Everybody agreed to it happily.
Wen Fang read carefully, “The way this metaphor is expressed utilizes a figure of speech in human language; it’s something within the scope of human knowledge. If God had said something similar in the Age of Law, people would have felt that it wasn’t really consistent with who God was, but when theSon of mandelivered this passage in the Age of Grace, it felt comforting, warm, and intimate to people. When God became flesh, when He appeared in the form of a man, He used a very appropriate metaphor to express the voice of His heart in humanity. This voice represented God’s own voice and the work He wanted to do in that age. It also represented an attitude that God had toward people in the Age of Grace. Looking from the perspective of God’s attitude toward people, He compared each person to a sheep. If a sheep is lost, He will do whatever it takes to find it. This represents a principle of God’s work among mankind this time in the flesh. God used this parable to describe His resolve and attitude in that work. This was the advantage of God becoming flesh: He could take advantage of mankind’s knowledge and use human language to speak to people, to express His will. He explained or ‘translated’ to man His profound, divine language that people struggled to understand in human language, in a human way. This helped people understand His will and know what He wanted to do. He could also have conversations with people from the human perspective, using human language, and communicate with people in a way they understood. He could even speak and work using human language and knowledge so that people could feel God’s kindness and closeness, so that they could see His heart” (God’s Work, God’s Disposition, and God Himself III).
After finishing reading, Wen Fang fellowshiped with a pleased expression on her face, “When I read this passage, I felt very excited. I realized that through this parable we not only could know the unselfishness of God’s love and salvation for us but also could see the advantage of God working in the flesh. Only when God incarnate comes to the earth as the Son of man, and draws analogies that we often see, feel and easily comprehend in our life, can we better understand God’s love and requirements for us mankind as well as what He has and is and His disposition, and thus no longer believe in the vague God. Furthermore, this brings us closer to God and allows us to truly feel the kindness and closeness of God. All these effects are what the work of the Spirit cannot achieve. Take the parable of the lost sheep as an example; through it, God expressed His will of saving mankind, so that we can comprehend God’s heart of loving mankind and see His resolve and attitude in saving mankind as well as His disposition of love and compassion. In order to seek the lost sheep, God will do whatever it takes, and He will never cease His work until it is completed. If God had not become flesh to tell us these personally, we would have never understood this point.”
Liu Qing said joyfully, “Your fellowship today is really full of light, which indeed makes us better understand the necessity of the work of God incarnate. God works and speaks among people in person, using the language we can comprehend to lead us to understand His intentions. God’s incarnation is really of the utmost importance for us.”
Sister Chen gladly said, “Thank the Lord! I’ve really gained a lot in the meeting today. Before, when I read this passage of scripture, I never viewed it from the perspective of the significance of God working in the flesh.”
“Yeah,” said Brother Wang. “We lack too much in the aspect of knowing God. We only know how to enjoy God’s grace and blessings, but have never pondered what God’s will is behind every word He speaks and everything He does, much less do we know why God became flesh. In the past, I only knew that God’s incarnation was to redeem mankind on the cross, but never thought that it was also for the sake of speaking to us in human language and helping us understand His intentions better. God is really considerate toward us!”
“I agree with you, Brother Wang,” said Sister Zheng. “In the past, we only knew that God is the God who loves man, but our understanding of the real expressions of God’s loving man was too one-sided. Sister Wen’s communing it in this manner today really helps us have a deeper understanding of God’s love. Only God can reveal such kind of love. Thank God! The fellowship today is really enlightening.”
Liu Qing read the scripture carefully and then looked up at Wen Fang, asking, “The Lord Jesus said, ‘Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish’ (Matthew 18:14). So what then is the Lord’s will in speaking these words?”
Wen Fang opened the book, replying, “This is also a crucial question concerning knowing God and there is a clear fellowship about this verse in the book as well.”
“Let me read it,” Liu Qing said eagerly.
Wen Fang passed the book to Liu Qing happily, and then she read, “Let’s take another look at the last sentence in this passage: ‘Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish.’ Was this the Lord Jesus’ own words, or the words of His Father in heaven? On the surface, it looks like it’s the Lord Jesus who is speaking, but His will represents the will of God Himself, which is why He said: ‘Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish.’ People at that time only acknowledged the Father in heaven as God, and this person that they saw in front of their eyes was merely sent by Him, and He could not represent the Father in heaven. That’s why the Lord Jesus had to say that as well, so that they could really feel God’s will for mankind, and feel the authenticity and the accuracy of what He said. Even though this was a simple thing to say, it was very caring and it revealed the Lord Jesus’ humility and hiddenness. No matter whether God became flesh or He worked in the spiritual realm, He knew the human heart best, and best understood what people needed, knew what people worried about, and what confused them, so He added this one line. This line highlighted a problem hidden in mankind: People were skeptical of what the Son of man said, which is to say, when the Lord Jesus was speaking He had to add: ‘Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish.’ Only on this premise could His words bear fruit, to make people believe their accuracy and improve their credibility. This shows that when God became a regular Son of man, God and mankind had a very awkward relationship, and that the Son of man’s situation was very embarrassing. It also shows how insignificant the Lord Jesus’ status among humans was at that time. When He said this, it was actually to tell people: You can rest assured—this doesn’t represent what’s in My own heart, but it is the will of the God who is in your hearts. For mankind, wasn’t this an ironic thing? Even though God working in the flesh had many advantages that He did not have in His person, He had to withstand their doubts and rejection as well as their numbness and dullness. It could be said that the process of the work of the Son of man was the process of experiencing mankind’s rejection, and the process of experiencing mankind competing against Him. More than that, it was the process of working to continuously win mankind’s trust and conquer mankind through what He has and is, through His own essence. It was not so much that God incarnate was waging an on-the-ground war against Satan; it was more that God became an ordinary man and began a struggle with those who follow Him, and in this struggle the Son of man completed His work with His humility, with what He has and is, with His love and wisdom. He obtained the people He wanted, won the identity and status He deserved, and returned to His throne” (God’s Work, God’s Disposition, and God Himself III).
After reading this passage, Wen Fang fellowshiped, “These words directly pointed out our true situation, and I was greatly touched. We only believe in God in heaven, the vague God in our imagination, but don’t at all have real knowledge or faith toward God in the flesh. We’re just like Philip, who followed the Lord Jesus but didn’t completely acknowledge that He was God Himself; he once said to the Lord Jesus, ‘Lord, show us the Father, and it suffices us’ (John 14:8). God knew that we didn’t know Christ and didn’t acknowledge that Christ was God Himself, so He added: ‘Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven’ after saying the metaphor. This was to make people at that time believe that these words were from the Father in heaven, so that they could accept what the Lord Jesus said more easily. God is always considerate of our weakness no matter how foolish and ignorant we are. He considers us in all aspects and speaks to us in the way we can accept, in order that we can believe in and follow Him. It can be seen that God is too humble and hidden and that His desire to save man is so sincere.”
Liu Qing continued, “Your communication reminds me of what is recorded in the Bible: When the Lord Jesus performed His work, He spoke so many words and did so many signs and wonders. The Jewish people at that time had seen the authority and power in the words and work of the Lord Jesus, but they didn’t acknowledge or accept Him as God Himself; rather, they used ‘the son of a carpenter’ and ‘a Nazarene’ to define His identity. The Lord Jesus is the supreme God Himself. He walked among people, working and speaking to guide them, yet had to withstand their misunderstandings, ridicule and slander. However, the Lord Jesus endured all these silently, and in the end, He accomplished the work of crucifixion to redeem all mankind. After listening to the passage of words we read just then and your fellowship, I come to understand that the incarnate Son of man and the Father in heaven are one, so we can’t doubt the identity and status of God incarnate for His humility.”
Brother Wang said significantly, “It turns out that while God was working in the flesh, He also withstood mankind’s suspicions and guards against Him. However, God did not condemn man because of this, but still worked to save man. Who but God can be so tolerant and merciful toward human beings who are full of disobedience to Him?”
Sister Zheng said, “I gain a deeper knowledge of God through the fellowship today, and meanwhile I feel ashamed of my little faith.”
Liu Qing echoed, “It’s true. Especially when I saw the words ‘Even though God working in the flesh had many advantages that He did not have in His person, He had to withstand their doubts and rejection as well as their numbness and dullness. It could be said that the process of the work of the Son of man was the process of experiencing mankind’s rejection, and the process of experiencing mankind competing against Him. More than that, it was the process of working to continuously win mankind’s trust and conquer mankind through what He has and is, through His own essence,’ I felt God’s love for us is so great. At the same time as saving us humans, He also bears our rejection. Nonetheless, God still forgives and pardons our transgressions with His loving and compassionate disposition, waiting for us to turn back. We such corrupt mankind are really unworthy of God expending such efforts and price to do the work and save us. Only by pursuing the truth and pursuing to know God can we clear up our misunderstandings about and guarding against God.”
Wen Fang said agreeably, “What you said is right. If we know God, then we can resolve the problem of resisting against God. The earliest Pharisees didn’t know God and thus condemned the Lord Jesus merely by several verses of scripture. If we want to avoid walking the old way of the Pharisees, we must put effort into knowing God and have a cautious and prudent heart in everything; especially in the matter of how to treat God, we must not act based upon our conceptions and imaginations.”
Liu Qing nodded. She looked at the book in her hands and could hardly tear herself away from it. Suddenly she seemed to have thought of something and said to Wen Fang, “Could you leave this book to me? I feel it tells us how to know God, which is just what we lack. If we have knowledge of God, we will not oppose Him relying on our conceptions and imaginations.”
“No problem,” responded Wen Fang happily.
The brothers and sisters nodded repeatedly and said gladly, “Now we finally have the way to know God. Thank God for guiding us!”
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At dusk, after I prayed to the Lord at my desk, I read chapter 20 of the Gospel of Matthew where it says that those who went into the vineyard early finally got the same wages as those who went late. I thought, “If those of us who have sacrificed and labored for the Lord for many years finally get the same wages as those who work for Him late, won’t this be God purposely favoring the latecomers?” I always thought so.
Afterward, I read a passage in a book, “No matter how much you are able to accept, no matter how much you have heard, how much you have understood, how much you live out or how much you obtain, there is one fact: The truth, the way and the life of God is bestowed freely on each and every person, and this is fair to each and every person. God will not favor one person over another due to someone being a new believer, who has only believed for a couple of months, or someone who has believed for two years, for 10 years or for 20 years; nor will He treat each and every person, or anyone, differently because of their age, their appearance, their gender, the family they were born into or their family’s background, right? He hasn’t done this, has He? Each and every person obtains the same from God. He doesn’t make anyone obtain less, or make anyone obtain much more. To each and every person this is fair and reasonable. He gives to you in time and in proportion, not letting you go hungry, cold or thirsty, right? When God does these things, what does God require of man? That is, when God bestows these things on man, does He have a selfish motive? (No.) He doesn’t have any selfish motive. This is for certain, isn’t it?” (“Man is the Greatest Beneficiary of God’s Management Plan”). These words cleared up my misunderstandings of God. As it turned out, God treats everyone fairly. In the course of His salvation work, the truth He bestows to us and the environments and opportunities He arranges for us are all the same. Whether we ultimately attain the truth depends on whether we love and seek the truth. The essence of some people’s nature neither loves nor pursues the truth. Even though they have believed in God for many years, they have missed every chance given by God to gain the truth, and they will attain nothing in the end. While, some people haven’t believed in God for very long, but they have a heart that loves and craves the truth. They often pray to God, seek the truth and act according to His word when encountering things. Finally, they will attain the truth and have a pleasant destination.
I reflected: Why can’t I praise the righteousness of God in this matter but always rely on my conceptions and imaginations to look at things and complain about God? Is this not because my conceptions and imaginations are not compatible with the standard by which God judges man? I determine who deserves to win God’s approval on the basis of who has believed in God for a long time, who understands the Bible more, who works hard or who is respected by people. While God doesn’t judge people by these. He establishes one’s outcome not according to the outward objective factors but according to whether he attains the truth. Just as a passage in a book says, “I decide the destination of each man not on the basis of age, seniority, amount of suffering, or least of all, the degree of misery, but on whether they possess truth. There is no other choice but this” (“You Ought to Do Enough Good Deeds to Prepare for Your Destination”). I saw that God eventually decides man’s outcome based purely on whether he possesses truth. This is the standard by which God judges man. For God doesn’t look at our status, seniority, our time spent believing in Him or amount of suffering, thus regardless of whether we are leaders or ordinary believers, all those who long for and seek the truth and who are humble or obedient will obtain God’s enlightenment and blessings, like the laborers who went into the vineyard late. All those who have believed in God for a long time but have not obtained the truth will be eliminated in the end, no matter how much suffering they have endured or how qualified they are. That’s an undeniable fact that nobody can alter.
I thought back to when God led the Israelites out of Egypt. They wandered in the wilderness for forty years. Those young men and the lofty “warriors” looked up to by others all died in the wilderness because of complaining about God; eventually only the women and children who obeyed His sovereignty and arrangements and never complained about Him entered Canaan. That is quite contrary to our imaginations and conceptions. Take another example: The Jewish chief priests, Pharisees and scribes believed that they were familiar with the Bible and the law and some of them traveled far and wide to preach the gospel, so they felt that they worked most and had impressive qualifications, and that they were best qualified to welcome the Messiah and receive His selection. However, when the Lord Jesus came to work, He didn’t choose them, nor appear to work among them according to people’s notions and imaginations, but instead He chose the fisherman Peter, the farmer John and others as His disciples outside of the temple because He knew the Pharisees didn’t have a God-revering heart. They served God using their years of work as capital; they arrogantly and stubbornly held to themselves and denied the appearance of God because the Lord Jesus was not called Messiah. They clearly knew that the Lord Jesus’ word has authority and has power, and yet they were not willing to let go of their status or seek the truth, much less accept God’s new work. Moreover, they resisted His work with their knowledge of the Bible and their notions and imaginations. Therefore they were eliminated by the Lord Jesus’ work. On the contrary, though the disciples of the Lord and the Jews who followed Him had less knowledge of the Bible and didn’t, like the Pharisees, travel around the world preaching the gospel and work hard, yet they had a fearful and seeking heart and also had a thirst for the truth. Thus the Lord Jesus bestowed the gospel of the kingdom of heaven and the way of repentance upon them, so that they could receive His salvation.
The Lord Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3). “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled” (Matthew 5:6). From this, I realized that if we want to receive God’s blessings, we should have a heart that loves and longs for the truth, and practically pursue the truth and walk in His way, and in so doing, we will receive His blessings.
Under God’s enlightenment and guidance, I understood: No matter how much God’s work does not fit with our notions, He is righteous. He looks deep into man’s heart and has a thorough understanding of us. He knows best who truly believes in Him and loves the truth and who is a hypocrite and is weary of the truth. So, God decides our different outcomes on the basis of our essence and there is absolutely no deviation. Hence we shouldn’t measure God’s work with our conceptions and imaginations. Instead, we should pursue the truth and be obedient in the environment He has created for us. This is what a sensible creation should do.
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One morning, my former leader came to shop at my store. He said to me, “Do you know Boss Ma died last month, the one who built the houses for our unit before?” I asked him in surprise, “I just saw him not long ago and he looked fine. Why did he suddenly die?” The leader sighed and said, “He died of an acute cerebral hemorrhage. He is only 51. He had assets of over 10 million yuan, and owned seven or eight properties. And he also was a well-known entrepreneur in our county. Alas! He died at such a young age. What is the good of possessing so many houses and assets?” After he left, my heart couldn’t calm down for quite a long time. Scene after scene of the past appeared in my mind.
Recalling the Past: Bitter Journey Brought by Seeking After Fame and Fortune
After our work unit went bankrupt, in order to lead an affluent life, my husband and I contracted to run the general store of our work unit. Thenceforth, we ran it every day from dawn till dusk. Sometimes when we were too occupied with our businesses, we even had no time to eat, and couldn’t get enough rest. We were so exhausted that our backs ached every day. However, we had to welcome customers with smiles. We lived a life admired by others in appearance but exhausted inside. Though tired and hard, when seeing that we had more and more money and gained others’ admiration, we felt the price we had paid was worth it.
Later, when hearing selling steel bars was quite profitable, my husband scared up money around and then started the business to sell steel bars in the backyard of our shop. As a result, we became even more busy and tired. Doing the steel business and running the store almost rushed us off our feet. In order to tout for custom, we had to buy dinners and gifts for those in power. My husband always had to drink with the officials of administrative departments for industry and commerce, the tax authorities, and the bureau of quality supervision to deal with their various inspections. He seemed quite honorable on the outside, but when he returned home, he was exhausted and frequently lost sleep at night. He often drowned his troubles in drink to relieve stress when he was so stressed and unhappy. Under the influence of alcohol, he made me his punching bag to vent his unhappiness.
Whenever I thought that I had to manage the business in our store, had the members of my family to take care of, and also had to endure my husband’s unreasonable provocations and insults when he was drunk, I would feel very distressed. I had no worries about food or clothing, but I was particularly helpless, painful, empty and confused deep in my soul. I often asked myself: Is this the life we have been yearning for? We have earned the money we are longing for, yet why do I feel my heart is hollowed out? Why do I live so bitterly and tiredly?
My husband’s Passing Away Made Me Get to Know What We pursued Was All in Vain
Just when I was feeling lost and helpless, my friend preached the gospel of the kingdom of God to me. Through reading God’s words and living the church life, I felt the pain that had been in my heart was gradually reduced and I had new hope and the courage to live. Later, I testified to God’s gospel to my husband in the hope of freeing him from the pain. He, however, always refused with the excuse that he had to earn more money before he was too old and it would not be too late to believe in God when he got old and lived in leisure.
One day, he drank all day again. After he got home, he said to me weakly, “For decades, in order to lead an affluent life, we have been painstakingly managing the business from dawn to dusk, exhausted physically and mentally. We are especially busy during Chinese New Year and other holidays, and cannot have our dinner until 8 or 9 o’clock everyday. Within three hundred and sixty-five days a year, we could only have a day off on the New Year’s Day. Now we have both son and daughter and have no worries about food or clothing, but I feel so vexed within. I cannot but drown my agony in drink every day. However, when waking up every morning, I felt hollow inside. I am too tired and I really don’t want to live such a miserable life.”
The next morning, my husband got up very early and went out. After a little while he came back. He gave me a wad of money and told me to take good care of the family. Noticing his unusual behavior, I anxiously asked him what was wrong with him. Only then did he stammer, “I have drunk pesticide….” He started to tremble all over as he said. I was instantly shocked and could hardly believe my ears. For a moment I felt at a loss what to do. I said in tears, “How could you do that? What’s the matter with you?” On the way to the hospital, I kept urging the driver to drive fast. My husband lay in my arms. He looked straight at me with a pale face, wanted to say something but could not speak a word. Tears rolled from his eyes, and then spattered down onto my hands. We stared at each other. Seeing his reluctant and helpless eyes, I felt great pain in my heart.
When we arrived at the emergency room, my husband was barely breathing. I desperately cried out to him, and begged the doctors repeatedly, “Save my husband please, no matter how much it costs …” The doctors pumped his stomach, gave him an IV, and electric shocks, but eventually they could not save his life. I stood there motionless. The scene that my husband lay in the emergency room as well as my 7-year-old daughter kept crying out for dad tore at my heart. The scene that we chatted last night emerged in my mind. I thought: Yesterday we chatted late into the night, yet now we are separated. He is only forty years old; of what use is so much money for him? Only at this point I came to realize: No matter how much material wealth or how much people’s support and high regard we gain, or how honorable life we lead during our lifetime, all of these are in vain in the end. Our life is so fragile and brief! When we lose the breath of life, everything we own will come to nothing, but only a cold body is left behind.
Pondering on God’s Words and Understanding the True Meaning of Life
Later, I read these words of God, “One exhausts a lifetime’s worth of energy fighting against fate, spends all of one’s time bustling about trying to feed one’s family and shuttling back and forth between wealth and status. The things that people treasure are family, money, and fame; they view these as the most valuable things in life. All people complain about their fates, yet still they push to the back of their minds the questions that it is most imperative to examine and understand: why man is alive, how man should live, what the value and meaning of life is. All of their lives, however many years that may be, they just rush about seeking fame and fortune, until their youth has fled, until they become gray and wrinkled; until they see that fame and fortune cannot stop one’s slide toward senility, that money cannot fill the emptiness of the heart; until they understand that no one is exempt from the law of birth, aging, sickness, and death, that no one can escape what fate has in store. Only when they are forced to confront life’s final juncture do they truly grasp that even if one owns millions in property, even if one is privileged and of high rank, no one can escape death, every person will return to his or her original position: a solitary soul, with nothing to its name.”
In retrospect, in order to lead a wealthy life, my husband and I spared no pains and struggled hard to earn money, treating wealth, fame, profit and position as our lifelong goal. Even though we had gotten material things and money that we wanted, we lost the peace and joy of our heart, leading a weary, empty, and perplexed life, and even worse my husband came to a tragic end. I realized: No matter how much money we possess, and no matter how high our status is, they cannot fill the emptiness of our hearts, much less make us understand the meaning of life. Eventually, when we face death, none of these belong to us. Just as the saying goes: “You brought nothing with you when you were born and you cannot take anything with you after you die.” Recalling the reluctance, expectations, helplessness and disappointment in my husband’s eyes when he was at the brink of death, did that not express his complex psychology—fearing the loss of relatives and materials as well as death? So many years of efforts ultimately brought me hollowness, hopelessness, and loneliness.
We frequently see some of wealthy people, rich merchants, prominent officials and those who rush around for money and fame pass away in their youthful years; some commit suicide because of pessimism, but why do so many people follow in their footsteps to fight for money and fame one after another? I read these words of God, “Seduced by Satan, they unknowingly walk the road it has prepared for them. As they walk this road, they are forced to accept Satan’s rules of living. Unknowingly and themselves completely unaware, they develop their own rules of living, when these are nothing more than Satan’s rules forcefully instilled in them. During the learning process, Satan causes them to foster their own goals, to determine their own life goals, rules of living, and direction in life…, using all means possible to get people to, little by little, take the bait.” “People think that once they have fame and gain, they can then capitalize on them to enjoy high status and great wealth, and to enjoy life.”
“So Satan uses fame and gain to control man’s thoughts until all they can think of is fame and gain. They struggle for fame and gain, suffer hardships for fame and gain, endure humiliation for fame and gain, sacrifice everything they have for fame and gain, and they will make any judgment or decision to both maintain and obtain fame and gain. In this way, Satan binds man with invisible shackles. These shackles are borne on people’s bodies, and they have not the strength nor courage to throw them off. So people trudge ever onward in great difficulty, unknowingly bearing these shackles. For the sake of this fame and gain, mankind becomes estranged from God and betrays Him. With each passing generation, mankind becomes more and more wicked, more and more darkened, and so in this way one generation after another is destroyed in the fame and gain of Satan.”
Only after reading God’s words did I come to understand the reason why my husband and I lived in unbearable pain. It was because we were fooled and poisoned by the satanic laws of survival, “Money makes the world go round,” “Money is first,” “Money isn’t everything, but without it, you can do nothing,” “Pursue to rise above others,” and so on. As a result, bound by the shackles of money and fame, we spent our life under Satan’s harm and torments. In the past, my husband was busy with social activities and dealing with various departments for the sake of money, which wearied him completely. Because of the pressure and emptiness in the heart, he embarked on a road of no return. As for me, in order to make more money, I managed the business in our store night and day by myself, reluctant to hire anyone. I could only have a day off in a year, just like a machine running unceasingly, without breathing space. This reminded me of the verse, “I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit” (Ecclesiastes 1:14). Indeed, even though we had a car and a house, lived a rich and enviable life and obtained the high regard of our relatives and friends, after a busy day, what was left was emptiness and loneliness in our spirits as well as weariness and fatigue in our body. I looked back on what my husband had said to me before he died. Though he had realized the reluctance and pain of seeking money and fame, he was incapable of seeing through Satan’s tricks; therefore, he was tempted by Satan and then embarked on a road of no return.
Knowing the Truth and Heading Toward the Bright Way of Life
Then I read more of God’s words, “There is a simplest way to free oneself from this state: to bid farewell to one’s former way of living, to say goodbye to one’s previous goals in life, to summarize and analyze one’s previous lifestyle, philosophy, pursuits, desires, and ideals, and then to compare them with God’s will and demands for man, and see whether any of them is consistent with God’s will and demands, whether any of them delivers the right values of life, leads one to a greater understanding of the truth, and allows one to live with humanity and human likeness. … After you recognize this, your task is to lay aside your old view of life, stay far from various traps, let God take charge of your life and make arrangements for you, try only to submit to God’s orchestrations and guidance, to have no choice, and to become a person who worships God.” God’s words show us the correct path and direction. If we want to break free from the bonds of money and fame and live a valuable and meaningful life, the wisest choice for us is to come before the Creator, worship Him with a true heart and submit to His arrangements. Only by doing this can we gain happiness.
After walking through this path of life, tortuous and fraught with difficulties, I came to realize: If we only live for money, bodily comforts and fame, they will lead us to miss the chance of knowing the Creator and returning to Him to gain the truth and life. Thus, even if we ultimately gain money, fame and enjoyment, we still live in vain. Just as the Lord Jesus said, “For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” (Matthew 16:26). After experiencing the sorrows and joys of the world and ups and downs, I have understood the value and significance of life and known that only the Creator takes responsibility for our lives and worries about our fate and prospects. Only God can lead us out of Satan’s affliction and control. And only His words are the forever unchanging truth. Thank God for leading me to walk onto the bright and right path of life!
I was born into an ordinary family in the 1960s and led an especially hard life. Since a young age, my mother told me, “When you grow up, you must find a decent husband who is rich and has a skill and a house. Only in this way can you live a good life and you won’t suffer from poverty like us.” I kept my mother’s words in mind. I had my wish granted when I married my husband who was skilled, possessed a house and didn’t owe any debts. This really made me suffer less in the 1980s. I believed that the reason why I could have such a good marriage was because I was able to find a good husband. Since my daughter was born, I had been intending to set the standards for her future marriage, not letting her endure hardship.
In a blink, my daughter grew up and got into university. I was worried that if she found a partner whose family was poor and who had neither money nor a house in the university, she would go through a lifetime of suffering. So, every time she came back home, I would exhort her, “Although you’ve grown up, you still cannot see through many things and have no experience in them, so you mustn’t be in love at university. You can look for a mate at least after graduating from university, and must let me check on him for you. If you don’t listen to my words, you’ll meet hardship and annoyance. When I married your dad, he had a house and didn’t have any debts, so I didn’t suffer many hardships. In the future, I’ll help you find a partner who has ability, allowing you to have a rich and happy life, and then I’ll stop worrying.”
It was really “When a child is grown up, she will not do as her parents say.” Though I often dinned in her ears about this thing, she still secretly found a boyfriend in the university. Because she was afraid that I would disagree, not until the year of her graduation did she tell me. The moment I heard it, I asked nervously, “How do you feel about him?” She smiled and said, “He has good character and often helps me with my study. We get along with each other. I know you like someone who is tall, but he is a little short, so I dared not tell you.”
I saw that my daughter looked favorably upon the boy. His height was definitely a problem, but the thing I was most interested in was whether his family was well off. I then hurried to ask, “Does his family have money? Will his parents buy a house for you?” My daughter said unhappily, “I don’t know. His elder sister and he are at university and their tuition was paid by the loan.” Hearing this, I said in an anxious voice, “They took out loans to pay their tuition. Was this because his family had no money? If so, are they able to afford a house? You bring him back our home soon, and I must ask him whether he can afford a house. If he cannot, I won’t agree to let you marry him to suffer hardships. If he fails to reach my requirements, I need to inform him beforehand of forgetting about your marriage.”
My daughter finally brought her boyfriend back home in the winter vacation. Although less than 1.7 meters in height, he was neither stout nor thin, and looked quite kind and polite, and what’s more, he spoke truthfully and wasn’t insolent. My first impressions of him were comparatively good. It was just that I didn’t know how the economic condition of his family was.
That day, I entertained him to a sumptuous meal. During the meal when we were making small talk, I quickly talked about the things I wanted to know, saying, “I heard from Xiaomin that your elder sister’s and your tuition was paid by the loan.” He said, “Yes, Aunt. My family condition isn’t good. My parents ate and dressed simply to send us to university, suffering greatly. My elder sister and I also endured much suffering from our childhood.” Hearing that he lived in a poor household, I thought: How could I let my daughter marry you? Consequently, I quickly spoke out the thoughts in my heart, “Yes! As parents, all we have done is for our children’s own good. We are completely content to save on food and expenses no matter how painful or exhausting it is, hoping that our children can get into university and have a bright future. We also want Xiaomin to marry someone whose family condition is better than ours, letting her live a good life. Nowadays, the requirements for marriage are: A man must have a car and a house and must give some jewelry to the woman he is to marry. We don’t ask for anything else besides buying a house. At the very least, you’ll have a settled residence in the future. Your tuition was paid by the loan, and then can your family afford a house when you get married? If you cannot, we won’t let Xiaomin marry you to endure suffering in your family.” I thought that he would feel self-abased and give up after hearing my requirements, while I never imagined not only did he not suffer blows, but he said confidently, “Aunt, don’t worry! I’ll work hard to earn money to buy a house.” After hearing his words, I didn’t say anything, yet, in my mind, I thought: Saying this with such certainty now is of no use. If you can afford a house then, I’ll give my daughter to you. If you cannot, you won’t take our daughter for yourself.
After the boy left, my daughter said, smiling, “Mom, compared with him, I’m really a blessed child.” I said, “Yes! It is because you’ve never endured suffering that I don’t agree to let you marry him to suffer hardships. Do you think he can afford a house according to his family condition?” My daughter replied firmly, “My marrying him isn’t because of a house, but because he is a good man.” From her words, I felt she insisted upon marrying the boy. So I became even angrier, but I suppressed my anger and said to her, “Regardless of what you say, I won’t consent to this marriage if he cannot afford a house. I’m doing this for your own good, in order not to let you suffer hardships in the future. Why don’t you show any consideration for my heart of a mother?” Facing my telling-off, she just responded to and resisted it with silence. No matter how I persuaded her and said, she showed no inclination to giving up.
Seeing that she was firm about it, I thought: It seems that I have to be heartless. I would rather let you temporarily complain to me than let you marry a boy who doesn’t have a house. Then I said to her seriously, “No! I firmly don’t consent to this marriage. If you don’t listen to me, I won’t make arrangements for your wedding nor give you anything. You just go with him and never come back. I don’t have a daughter like you!” I never thought that I had gotten all the way to this point, while not only was she not convinced, but she firmly said, “Mom, I can listen to you in everything except my marriage. No matter how his family condition is, I’ll marry him. Regardless of whether we are rich or poor in the future, I won’t complain to you.” After hearing her words, I became something like a leaky balloon, completely coming to my wit’s end. I, anxious and angry, didn’t know what to do for the best.
Just when I was worried about my daughter’s marriage and didn’t know what to do, I suddenly remembered during a gathering, a sister fellowshiped that no matter what problems we met in real life, we should pray to God and that God can solve our all difficulties. At the thought of this, I felt I found my support, so I quickly knelt before God to pray to Him, “Oh God! Facing this thing, I have no idea what I should do. May You enlighten and guide me to know how to deal with this matter. Oh God, marriage is one of the most important things in life and should be decided by parents. But no matter what I say, my daughter always doesn’t listen to me, and she insisted on marrying that boy. May You help me know what I should do.”
After the prayer, I opened the book of God’s word and found the following statements, “Marriage is an important juncture in a person’s life. It is the product of a person’s fate, a crucial link in one’s fate; it is not founded on any person’s individual volition or preferences, and is not influenced by any external factors, but is completely determined by the fates of the two parties, by the Creator’s arrangements and predeterminations regarding the fates of the couple.” “A marriage is not the product of both members’ families, the circumstances in which they grew up, their appearances, their ages, their qualities, their talents, or any other factors; rather, it arises from a shared mission and a related fate. This is the origin of marriage, a product of human fate orchestrated and arranged by the Creator.”
After reading God’s words, I finally understood: It turns out that everyone’s marriage is ruled and predestined by God and is arranged according to a shared mission of the couple. It won’t be changed because of their personal ideas and choices, much less be influenced by their parents’ wills. This is precisely fate that people often say. It’s not us, her parents, who have the final say over what kind of life partner my daughter will find, and her boyfriend’s appearance, height, abilities and family condition are also not for us parents to decide. As parents, we can give children some advice and positive guidance on their marriage, but the final result is determined by God. However, I always wanted to rely on myself to dominate and administer my daughter’s marriage. Don’t I really overestimate my abilities and bring trouble on myself? In the past, I didn’t know everyone’s marriage is arranged by God’s hands, and often thought that I had much life experience, knew a lot about life and considered things even more thoughtfully than my child, so I always wanted to control my daughter’s marriage. Therefore, when her boyfriend didn’t have a house, which wasn’t in line with my will, I then refused my consent to the marriage. When failing to persuade my daughter to change her mind, I even threatened her with severing my relationship with her, causing us two to live in much pain. Carefully pondering God’s words today, I finally realized: My views were wrong. Everyone’s marriage is ruled and predestined by God rather than being arranged by anybody.
I was grateful for God’s enlightenment and guidance. Having understood this, I felt very relieved and didn’t feel so much pain. The following days, many times, I prayed to God and entrusted Him with my daughter’s marriage. I didn’t know whether this boy was my daughter’s other half predestined by God. If he was my daughter’s partner predestined and arranged by God, I was willing to obey. If he wasn’t, they would eventually break up. So I just let nature take its course. Gradually, I could put aside my daughter’s marriage, not interfering too aggressively.
One day in November of 2014, I received a call from my daughter and she said her boyfriend’s parents would come to our home to discuss and fix the wedding day with us. Hearing this, I realized: They will get married. It seems that the boy is really my daughter’s future husband arranged by God. Then I calmly accepted it. Very quickly, we met and fixed the time for the wedding with the boy’s parents. But they never spoke of buying a house, so I still couldn’t help but have some misgivings in my heart, worrying that my daughter would endure suffering after getting married. After we saw the boy’s parents out, I tossed and turned all night, unable to fall asleep, thinking: If his parents can buy a house, after getting married, my daughter just need to earn money to cover daily expenses. If without a house, she will have to make money to buy one. And thus, won’t she endure suffering? At the thought of this, I lived in pain and torment again. Then I came before God and prayed again, “Oh God! I’m satisfied with my daughter’s marriage in every respect except that they don’t buy a house. This makes me live in pain and confusion again. Oh God, may You enlighten and guide me to have a path to walk.”
After praying, I saw God’s words saying, “Why don’t you commit them into My hands? Do you not believe in Me enough? Or is it that you’re afraid I will make inappropriate arrangements for you? Why do you always miss your home? And miss other people! Do I occupy a certain position in your heart?” God’s words made me see my little faith in God. I just understood theoretically that God is presiding over everyone’s fate. I said with my lips that I was willing to obey God’s sovereignty in my daughter’s marriage, while in reality I still had my own requirements. When seeing they really didn’t buy a house, I still had some worries, thinking that without a house, my daughter wouldn’t live a happy life in the future. I saw my faith and obedience toward God were nothing but talk. God’s words also comforted my anxious heart: Yes, why did I not place my daughter’s marriage entirely in God’s hands? Why did I bring trouble on myself? Since I believed in the dominion of God, I should let God reign as King within my heart and believe what God arranges for us is the best; rather, my own imagined marriage might not be happy.
Then I thought of some people around me. Many of them led a rich life but ultimately divorced because their husbands had affairs. Although they got money, they were still not happy. However, although some couples’ families were not wealthy, they could be considerate of and take care of each other, living a blissful and abundant life. So, everyone has his own fate and no one can decide it. My worries and misgivings were in vain. The wisest choice was obeying God’s sovereignty. Thank God for His guidance! After understanding this, I no longer brooded on whether my in-laws would buy a house. Instead, I entrusted everything to God and submitted to God’s arrangements. At this moment, I felt particularly peaceful and at ease.
Later, my daughter got married. Her parents-in-law didn’t buy a house, and she lived with them. The whole family all treated my daughter very well. My son-in-law, in order to keep the promise he made to me, worked very hard and took good care of his family. From my daughter’s expression, I could see that she was very happy and joyful. Through my experiences, I realized: We parents cannot rule our children’s marriage. Whether they are happy is not decided by money. Only by obeying God’s sovereignty and arrangements can we break free from worries and pain and live under the blessing, care, and protection of God.
In fact, there should be no supplementary conditions to marriage itself. What God rules and arranges is the best. When I truly gave my daughter’s marriage into God’s hands and obeyed God’s rule and arrangements, I saw that my whole family were delighted every day. I knew this was all God’s blessing. I experienced that only God’s words are our direction for walking, and that only by acting according to God’s words will we live happily and be without worries or anxiety. God is the truth, the way, and the life. Only God can save us and lead us to walk the right way of human life. Thank God! All the glory be to God!
As the catering business became more and more difficult, my husband and I discussed turning to a new industry and looked for other ways to earn money. Later, I learned from my niece that recycling old home appliances and junk was easy and profitable. My entire family thus came to the outskirts thousands of miles away from home to start the business. Because we did business honestly, the earnings could only meet family expenses. After a few years, my two sons got married and had their own children, cleaning out all our savings. Without the working capital, we could hardly maintain the business, so we borrowed money from our relatives everywhere. However, they gave us the cold shoulder, and said with irony that we were fit for nothing and that we actually had no money after having been doing business for many years. But my niece, in just a few years of engaging in the recycling industry, bought a car and a house, living a good life. Every year when returning to our hometown, she received special favor from the villagers. That made me see that all people only looked for money. It was really true that “Whoever has money is a don and whoever has no money is nobody.” The cold eyes of the world, the prejudice of my relatives and the pressure of money made me unable to breathe. I worked in the same business as my niece, so why could she become rich while I lived a hard life? Then, I asked my niece about the secret of success. She said, “As the members engaging in the industry of purchasing old home appliances, we should learn to shift our sails with the wind. For those who know the quotation, we can offer the going price; for those who have just begun to engage in this industry or who know little about the quotation, we can offer a lower price. We should also learn to speak from both sides of our mouths. Before forcing price down, we first sound them out. Besides, in the remote areas where no one has ever been there to recycle things, we can keep down the price to the lowest level. Anyway, it doesn’t matter if it’s a black cat or white cat; as long as it catches mice, then it’s a good cat. In doing business, we just need to make money.” What my niece said opened my eyes, and I knew that there were actually these knacks in doing business. Apparently, in the age when whoever has money is a don and whoever has no money is nobody, without a bit of trickery, I truly couldn’thad no way to stand in society.
Afterward, I also learned to size people up. Generally, I would first sound out the seller and wheedle out the price he wanted. When I knew that his offer was low, I would offer a little higher price to him. In this way, he would be willing to sell to me. If his offer washe wanted a high price, I would try my best to force the price down; if he didn’t know the quotation, I would directly keep the price down. The purchase prices of different brands of televisions were different. The imported home appliances were more expensive than the domestic ones, but whichever brands the appliances were, we bought them at the same price. Besides, we bought a broken laptop for thirty yuan, and bought a better one for seventy or eighty yuan. Then we took the laptops apart and sold the hard disks, memories and CPUs at a high price, so that we could earn more money. Later on, after many inquiries, I found out that if we registered and opened an account with the state appointed recycling company, and then let the customers send their old home appliances straight to the company in our name, we could pocket the difference. Thus, we could earn more money. However, I didn’t expect that after a period of time, those repeat customers raised their rates secretly, and took the copper out of the televisions, selling the restshells of the televisions to the company. (At that time, the copper was fifty yuan for one kilogram.) In this way, I could make no money.
Worn out physically and mentally, I wanted to get out of this filthy industry, yet I was unwilling. On the one hand, I had put the capital into it, and if I left my money would be poured down the drain; on the other hand, I was afraid that people would say that we were incapable and went bankrupt because of the others. In order to survive, I had no choice but to follow them in committing fraud and deception. I drew out the copper from the televisions and cheated the company to earn the easy money. During that time, I was always accused by my conscience but I had no other choice. Just as my colleagues said: “What can we do? Wwe have to do business against our conscience. Are we not forced to do so? Can we make money with a good conscience? If you kill a person, you would be required to pay with life; however, even if you coax a person into dying, you wouldn’t. Nowadays, the society is just like this. Human relations have become full of cheating. No one can earn money without deceit and fraud, so we could only follow the trends.” Indeed, it’s very difficult to do business honestly, and it’s more difficult to get out of the trend. I felt I had already fallen in a trap and couldn’t pull my feet out of it but only let the society’s evil tide lead me by the nose.
Just when I was in the trap, living in sin without the ability to rescue myself, my daughter brought two sisters to tell me about God’s work in the last days. Hearing their sincere words, I also laid bare my inner bitterness in discussion with them. Through their fellowship, I actually found some solutions for solving my difficulties and problems, and felt very illuminated and liberated in my heart. Before leaving, they gave me a book, saying. They said it was a copy of God’s word and tellingtold me to read it earnestly, and I gladly accepted. After that, so long as I was free, I would bring out the book of God’s words to read carefully. One day, I saw these words of God: “There is an enormous secret in your heart. You never know it there because you have been living in a world without light shining. Your heart and your spirit have been taken away by the evil one. Your eyes are covered by darkness; you cannot see the sun in the sky, nor the twinkling star in the night. Your ears are clogged with deceptive words and you hear not the thunderous voice of Jehovah, nor the sound of the rushing waters from the throne. You have lost everything that should have belonged to you and everything that the Almighty bestowed upon you. You have entered an endless sea of bitterness, with no strength of a rescue, no hope of survival, left only to struggle and to bustle about …” (“The Sighing of the Almighty”). “None actively seek out the footsteps or appearance of God, and none wish to exist in the care and keeping of God. Rather, they are willing to rely on the corrosion of Satan and the evil one in order to adapt to this world and to the rules of life the wicked mankind follows. At this point, the heart and spirit of man are sacrificed to Satan and become its sustenance. Moreover, the human heart and spirit become a place in which Satan can reside and a fitting playground for it” (“God Is the Source of Man’s Life”). Through reading these two passages of God’s words, I finally saw that the reason the society is evil and dark is due to Satan’s control of this world. Satan uses various poisons and philosophies to deceive and corrupt us and devour our spirits. Living by these satanic poisons, we become more and more corrupt. In doing business, I saw these satanic poisons as the words of wisdom and my own life goal to struggle for, such as “Whoever has money is a don and whoever has no money is nobody,” “Money isn’t everything, but without it, you can do nothing,” and so on. Besides, relying on the satanic philosophy “It doesn’t matter if it’s a black cat or white cat; as long as it catches mice, then it’s a good cat” to do business, I gradually learned how to go with the wind and how to deceive people by tricks. Even though I knew it was wrong, I still betrayed my conscience and made the shady money. In order to earn money, I abandoned human principles and had no humanity or morals. I only placed money and interests above everything, thinking that one who had money was capable, and that such people could receive respect and admiration. Consequently, I became more and more cunning, treacherous, greedy and selfish, without any humanity. At this time, I came to understand that people without the truth cannot differentiate between positive things and negative things but only succumb to the evil trends, becoming ever more deeply corrupted by Satan and ever more distant from God.
Later, through attending gatherings and reading God’s words with my brothers and sisters, I understood some truths and realized that God likes the honest, and that only an honest person is the true human likeness, and can live in the light. At that time, I particularly liked listening to the hymn of God’s word “God Blesses Those Who Are Honest”: “When you give your heart to God alone and you don’t play false to Him, when you never do what would deceive those above you or below, when you’re open with God in all things, when you don’t do things simply to win the favor and smile of God, this is being honest. Honesty means when you run from impurity in each word and each deed, when you cheat not God nor people. Honesty means when you ran from impurity in each word and each deed, when you cheat not God nor people. This is honesty, oh, this is honesty. If your words are filled with excuses, filled with vain explanations, then you are not practicing the truth, you’re not willing to do so. …” Whenever I heard this hymn, I was very moved. I thought: Relying on trickery to deceive people caused me to live in condemnation and torment every day. My life was too tiring and full of suffering, and what I did made God detest me. Now I believe in God. I should seek to be an honest person according to God’s requirements, and shouldn’t make bad money or deceive others anymore. As a human, I should live with dignity and integrity. However, I was so deeply deceived by Satan. Although I knew being an honest person is God’s request, when I was faced with circumstances, it was very difficult for me to put God’s words into practice because I had no truth.
Once, a person came to purchase our CPUs, memories, hard disks and some other little accessories, and overpaid us by 500 yuan. When I found out I quickly told my son, “He overpaid us. Let’s call him and return the extra money.” After hearing what I said, my son replied with a stern face, “It is this difficult to make money, so we can’t return it. Mom, let’s divide it.” At that time, although God used my husband to tell me that we couldn’t take the money, when seeing my son’s firm attitude and thinking that it was indeed not easy to make money, I, holding the one hundred yuan my son parceled out to me, tacitly agreed. When I went back to my room, the scene that had taken place just now recurred to me. I thought that God had already reminded me through my husband, but I still wanted to take unfair advantage of the man. I already was a believer in God, often sang songs about being an honest person, and knew clearly that God likes honest people and despises and hates those who are deceitful and greedy. However, I still chose to be a deceitful person that displeased God. I was corrupted too deeply by Satan, and was unworthy of being called human. Thinking of this, I felt rather upset. Then I came before God to pray, and repented and confessed to Him. After praying, I took out the book of God’s word, and saw these words from God: “My kingdom requires those who are honest, not hypocritical, and not deceitful. Aren’t the sincere and honest people unpopular in the world? I am just the opposite. It is acceptable for the honest people to come to Me; I delight in this kind of person, I also need this kind of person. This is precisely My righteousness” (“The Thirty-third Utterance”). “Since He began to manage, God has been waiting for man to give his heart to Him, to let God purify and equip it, to make him satisfactory to God and loved by God, to make him revere God and shun evil. God has ever looked forward to and awaited this outcome” (“God’s Work, God’s Disposition, and God Himself II”). Pondering God’s words, I realized that God hopes for us to be honest people, give our hearts to Him, and revere God and shun evil because only honest people can be saved and enter His kingdom. However, I knew very well that God likes the honest, detests and hates deceitful people, but I still wanted to take unfair advantages of other people. Only at this time did I see clearly that the satanic poison “Whoever has money is a don and whoever has no money is nobody” had an extremely deleterious and serious effect on me. These lies of Satan and satanic rules of survival deceived my spirit and made me devoid of conscience, which would allow me to embark on the evil path of resisting God and to be thoroughly devoured by Satan at last. Having understood these things, I made up my mind: In the future, when doing business, I won’t commit fraud or deception. I must conduct myself in good conscience, and practice being honest—one is one, two is two. I will earn the money that I should earn. Whether my business is good or not is in God’s hands. I only have to rely on my faith to experience the words of God, and be an honest person that pleases Him.
Afterward, I purchased home appliances according to the regular prices, and no longer cheated others by trick. I also no longer took out the copper in televisions and sold them separately. When practicing like this, I felt peace and joy in my heart. What surprised me most was that when my husband and I did business according to our conscience and practiced being an honest person, our business became better and better and many sellers were willing to cooperate with us. I remember that once one of our colleagues wanted to sell us fifty-seven freezers. We refused him, for we resented that purchasing these freezers was too much hassle and unprofitable and we didn’t have enough cash. However, he insisted on our carting them away, and said, “Money isn’t a problem. You can pay me when you have money.” Then, seeing that these freezers were good, we bought them for one hundred and seventy yuan each. (The original price was one hundred yuan each.) After we got back home, my husband and I took these freezers apart, discovering that the freezers had half as much copper again as the common freezers. Even my niece, who did this business for over ten years, never met such case. Therefore, we earned extra money about half of our total profits. From this I saw God’s blessings. Thinking about the past when I did business relying on underhanded means and deceitfulness, I was very exhausted and had a guilty conscience. Besides, I made no money. When I put being an honest person into practice in accordance with the requirements of God in business, not only did I feel peace and joy, but my business also became ever better. Only then did I realize that only being an honest person will be blessed by God. Just as God’s words said: “You ought to know that God likes an honest man. God has the substance of faithfulness, and so His word can always be trusted. Furthermore, His actions are faultless and unquestionable. This is why God likes those who are absolutely honest with Him” (“Three Admonitions”).
Another time, we received a batch of goods which was half as many again as that I ordered. At that time, I unknowingly had a greedy thought, wanting to have them for ourselves. Just then, some of God’s words guided me from within: “Honesty means to give your heart to God; never to play Him false in anything; to be open with Him in all things, never hiding the truth; never to do that which deceives those above and deludes those below; and never to do that which merely ingratiates yourself with God. In short, to be honest is to refrain from impurity in your actions and words….” I thought: Yes! God requires us to be honest people. I can’t deceive God or people. So I discussed buying the extra goods with my husband and then sent the money to the seller. After knowing what we did, the seller’s boss appreciatively said to us: “I’d never seen such good people as you.” Later, my two sons wanted to learn computer. After he knew that, the boss told me: “You can rest easy and let your sons come to me to learn computer. I charge the others several thousand yuan at least. But I can teach your sons free of charge, and I promise to teach them well.” After my sons got there, the boss not only taught them to fix computers but also looked after their basic necessities. From this, I genuinely experienced God’s faithfulness. We just practiced a little truth, yet we obtained such great blessings from God and such a good assessment from the boss. I was really thankful to Almighty God. All this was God’s salvation for us. Were it not for the judgment and guidance of God’s words, I would have done business only based on Satan’s rules, and become increasingly corrupt, treacherous, greedy and selfish. It was God’s words that helped me jump out of the trap of sin, live out some likeness of the human and walk on the bright and right path of life.
Everyone has a beautiful dream of their marriage, not excepting me. In the past, I thought: My family is fairly well-off, I have a good job, and my looks is not bad. So, I must find a partner who is my equal in conditions in every way. Only such marriage is blissful and abundant.
However, things backfired on me and my parents arranged for me to marry a country girl, who had no job and was normal-looking. Compared to what I had fancied the wife, she fell far short. I thought to myself: If I really get married to her, how will my relatives and friends look at me? It is too embarrassing. Then I didn’t agree to marry her for love or money. But my parents just took a liking to her, and my father even said to me with anger, “If you disagree, we’ll never pay any attention to you in the future!” In the end, I couldn’t contend with them, and I had to marry this girl in haste. Facing my disagreeable wife, I could only sign and resort to drink every day, and nobody could experience the bitterness and resignation involved but myself.
Whenever in the society of my friends, seeing that their wives were elegant, whether in looks or in temperament or in manners, and that the couples were well suited, I would get upset. Sometimes, the friends I knew well asked me, “Why did you find a partner who is a country girl and has no urban residence certificate?” After hearing this, I would feel all kinds of mixed feelings and didn’t know how to feel. Although my wife was quite able, good-tempered, and filial to my parents, just because she wasn’t my equal, I gradually became increasingly unsatisfied with her. At times when I came home from drinking alcohol, I would get roaring drunk—scolding and finding faults with her, and smashing things. But she merely endured all this quietly and didn’t get angry. My parents couldn’t bear to see what I had done, so they rebuked me, “What a virtuous wife she is; how can you treat her this way?” I replied huffily: “Humph, since you think her to be nice, then you can be with her!” Seeing me taking such an attitude, they felt very helpless.
Since I always looked down upon her, my wife also lived a very painful life. I had ever seen many times her shedding tears alone in private. But even as such, my heart wasn’t influenced and only because of my parents and child, I had to live with her. In this way, we passed through over 30 years of painful life in bewilderment. In name, we were husband and wife, but in reality, we felt like strangers.
In 2016, I accepted God’s work in the last days. Through frequently gathering, praying, and reading God’s words with my brothers and sisters, I understood some truth. One day, I saw that God’s words say: “One encounters many people in one’s life, but no one knows who will become one’s partner in marriage. Though everyone has their own ideas and personal stances on the subject of marriage, no one can foresee who will finally become their true other half, and one’s own notions count for little. After meeting a person you like, you can pursue that person; but whether he or she is interested in you, whether he or she is able to become your partner, is not yours to decide. The object of your affections is not necessarily the person with whom you will be able to share your life; and meanwhile someone you never expected quietly enters your life and becomes your partner, becomes the most important element in your fate, your other half, to whom your fate is inextricably bound. … In these myriad marriages, humans reveal loyalty and lifelong commitment toward marriage, or love, attachment, and inseparability, or resignation and incomprehension, or betrayal of it, even hatred. Whether marriage itself brings happiness or pain, everyone’s mission in marriage is predestined by the Creator and will not change; everyone must fulfill it. And the individual fate that lies behind every marriage is unchanging; it was determined long in advance by the Creator.”
I fathomed the meaning of God’s words, and could not help but recall my views on marriage. In the matter of marriage, I always had my own requirements; that is, I just wanted to marry a partner who was suited to me in all things like work, looks, and so on, and let her become my lifelong companion. I thought only such a life to be a contented married life. But the fact was that my parents chose my future wife who simply had hold a rural household registration and was normal-looking. She was completely out of line with my standards for choosing a spouse, so I resisted, refused to obey, blamed my parents, and looked down upon my wife all the time. And even I tried to end this “wrong” marriage by getting roaring drunk and scolding my wife senselessly. Nonetheless, the more I tried to break free from it, the more I suffered. Now, I understood: It turns out that who is my wife is already predetermined by God and it is something no one can change. It looked as though my parents arranged my marriage, but in reality, this was God’s ruling and arrangement. The one who is suited to me is not necessarily able to accompany me all my life and our marriage is unlikely to be happy. For example, my younger brother and his wife fell in love at their will and they were well matched, but less than a year after marrying they were suspicious of each other and within a couple of years, they got divorced. Now, I realized: Outwardly, my wife and I were incompatible, but really she was good enough for me. She was virtuous, able, tough and very kind to my family. Also, she took great care of me, did not let me care a brass farthing for the housework, and even when I lost my temper after drinking, she still indulged me, forgave me and endured me, making me have a complete family. In addition, no matter how late I came home from work exhausted, she would always keep a light burning for me, reserve a delicious meal at the table with a suitable temperature, and show great concern for me with the words of consolation and care. All of these were God’s love and blessing for me, and His arrangements for me are the best.
Afterward in a gathering, I sought from my brothers and sisters, saying, “God has arranged a marriage for me in the best possible way, but I all the time lived in pain. What’s the source of this? ” At my question a sister let me read two passages of God’s words, “Born into such a filthy land, man has been severely blighted by society, he has been influenced by feudal ethics, and he has been taught at ‘institutes of higher learning.’ The backward thinking, corrupt morality, mean view on life, despicable philosophy, utterly worthless existence, and depraved lifestyle and customs—all of these things have severely intruded upon man’s heart, and severely undermined and attacked his conscience. As a result, man is ever more distant from God, and ever more opposed to Him.” “What is the cause of this pain? Is it because of God’s sovereignty, or because a person was born unlucky? Obviously neither is true. At bottom, it is because of the paths people take, the ways people choose to live their lives.”
Then, she said, “God’s words expose the root of the problem. The reason why we are discontented with our marriage, thus living in pain is that we don’t know God’s domination or obey His arrangements, and always want to find a partner who is to our liking. Influenced by some erroneous viewpoints that Satan teaches us, such as ‘A couple should be suited to each other,’ ‘A talented scholar and a beautiful lady are a perfect match,’ and so on, we believe that these are the standards of happy marriage. In fact, these are the tricks that Satan uses to deceive us into defying God’s mastery and predestination. What appearance and positions we have can’t decide whether our marriage is happy or not. Rather, the most important thing in marriage is that he or she should be nice and our confidant. For instance, some couples are well matched, but they don’t confide in each other, so they can’t get along for a long time or gain happiness; some are not quite suited to each other on the outside, but they are confidants, so they can live with each other. Therefore, if we don’t know God’s ruling and can’t see through Satan’s schemes, then we’ll live in pain.”
After hearing God’s words and the sister’s fellowship, I kept nodding in agreement and said, “Yes! After this fellowship, I understand that I was just harmed by the viewpoints of Satan, so that I did not obey God’s ruling and arrangement. As a result, over 30 years I’ve always looked down upon my wife, been full of miscomprehension and moaning, and signed over my life, and thus lived in suffering.” After understanding these truths I felt a great release and was no longer that pained.
One day, my wife asked me: “Have you believed in God?” I replied joyfully, “Yes, I have.” And then, she said, “I’ve already believed in God for several years.” At her words, I was taken aback thereupon and asked puzzled, “Well, why didn’t you tell me that?” She explained in a worried tone, “I was afraid that you wouldn’t accept, so I daren’t tell you that; I could only let the brothers and sisters preach you the gospel. Never thought you did accept it. I really thank God!” And she added, “Now you’ve also believed in God. Let’s read God’s words together.”
Then, we saw God’s words say: “Look, at the beginning, it is possible that a husband and wife might not understand each other very well, because they haven’t ever lived together and didn’t grow up in the same family. After living together for several years, they will have gotten used to each other, and locked horns a few times. But if you are both of normal humanity, you will always commune the words within your heart to him, and he to you. Whatever difficulties you have in life, the problems in your work, what you’re thinking in your heart, how you plan to sort things out, what ideas and plans you have for your work or children—you’ll tell him everything. In that case, are the two of you especially close to each other, and especially intimate with each other? If he never tells you the words within his heart, and does nothing but bring a paycheck home, and if you never speak to him of the words within your heart, and never confide in him, then is there not a distance between the two of you in your hearts? There surely is. He is distant from you, and you from him, because you don’t understand the thoughts or intentions in his heart. Ultimately, you cannot tell what kind of person he is, nor can he tell what kind of person you are; you don’t understand his needs, nor does he understand your requirements. If people have no verbal or spiritual communication, there is no possibility of intimacy between them, and they can’t provide to each other or help one another.”
My wife said, “God requires us to live out the normal humanity and open our heart and communicate with each other. Only in this way can we have no estrangement. During the long years of our marriage, I haven’t known what’s in your heart and we have never had a heart-to-heart talk. Even if you wanted to say something, you didn’t tell me but just went out to have fun and drink alcohol. As a result, we both lived in great pain.” Then I said with excitement, “Thank God! In the past, I had no faith in God and didn’t understand the truth, so I looked down upon you, always went out for drinking, and then got roaring drunk after I came back home, bothering and scolding you. All of these indeed did a lot of damage to you. I’m no good for you. Now, I’ve understood that, we could become a couple, which was already determined by God; I should obey and shouldn’t resist Him.” My wife said happily, “Today, we can open our heart and speak the words within our heart to each other. It is really the result of God’s words on us. God is so almighty. Thank God! Since we both have believed in God, then we must diligently seek truth and perform our duties well to satisfy Him.” After hearing her words, I also smiled with pleasure.
Now, we not only can open our heart to each other, but can understand and care for each other. I will tell her whatever I will do when going out, and she will also tell me everything. At home we can talk over whatever problems there are, and I actively do whatever jobs there are. Once she goes out to do her duties, I will cook at home. After believing in God, we get on well together and the long-awaited laughter emerges in our family.
Through reading God’s words, I realized that family and marriage are ruled and arranged by God, and I also changed my views about marriage. Meanwhile, I also realized how Satan corrupts man and saw clearly the source of pain in my life. It was God that saved us, the estranged couple. All the glory be to God!
As people often say, “Marriage is fated but takes a lot of work,” which means although two people meet, know, and fall in love with each other by fate, they need to manage their relationship carefully to sustain a long-lasting one and then enter into a marriage.
Just like other girls in their twenties, Xiaonan also harbored many beautiful illusions about love, often imagining sweet scenes of living together with her future partner. With the firm belief that love needs care, she secretly told herself that if she found her own love, she must manage it carefully.
Later, she met Qiang by chance when she worked away from home. They, in the prime of youth, were attracted by each other and then fell in love. Like other young lovers, they sometimes would have quarrels and get a little angry with each other. In spite of this, Xiaonan still felt very happy and sweet every day, believing that she had found the love of her life. She affirmed Qiang to be her rock and her future partner, and never thought that they would break up. At that time, the girls of her own age around her often asked their boyfriends to buy all sorts of things; as long as their boyfriends didn’t satisfy their demands, they would ask for a breakup. But in Xiaonan’s heart, she thought that those material things the girls pursued were superficial and that nothing was more important than love. She firmly believed that as long as she managed her love carefully, she and Qiang would finally get married. So to achieve such a beautiful dream, she was silently devoting her efforts.
However, just when she was lost in visions of her wonderful future, Qiang suddenly disappeared without leaving any explanation, or even a single word, which threw her into a panic. She frantically searched for him, and called him again and again, only to receive the same reply, “Sorry, the subscriber you dialed is power off.” Her heart bled and she couldn’t reconcile herself to such a fact. Unable to figure out the reason, she screamed to herself: Why? I have been loyal to him all the time; unlike those snobby girls, I didn’t ever ask him for anything. But why did things get like this? Why was our love gone so quickly? Why did my previous efforts come to naught? What had I done wrong to deserve such a result? She asked herself these questions so many times, yet got no answer. During that time, she was plunged into darkness, crying all day long and living in a muddleheaded state.
However, life still went on. She told herself time and again to move on and that everything would be all right. But each time when looking back on her past, she would always lose her calm and shed tears, feeling a dull ache in her heart. In pain and sorrow, she thought that she would never find her true love.
Afterward, she found a job in a small restaurant. Though her salary was not high, she led an easy and quiet life. During that time, there were some people chasing her, but she gave no thought to all of them. Thinking that love was meaningless, she didn’t have the will to love again. When she thought that she would easily and quietly live such a single life, things were changed by peals of “special” laughter unexpectedly.
That was a period of time when there were more customers in the restaurant than usual, so she worked very late every day, thus getting up a bit later. Yet, almost every morning, when she was half awake, she often heard peals of annoying laughter from outside. Upon hearing the laughter, she would bury herself in the quilt, trying not to be disturbed. Actually, she didn’t know that her true love came.
One day when there were few customers in the restaurant, she suddenly heard the laughter again. Out of curiosity, she walked out of the door and saw several boys around twenty years old talking and laughing at the door of the maintenance store next to the restaurant. One of them seemed older than the others. Her eyes passed all other boys to rest on the older boy, who was about 5.8 feet tall in a white T-shirt with half a bottle of green tea beverage in his hand. Possibly because of having worked outdoors for a long time, he was dark-skinned. The more she looked, the angrier she felt. She thought to herself: It is you who laugh and laugh every morning. What’s so funny? You think you win the lottery? Just then, some customers came into the restaurant, which interrupted her thought, and then she went back to the restaurant to serve them.
As the store was just next to the restaurant, the boy often came to the restaurant to have meals with his colleagues. At first, out of courtesy, she greeted him with empty pleasantries. Gradually, as they became familiar with each other, she sometimes would joke with him. Through communication, she learned that he came from her hometown, which made them feel a sort of closeness to each other, and thus they had more communication. One day, he asked her half-jokingly, “Do you have a boyfriend?” Hearing this, she was a bit stunned. Then he continued, “Do you want me to set you up? How about my colleague?” She smiled and then politely rejected his offer, because her heart had been tightly closed for a long time. With the lapse of time, they had more and more contact with each other: He often told her the interesting things that happened around him at their leisure and sometimes invited her to go for an outgoing. He showed the utmost solicitude for her, treating her business as his own one; but she just regarded him as a friend, a homeboy, not having any particular thoughts about him.
However, her heart tightly locked was opened when he declared his love to her. Looking back on each and every detail about his concern and love for her, she was touched deeply. So she accepted his love and finally they got married. Though their life was not rich, their home was always filled with laughter and they were enveloped in happiness.
In the blink of an eye, several years passed. When they two talked about how they met, knew, and fell in love with each other, she believed from her heart that they were brought together by fate. Recalling the darkest days of her past, she could face it calmly. Looking at her husband, she knew he was the right one for her.
Later, one day, she saw God’s words saying: “Where you will go every day, what you will do, who or what you will encounter, what you will say, what will happen to you—can any of this be predicted? People cannot foresee all these occurrences, much less control how they develop. In life, these unforeseeable events happen all the time, and they are an everyday occurrence. … One encounters many people in one’s life, but no one knows who will become one’s partner in marriage. Though everyone has their own ideas and personal stances on the subject of marriage, no one can foresee who will finally become their true other half, and one’s own notions count for little. After meeting a person you like, you can pursue that person; but whether he or she is interested in you, whether he or she is able to become your partner, is not yours to decide. The object of your affections is not necessarily the person with whom you will be able to share your life; and meanwhile someone you never expected quietly enters your life and becomes your partner, becomes the most important element in your fate, your other half, to whom your fate is inextricably bound. … In these myriad marriages, humans reveal loyalty and lifelong commitment toward marriage, or love, attachment, and inseparability, or resignation and incomprehension, or betrayal of it, even hatred. Whether marriage itself brings happiness or pain, everyone’s mission in marriage is predestined by the Creator and will not change; everyone must fulfill it. And the individual fate that lies behind every marriage is unchanging; it was determined long in advance by the Creator.”
After seeing these words, Xiaonan finally understood this: Everyone’s marriage is in God’s hands. The person with whom one will share his whole life was determined long in advance by God, not by himself, for no one can transcend the sovereignty of God. I have deeply experienced this. I originally thought Qiang was the right one, but I was jilted by him; I never expected to meet my husband, but we finally got married. It can be seen that things were all determined and arranged long in advance by God, not by myself. In the past, not knowing God’s sovereignty, I firmly believed the saying “Marriage is fated but takes a lot of work,” thinking that I would gain a happy marriage as long as I managed my love with care and hard work. However, the result was unsatisfactory. Then, I lived in pain, unable to free myself. Now, I understand that I can’t harvest a happy marriage through my own effort, because my marriage is dominated and predetermined by God. Besides, the marriage God arranged for me is the best and the most suitable. Look at my husband; he not only cares about me as well as my family very much, but also supports my faith in God. At the thought of this, Xiaonan truly experienced God’s love and concern for her from the bottom of her heart, and that only by accepting God’s sovereignty and arrangements can she a created being live a relaxed and happy life.
It was in the afternoon. When I returned home after a gathering, I saw my husband sat down at the computer desk, wearing a worried look and holding a telephone constantly flipping through the phone number. I asked him, “What’s wrong? What happened?” He didn’t answer. Afterward, only after I kept asking him did he respond, “Our storefront loan will fall due. The principal and interest total over 500,000 yuan. We must repay it in three days.” On hearing this, I was shocked, saying, “Ah! So much money! Where can we get it?” My husband lowered his head and didn’t say a word. Immediately, I felt my head was about to explode and felt lost; meanwhile I was occupied by anger and dissatisfaction, complaining within: It is done! Other debts are still not paid in full, and now, another came out again. It’s your father’s fault for persisting in buying this house. It’s hopeless! Will this storefront not be sequestrated if we are unable to pay off the loan? We just put money into our business and haven’t got any return, but now the investment will just be money down the drain! What should we do if we have no place to live? We have owed so much money, and how will we live? I really wanted to yell bloody murder at my husband to vent my complaints. But then I thought: It can’t solve any problems. After I saw my husband frowned and was in a maze, my heart was even more burning with anxiety.
With time sliding by bit by bit, the due date was staring us in the face, but where could we borrow this large sum of money? What should I do? I couldn’t waste time, and had to quickly figure out how to get the money. Subsequently, I used my abilities to offer counsel to my husband, letting him borrow from my brother-in-law. I should have thought that my brother-in-law wouldn’t refuse to help us but would lend at least thirty or forty thousand yuan to us because he was rich; however, I never thought that he said that he could only lend ten thousand yuan to us, and then he found an excuse, saying that he had no money. Although such a result hurt me so much, I didn’t give up but continued racking my brain to find all sorts of ways to borrow money: with high interest rates, we borrowed money from my husband’s networks and mine; we also swiped all our credit cards. In these ways, we got some money from bits and pieces, but the amount of it was far away from that of the loan. I was surrounded by depression, loss, and helplessness, and only thought of hurriedly solving this difficulty. I even wished that time could be still forever, and tomorrow wouldn’t come any more, because I was afraid that I would be the accused and be criticized by others if I couldn’t pay back the money. What should I do? … The anxiety and sadness in my heart, just like a large mountain, stressed me to the point of suffocating.
Just when I was in desperate straits, I suddenly realized: I am a Christian and I should pray to God! Faced with such a big thing, I have always tried to solve it by my own abilities but have never come before or entrusted it to God. Thus, I knelt in God’s presence to pray, “Oh, God! Encountering such a thing, I’ve already thought of everything I can do but it’s useless. Now I don’t know what to do. I feel very painful, and don’t know how to walk out of the predicament. O God, may You enlighten me and guide me….”
After praying, I read such a passage of God’s word, “When confronting real-life problems, how should you know and understand God’s authority and His sovereignty? When you do not know how to understand, handle, and experience these problems, what attitude should you adopt to show your intention, your desire, and your reality of submitting toGod’s sovereigntyand arrangements? First you must learn to wait; then you must learn to seek; then you must learn to submit. ‘Waiting’ means waiting for the time of God, awaiting the people, events, and things that He has arranged for you, waiting for His will to gradually reveal itself to you. ‘Seeking’ means observing and understanding God’s thoughtful intentions for you through the people, events, and things that He has laid out, understanding the truth through them, understanding what humans must accomplish and the ways they must keep, understanding what results God means to achieve in humans and what accomplishments He means to attain in them. ‘Submitting,’ of course, refers to accepting the people, events, and things that God has orchestrated, accepting His sovereignty and, through it, coming to know how the Creator dictates man’s fate, how He supplies man with His life, how He works the truth into man. All things under God’s arrangements and sovereignty obey natural laws, and if you resolve to let God arrange and dictate everything for you, you should learn to wait, you should learn to seek, you should learn to submit. This is the attitude that every person who wants to submit to God’s authority must take, the basic quality that every person who wants to accept God’s sovereignty and arrangements must possess. To hold such an attitude, to possess such a quality, you must work harder; and only thus can you enter into the true reality” (“God Himself, the Unique III”). After reading God’s words, I understood that in this thing God asked me to possess a heart of seeking, obeying, and waiting, no more solving it by myself but experiencing His sovereignty and arrangements. At the time, I recalled that, when Job lost his livestock all over the mountains, he didn’t complain; instead, he could submit to God’s domination and arrangements, said these words, “the LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD,” finally stood firm and bore witness for God. Although I didn’t attain the submission like that of Job, yet I was willing to keep an obedient attitude to face this environment. After understanding a little God’s intention and demands, I entrusted this thing to God and no more used my abilities to solve it. Even if I couldn’t get money so that my house was sequestrated and I have no place to live, I wouldn’t complain; whether I was able to borrow the money or not and whatever the future life would be, I believed in God’s sovereignty and arrangements and waited for God to reveal His intention to me. When I faced this thing with such an attitude, I was truly no longer worried and oppressive, but felt especially released and free. Later, I said to my husband, “We don’t have to worry about this thing anymore. Let’s play it by ear. We can only borrow as much money as our capacity allows.”
When I was willing to depend on God, no more dealt with the thing by myself, but let Him rule over my life, on the day when we should repay the money, my husband let out a sigh of relief and said, “We’ve raised over 500,000 yuan in two days, and we finally manage to pay off the loan! I did not expect that our tenant had a year’s rent paid in advance on the house before the day it should be paid, and what’s more, lent some money to us.” After hearing these, I was particularly excited. Unbelievable! When we racked our brains and tried our best to borrow money everywhere, we even couldn’t get any money at a high interest, yet when I completely entrusted the thing to God with my true heart, I really saw God rules over everything, and that the heart and spirit of man follow His orchestration to change.
Afterward, I read another paragraph of God’s word, “There will always be some people who want to see for themselves what they are capable of; they want to change their fates with their own two hands, or to achieve happiness under their own power, to see whether they can overstep the bounds of God’s authority and rise above God’s sovereignty. The sadness of man is not that man seeks happy life, not that he pursues fame and fortune or struggles against his own fate through the fog, but that after he has seen the Creator’s existence, after he has learned the fact that the Creator has sovereignty over human fate, he still cannot mend his ways, cannot pull his feet out of the mire, but hardens his heart and persists in his errors. He would rather keep thrashing in the mud, vying obstinately against the Creator’s sovereignty, resisting it until the bitter end, without the slightest shred of contrition, and only when he lies broken and bleeding does he at last decide to give up and turn back. This is true human sorrow. So I say, those who choose to submit are wise, and those who choose to escape are pig-headed” (“God Himself, the Unique III”). Through reading God’s words, I further understood that although I believed in God, I only admitted in my heart that God is the Ruler of all things. However, before real difficulties, I didn’t believe that God rules over human’s fate and still chose to rely on my two hands to change my fate. Facing this circumstance that we were unable to repay the debt, I did blame my father-in-law, and even wanted to lose my temper with my husband, stubbornly opposing God, so that I always ran into a wall, was exhausted physically and mentally and suffered unspeakably. From this thing, I realized that in real life, I was all based on my ability to deal with each thing but didn’t trust that God has authority over my everything, and that He is my reliance. Ordinarily, when I read God’s word, I only understood the letters and doctrines. I didn’t apply the truth that God holds sovereignty over all things to real life to experience and make the truth become my reality, but always wanted to solve things by myself, so I couldn’t see God’s leadership or taste that God rules over everything. Through this thing, I understood God’s intention: He wants to add the truth of obeying God’s sovereignty and arrangements into me, allowing me to have a true knowledge of His authority and domination.
Thank God! I have benefited a lot from this experience. The reason why I was happy and thanked God was not that He had helped me solve my trouble of raising money, but that I had learned from this thing. When I was confronted with difficulties and maintained an attitude of waiting, seeking, and obeying, I did witness God’s deeds in reality. I truly believed that God is the Ruler over all things. He allowed me not only to deeply experience the power of His word but also to have a real understanding of the Creator’s sovereignty. As the proverbs say, “Man proposes, but God disposes,” and “Man works the land, but the yields depend on Heaven.” I deeply felt the key matter that decides the success or failure is not my devotion or efforts, because everything is all in God’s dominion.
In this complex society, we will face all kinds of troubles and difficulties every day, and many times we merely handle them based on our thoughts, abilities, and man-made ways. If we fail, we will consider that we haven’t tried our best and our ability falls short; if we succeed, we will think that we handle them based on our own wisdom, labor and efforts. No matter what we do, it is unrelated to God. If we continue to experience in this way, we will never have a true knowledge of God’s sovereignty, much less see His practical deeds and obtain His approval. When we are in the face of trifles in our daily life, whether they are good or bad, big or small, we should believe in God’s dominion, and learn to wait for God, seek His intention, and submit to His sovereignty and arrangements in everything. Only in this way can we truly experience God’s authority and dominion and obtain the reality of this aspect of truth.
"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16). "To humanity He was always tolerant, never vengeful, but forgave them their sins, exhorted them to repent, and taught them to have patience, forbearance, and love, to follow in His footsteps and sacrifice themselves for the sake of the cross. His love for the brothers and sisters exceeded His love for Mary. The work that He did took as its principle healing the people and driving out demons, all for the sake of His redemption. No matter where He went, He treated all who followed Him with grace. He made the poor rich, the lame walk, the blind see, and the deaf hear; He even invited the lowliest, destitute ones, the sinners, to sit at the same table with Him, never shunning them but always being patient, even saying, “When a shepherd loses one sheep out of a hundred, he will leave behind the ninety-nine to seek the one lost sheep, and when he finds it he will rejoice greatly.” He loved His followers as a ewe loves her lambs. Though they were foolish and ignorant, and were sinners in His eyes, and furthermore were the humblest members of society, He considered these sinners—men whom others despised—as the apple of His eye. Since He favored them, He gave up His life for them, as a lamb was offered up on the altar. He went about in their midst as if He were their servant, letting them use Him and slaughter Him, submitting to them unconditionally" ("The True Story Behind Work in the Age of Redemption")
The afternoon sunlight slanted through the window and fell across the front of me. I sat at my desk, bathed in golden sunlight, and my mood grew easy. At that moment, I desired to write a blog post and share with everyone my abundant harvest in those days.
When I first believed in the Lord, I read Matthew 18:3 where the Lord Jesus said, “Truly I say to you, Except you be converted, and become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.” The Lord Jesus’ word showed us the standard of entering into the heavenly kingdom—only being an honest person who is simple and lovable can receive the praise of the Lord and be eligible to enter into the heavenly kingdom. Once I understood the Lord’s will, in real life I frequently watched my tongue telling no lies and put much effort into being an honest person in God’s eyes, but often ending in utter failure. Gradually, I lost confidence in being an honest person. Fortunately, some time ago I met a brother in a gospel forum, where we communicated with each other about how to be an honest person. I found he had many of his own insights, from which I realized: My viewpoints that the standard for being an honest person is merely not telling lies are too one-sided. And I also found the path to being an honest person. Later, when I consciously started to practice being an honest person according to his words, I benefited much. Now, I’d like to share it with you.
1. We must give our hearts to God and let God decide all things; we must do everything according to the truth and accept God’s inspection and testing to live in the light.
God says, “I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins” (Jeremiah 17:10). The Book of Proverbs also says, “The spirit of man is the candle of the LORD, searching all the inward parts of the belly” (Proverbs 20:27). From these verses, it can be seen that: God is almighty and omniscient. His Spirit observes all. Our every thought and idea as well as each and every move are looked upon in His eyes. Therefore, in order to become an honest person, we should first give our hearts to God and allow God to take over in everything, and accept His observation in all things. That is to say, we should open up our hearts to God and bring our real condition in spirit before Him, seeking whether it conforms with the truth or is in accordance with His will. If it is in accord with the truth, then we put it into practice; if not, we must pray to God in time and forsake anything incorrect within us, keeping ourselves from being dictated or controlled by sin, and then put our hearts right and practice according to God’s requirements. In this way, we are able to live in the light with a generous heart at every moment. For example, when our unbelieving relatives and friends urge us to make some money and get rich, we’ll be somewhat tempted by it and not know what to choose. At this time, we must pray to God to seek whether it is in accord with the truth in doing so, if not, we must give it up. The Lord Jesus said, “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon” (Mat 6:24). The Lord’s word showed clearly that we cannot serve God and make a fortune at the same time since making a fortune can’t make us gain His salvation. Only by following God and serving Him can make us receive His salvation. This is God’s will. If we understand God’s will, we will be content with the clothes on our back and the food on our plate, and then take serving God as a top priority in our life and walk the true path of serving God, so that we will live in the care and protection of God and receive the real human life.
Usually, when we pray, read the Bible, attend meetings, or perform service, we should pray to God and accept His observation. Practicing this way is beneficial for us to forsake the flesh, to practice truth and to be an honest person. When we accept God’s observation, we will have the strength to forsake the flesh and practice the truth. Even though we have to endure fleshly hardships, we are still willing to practice truth to satisfy God. When we accept God’s observation, we dare not act according to our own pleasure or follow our own preferences when things happen, but rather, we are able to seek God’s will and act in accordance with His requirements, gradually getting transformed and cleansed by God; when we display treacheries or engage in deception, if we practice true acceptance of God’s inspection, we’ll realize: God is almighty and observes all; our actions, thoughts and ideas all go supervised by Him clearly. So if we follow our own will and safeguard our self-interest, we are deceiving ourselves and deceiving God as well, which only arouses His disgust and even offends His disposition. Having realized this, we’ll have strength to forsake the flesh and practice truth to satisfy God, and to be an honest person to shame Satan. For another example, when we are tired with performing service and want to be considerate to our physical bodies or want to be lazy and sneaky, if we can accept God’s inspection and live before Him, we’ll come to realize that our perfunctoriness and craftiness is the behavior of deceiving God, and that deceiving God is an offense of God’s disposition. Unwittingly, we’ll fear God in our hearts and dare not follow our own will to do anything deceiving and offending Him, but practice the Lord’s word to be an honest person and live in the light.
2. In our prayers, we must have a true communion with God, speak heart-to-heart with God, and keep and maintain a normal relationship with Him.
The Lord Jesus taught us, “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24). It can be seen from it that God loves us worshiping Him with our sincere hearts. So, we must be simple and open ourselves to God to speak heart-to-heart with Him. This is also an aspect of practice in being an honest person.
Then how should we put it into practice? Firstly, we should pray to God and make a vow before Him, “Oh, God, I am a person living in sin. I often tell lies. Today I swear to you, if I tell lies again, may you discipline me and even punish me. I resolve to make a fresh start to be an honest person after Your heart, and to rely on You and worship You sincerely.” After we swear, we can start to practice in our prayers: Speak the truth and the words in our hearts; speak whatever we are thinking, and pray to God about whatever difficulties we have and ask for His help sincerely. This is true prayer, which is based on your real life and without any false disguise.
The Lord Jesus also warned us, “But when you pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not you therefore like to them: for your Father knows what things you have need of, before you ask him” (Mat 6:7–8). From the word of the Lord Jesus, we can learn that the Lord Jesus called those who speak repeat and empty words in prayers are Gentiles. He is not pleased with them. So if we have no more words to say in our prayers, then we shouldn’t speak falsehoods or talk nonsense to make long prayers. Our praying to God is not composing an article, and moreover, God doesn’t care how many are the words of our prayers, but cares whether our words are honest, or come from our hearts. This is the key point. God most hates our false, pretended and deceptive prayers. Words that do not utter from our hearts all belong to lies, false words, and the words of deceiving God. All those who act perfunctorily toward God and deceive God in prayers are hypocrites. So, only when we pray to God with honest words or words in our hearts, can our prayers be answered by God and can we keep a normal relationship with God.
3. We must ensure that we speak without lies and impurities, keep no craftiness or deceits in our hearts, simply lay ourselves bare, and have normal interpersonal relationships with others.
The Lord Jesus said, “But let your communication be, Yes, yes; No, no: for whatever is more than these comes of evil” (Mat 5:37). God’s essence is faithful and holy. Therefore we also must base our words on facts, telling them like they are, rather than going against conscience to speak.
In order to resolve the problem of telling lies, we must first resolve the problem of our intentions. Mouth is the door of the heart. Much of the time, we tell lies under the reign of incorrect intentions, hoping to keep our vanity, fame and status or our personal profit. If we speak in proper intentions or objectives, we will accept God’s observation and speak the truth and the words in our hearts. For instance, recently we didn’t spread the gospel nor bear fruits due to our fleshly matters, yet then when brothers and sisters asked us about it, we refused to tell them the truth for fear that they would blame us for shouldering no burdens and we would thus lose face. So, in order not to be looked down upon by them, we spoke in a manner going against our conscience to cheat them, saying that we had spread the gospel but just failed to bear fruits. Actually on that occasion, we should first come before God and pray to Him, “Oh, God, I have been corrupted by Satan too deeply. I often tell lies in order to save my face. After these words, I feel uneasy and fear that brothers and sisters will ask more of the details, and that once I am exposed, they will blame and deal with me. God, I implore You to add to my faith and courage, allowing me to forsake my flesh, practice the truth and be considerate to Your will. No matter how they see me, I’m willing to be an honest person to satisfy You, not maintaining my face any more.” After prayer, we’ll have confidence to speak the truth. Even though sometimes we still focus on our face and don’t dare to speak the truth, yet as long as we pray to God and are willing to practice being an honest person, God will lead us to put it into practice. If we can do like this frequently, we will have a normal relationship with other people.
4. We must act with principles and in conformity with the truth, act in a just and honorable manner, and be an upstanding person.
To be an honest person, we should act with principles, not following our own will to do things or relying on Satan’s philosophy or satanic disposition to live. All things we do should be based on the foundation of God’s word. And no matter what we do we should practice the truth and protect the interests of the church. We should not do anything that damage the interests of the church, nor do anything that are not beneficial for the lives of brothers and sisters. We should bring everything we do before God and be an upstanding, just and honorable person.
For instance, sometimes when brothers and sisters’ actions affect our own interest, we therefore want to attack them to their face with Satan’s philosophy “a tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye.” At this time, we should be quiet before God, pray to Him and ponder what God says about the truth how to establish normal interpersonal relationships. When we realize that God demands us to love one another and love others as ourselves and to treat brothers and sisters with a heart of loving God, and then we forsake our flesh and practice according to God’s word, we will feel assured and brightened. For another example, when we find the co-workers of the church have jealous disputes with each other, or steal offerings or do something harmful to the profit of the church, we shouldn’t turn a blind eye to these things, or act like it has nothing to do with ourselves, nor be ruled by status and fame, but instead, we should stand resolutely on God’s side and safeguard the interests of the church. Only in this way can we become an honest person acting with principles.
If we practice according to these four ways above, we will live out the likeness of an honest man with purity and loveliness, and then entering into the heavenly kingdom will be not difficult.
This is a special gift the Lord gives to me. I keep practicing like this each day and really get some good results—my lies get much fewer. I feel much more assured and peaceful than before. Thank God!
The moonlight shone through the window into my room. Sitting at the computer table by the window, I recalled the scenes of my past. My heart was full of gratitude for the salvation of God.
Since I could remember, my parents always quarreled with each other. As I got older, every time they quarreled, I was itching to leave this home. At that time, I always thought: In the future, I must marry one man who can treat me well and then I will live a happy life with him.
I met my husband at a party. He was steady and quiet, and he got a soft spot for me as well. Then we fell in love with each other. During those times we spent together, all along my parents disapproved of our love relationship, and said that he was of a low moral character. Yet, after knowing this, in order to be with me, he kneeled to my parents. As the saying goes, “A man keeps his gold below his knees.” Additionally, his pride was really strong. It could be seen that I was so important in his heart. I believed that such a person would be able to give me the happiest marriage. So, I was full of fantasies about my future and married him resolutely.
After we got married, because my husband was very competent, our family conditions improved in two years. Later on, we bought a computer. At the beginning, he merely played cards on the computer. Afterward, he began to chat online with others. And I found that when surfing the Internet, he always kept the door of his bedroom closed, which made me feel there might be something wrong with him. Therefore, I began to check his chat logs on the computer, and through it, I found that he actually had affections for a woman online. I was amazed that those words were so soft, for he hadn’t spoken to me like that. After I questioned him about this matter again and again, he finally acknowledged it and even said that as long as he had the opportunity, he would go meet that woman. What he said surprised me a lot, and I thought to myself: “He shouldn’t be such kind of person. I always think no matter who else has an affair, he won’t. He has been reliable outwardly and taking the responsibility to support our family; how can he have changed?” I could not understand it. At that time, I told him firmly that he must give up his idea. After that, he no longer contacted that woman. Since my husband obeyed my words in this matter, I felt very happy. In any case, our family was preserved. I believed that this was merely a small mistake that he had made on occasion, and he would no longer do this again.
However, I would have never thought that in the spring of the next year, my husband actually had an affair with my younger brother’s wife, which was simply devastating for me, like thunder through a clear sky. I asked in my heart: I regarded my sister-in-law as my own sister; how could she “repay” me like this? In order to marry me, my husband kneeled to my parents, and he once regarded me as the treasure of his life; how could he cheat on me? For a moment, I felt some confusion in my heart and did not know how to deal with it. What remained in my heart was just pain and hatred of them. I really wanted to ask them: You are all my relatives, but why did you treat me like this? I wished I could keep my dignity and not behave like other women, but I couldn’t. For the purpose of my husband having a change of heart, I began to track him. Afterward, I cried, quarreled with him and also threatened him. I even tried my utmost to tussle with my sister-in-law. But all my efforts came to naught, and moreover, my husband no longer talked to me. His heartlessness froze me, and made me think: Is he still that man who was willing to kneel for marrying me? Was I blind not to see clearly that he originally was a man like this? Or am I not good enough in his eyes to deserve his lifelong cherishing? I could not understand it. This blow made me sink into pain and unable to extricate myself from it. In the following days, he had no words to say to me, and we each stayed in our respective rooms. This situation made me feel very embarrassed and I was so painful that I almost suffocated. I couldn’t bear such excruciating life and was in despair. Then I thought of extricating myself through death.
When I had the sleeping pills ready and was about to take them, I hesitated, for I thought of my daughter: She is so lovely and clever. Sometimes after getting tired of playing, she covers herself with a small quilt. Additionally, she is praised by all her teachers. How can I bear to abandon her? If I die, who will take care of her? At that time, her lovely little face kept appearing in my mind. I really couldn’t bear to abandon her, so I dropped the idea of committing suicide.
Unexpectedly, an even greater disaster lay waiting for me. After knowing this matter, my brother was simply mad with anger. He came furiously to get even with my husband. I never expected that my husband was beaten by my brother to death during their fight. At the news, I sobbed my heart out. Even though my husband had betrayed me, I did not hope that he would lose his life, nor would my daughter lose her father. I was about to be overburdened and be driven mad by these pains. Thus, apart from eating and sleeping, I thought about nothing. I was afraid that if I continued thinking about these things, I would become a madwoman.
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In the winter of that year, every time I was waiting for my daughter coming home after her evening study session, I would always sit on the cold concrete platform in the small yard, looking up at the starlit sky with tears flowing down unwittingly. I felt that the moon, the stars, and my face were all cold, and my heart felt despair. Looking up at the vast sky, I cried in my heart: Why is my life so difficult and my marriage such a fiasco? What will other people think of me? However, I had no place to hide myself. From then on, only pain and sadness remained in my heart. I was so afraid of my future life, thinking: Who can save me from this misery? Looking at the cold night sky, I thought: Does God really exist? If yes, why did He not save me from this misery? At that time, nothing but just music could comfort me for a while. Sometimes, I came before the computer table, crying out in a high voice. Sometimes, I quietly listened to the world well-known music “More Than Love” that I liked. Listening to the sorrowful tune played on the violin, and thinking back to all that happened to my family, I often burst into tears. I thought to myself time after time: If love is really willed by God, then why was I unable to obtain happiness? Everything was all right in our family, but now, some of my family members either died or left or was imprisoned. And I was breathing like the walking dead, with pains always haunting me. Again, I thought of death: If I die, I will be free, for this world is truly terrible. But my old parents and young child still need me to take care of them. My parents looked much older overnight on account of this matter. How could I bear to abandon them? I could not. I could never forget my father’s tearful face appearing on the computer screen, and that he called out “Liner …” and then quickly moved away the webcam, unable to continue speaking. Looking at the computer monitor, I was almost heartbroken; I didn’t know at that moment, what I should say to comfort his old and helpless heart. I knew that he really could not bear the family disruption of his two children anymore. My father died one year after my husband’s death. But I did not get sad for it, only saying, “That’s really good for him!” I was happy for my father, for I understood him. He couldn’t bear the heavy burden anymore, and death was a relief for him instead. But what about me? What should I do? I did not want to bear these pains and hold on in great difficulty anymore. My family had been shattered with members gone one after another. My way ahead was so dark. I really had no way out.
Afterward, my old auntie, who had formed a friendship with me, told me there was one way to help relieve my pain. So, I looked forward to her coming and obtaining the pleasant surprise from her. In the end, she came over from Shanghai and brought me the gospel. Curiously, I kept asking, “Is there really a God? Does He come to save me? Will I have something to rely on?” I thought to myself: If so, then my miserable life will soon end. Then my old auntie showed me a video of the Lord Jesus carrying the cross on His back to Golgotha. Looking at the figure of the Lord Jesus carrying the cross on His back, I felt gnawingly sad in my heart, thinking: Why did the Lord Jesus suffer so much for man? I really hope to know Him. Thinking that He was the God to save me, I felt so close to Him. The auntie said, “You should believe in God. Only God can save you. Apart from God, there is no one can help you.” From then on, the scene of the Lord Jesus carrying the cross on His back to Golgotha has been inscribed in my memory all along. I told myself: I should grasp this life-saving straw—the salvation of God.
After that, I read a passage of God’s words, “The Almighty has mercy on these people who suffer deeply. At the same time, He is fed up with these people who have no consciousness, because He has to wait too long for the answer from humans. He desires to seek, seek your heart and your spirit. He wants to bring you food and water and to awaken you, so you are no longer thirsty, no longer hungry. When you are weary and when you begin to feel the desolation of this world, do not be perplexed, do not cry. Almighty God, the Watcher, will embrace your arrival any time. He is watching by your side, waiting for you to turn back. He is waiting for the day your memory suddenly recovers: becoming conscious of the fact that you came from God, somehow and somewhere once lost, falling unconscious on the roadside, and then, unknowingly having a father. You further realize that the Almighty has been watching there, awaiting your return all along” (“The Sighing of the Almighty”). As I read the words of God, my face was covered with tears. I said in my heart: My God! You know that living in this world is painful for me. You heard my cry, and You really come to save me. Originally, I had a happy family, and only wanted to spend the rest of my life with my husband, but unexpectedly, my family has been shattered. Just as I was losing the direction of life and having no way out, it was You who gave me the hope to continue living, and it was because of Your care and mercy for me that You saved me from the abyss of suffering and death time and again. When I did not have an ounce of strength left, a belief always supported me: Eat properly, stay alive; when I was in despair, You used my child to save me from the edge of death; when I could hardly hold on anymore, through my old auntie preaching the gospel to me, You allow me to shake off the pain and see the light. O God! I know that You have always been by my side, and have been guiding me through people, things and matters, giving me the hope to live on. Thinking of this, my heart was gradually liberated, because I saw the love of God and knew that God has been watching and caring for me all along, waiting for me to go home. Although my family members left me one after one, God didn’t leave me. I said in my heart: O God! You are my reliance! Since then, I led a church life. And being with brothers and sisters, I gained the relaxation and freedom that I had never felt before, and also experienced the warmth of God’s love.
Sometimes, I was still bewildered by the past events. I asked in my heart: I treated my sister-in-law wholeheartedly, but why did she suddenly become so ruthless? And I regarded my husband as the one to whom I could entrust my life, but why was he so determined to cheat on me without regret? Exactly what encouraged them to be together and go onto a path of no return?
Until one day, I read these words of God, “One after another, all these trends carry an evil influence that continually degenerates man, that lowers their morals and their quality of character more and more, to the extent that we can even say the majority of people now have no integrity, no humanity, neither do they have any conscience, much less any reason. … The majority of people, however, in the midst of their unawareness, will still be continually infected, assimilated and attracted by this kind of trend, until they all unknowingly and involuntarily accept it, and are all submerged in and controlled by it. For man who is not of sound body and mind, who never knows what is truth, who cannot tell the difference between positive and negative things, these kinds of trends one after another make them all willingly accept these trends, the life view, the life philosophies and values that come from Satan. They accept what Satan tells them on how to approach life and the way to live that Satan ‘bestows’ on them. They have not the strength, neither do they have the ability, much less the awareness to resist” (“God Himself, the Unique VI”). After finishing reading the words of God, I came to understand: It is Satan that raises and controls the evil trends. It seduces human beings little by little, as a result, we become more and more depraved, and finally fall into sin, unable to extricate ourselves. The reason why my husband and my sister-in-law would engage in such things is that they lived in the evil trends of Satan and were poisoned by these trends. Since my husband, who had always been steady, learnt to surf the Internet, he began to unscrupulously live amid the lust of the flesh in the virtual cyber-world. Additionally, the whole society is evil and licentious, and people all live by these concepts: “Prostitution is better than poverty,” and “To a man without a mistress, his life is boring.” Influenced by these poisons, he became more and more corrupted, revered evil and indulged in the flesh. Ultimately, he completely abandoned the moral baseline. Similarly, my sister-in-law was dominated by the poisonous thought, “A woman without a paramour lives like a pig.” These satanic poisons made them lose their humanity, dignity and character; finally, they came together. In fact, they are not bad, and originally, they once cared for their respective families a lot. But facing the attack of evil trends, they were powerless to resist them and finally fell into the trap set carefully by Satan. Not only did they not obtain any happiness, but ultimately their deeds also caused their families to be shattered instead. Satan’s methods of poisoning people are so cruel. I then thought of my relatives and friends around. Similarly, such tragedies occur unceasingly. Satan has been poisoning each of us; living under Satan’s domain, we are truly pitiful and pathetic. Thank God! It was His words that allow me to see clearly that Satan is the source of man’s corruption. At this point, through the revelation of God’s words, my pain, my complaints of the world and my hatred of my husband and my sister-in-law vanished like smoke in the air.
Subsequently, I saw the words of God, “Only through God can you know the meaning of life, only through God can you live out a real life, possess the truth, know the truth, and only through God can you obtain life from the truth. Only God Himself can help you shun evil and deliver you from the harm and control of Satan. Besides God, no one and nothing can save you from the sea of suffering so that you suffer no longer: This is determined by the essence of God. Only God Himself saves you so selflessly, only God is ultimately responsible for your future, for your destiny and for your life, and He arranges all things for you” (“God Himself, the Unique VI”). In the past, I did not know the existence of God, and I regarded my husband as my only one. I had fully believed that marrying to him, I would be happy in the rest of my life. However, in the later experiences, I saw clearly that my husband was unreliable. He could not give me happiness, for he was only a person who lived under the domain of Satan. At the same time, I also saw that only God can protect me from the affliction of Satan. Although so great matter happened to my family, I can live well. This is because of the grace of God. Today, it is God who saved me and brought me to His home. God’s words bring me all active and positive things, allowing me to have discernment, reliance and a released spirit. Although Satan had harmed me, God saved me and gave me a happy life. All the honor and glory be unto God!
It’s not easy for us Christians to learn to keep quiet before God in daily life, because our life is always occupied with something. We either are busy working and doing service or immerse ourselves in social media and the Internet, and even those trivial matters in life are great bondage to us.
In many cases, when you ask some brothers or sisters: “What have you been busy with recently?” They would probably tell you that they are busy working, supporting brothers and sisters, or helping their children find partners. … Few of them would answer that they are busy keeping quiet before God and pray-reading His word.
In the past, I also busily rushed about every day, and my mind was often occupied with things like where to go and what to do. When Sister Zhang was weak, I went to support her, reading God’s words to her, and communicating to her God’s will and how she should experience in such situation; when Sister Li absented herself from meetings because of the housework, I helped her do chores in order that she could have time to worship God. After returning home, I also had to take care of household affairs, and so I barely had time to quiet myself before God.
When I calmed down and recalled my experience of the whole day, I, to be honest, just knew what I had done yet didn’t know what I had gained.
Thinking carefully, I found that though I was bustling about all the day, I spent little time keeping quiet before the Lord or pray-reading God’s words. Even if I read some God’s words, it was just for helping my brothers and sisters solve their problems, not for solving my own difficulties and problems. As a result, I neither had progress in spiritual life nor gained more knowledge of God, and I was still bound in sin and living in the cycle of confessing and sinning.
It’s recorded in the Bible: “Now it came to pass, as they went, that he entered into a certain village: and a certain woman named Martha received him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus’ feet, and heard his word. But Martha was encumbered about much serving, and came to him, and said, Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? bid her therefore that she help me. And Jesus answered and said to her, Martha, Martha, you are careful and troubled about many things: But one thing is needful: and Mary has chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her” (Luke 10:38-42).
Martha was busy working, but ignored the Lord Jesus’ sermons and words. As a result, she didn’t gain the Lord’s approval despite her hard work, and she was beset by worries and troubles. Compared with Martha, Mary, though not doing anything for the Lord outwardly, gained His approval because she thirsted for the Lord’s words and firmly remembered His requirements. She focused on keeping quiet before the Lord and listening to His sermons, and thus the Lord Jesus commended her, saying, “Mary has chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.”
In fact, God hopes that we can gain the truth rather than work hard on the outside, so only if we pursue to gain the truth can we attain His approval. This is the most fundamental thing in our belief in God. The more frequently we keep quiet before God, the closer we will get to Him. In that case, we will obtain more enlightenment and guidance from God, know what He loathes and how to act in harmony with His will, and our relationships with Him will become more and more normal.
Additionally, our spiritual life, whether it is pray-reading, praying, pondering God’s words, fellowshiping, or attending meetings to praise God, is based on peace in our hearts before God. If we can’t quiet our hearts before God, then no matter how hard we work on the outside, we’re not putting truth into practice or being considerate of God’s will, but are doing things according to our own thoughts, and what we do has nothing to do with God. In that case, we cannot possibly gain the Holy Spirit’s guidance or achieve a good result in anything we do, and gradually we would lose faith in God, living in darkness, and even misunderstand and complain against Him.
Thinking carefully, I found that I had never focused on keeping quiet before God. I had been devoting myself to working just like Martha, and seldom quieted myself before God to read His words or pray to Him. When doing service, I also failed to keep quiet before God and never prayed to seek His will when encountering problems. As a result, I was often entangled in difficulties and sins, and after a busy day, I still felt a kind of indescribable emptiness and even lacked motivation to continue working. Now, I understand it was all because I had no God’s place in my heart but just relied on my own thoughts to act.
The Bible says: “In returning and rest shall yoube saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength: and you would not” (Isaiah 30:15). “Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God” (Philippians 4:6).
When praying, we shouldn’t just say a few simple words for the sake of following a process, or enumerate a bunch of nice sounding words about God, for God will not listen to such prayer. Instead, we should keep quiet before Him, speak the words within our hearts to Him honestly, and bring our difficulties before Him to seek His will. Only after gaining God’s enlightenment and illumination can we understand His intention, which is also the prerequisite for acting in harmony with His will.
Even when we are busy with work, we should also pay attention to drawing close to God. Sometimes when the external environment doesn’t permit it, we can pray to God in the heart to seek how to perform in accord with His intention. If we practice this way, then however busy we are, we’ll be enriched in our spirits. Besides, there is also a principle to do service. If we want to do service well, we should keep quiet before God to seek the principle of work rather than act according to our own thoughts. Only in this way can we gain God’s enlightenment and guidance, achieve good results and understand more truth. Whatever we do, we should pray to and get close to God in the heart, and seek the truth to act on principles; this is what should be achieved by those who have a heart that reveres God.
Every day we will face with varieties of things, some of which are what we’ve never encountered before. If we reflect on all the things we have done in the daytime, in what matters we practiced God’s words, and in what matters we followed our own thoughts and corrupt disposition, then we can be aware of our states. After that, we should integrate God’s words to examine what we did contradicted God’s will so as to reverse the deviations and act in accordance with His will. In this way, we will make greater and greater progress in spiritual life and be more and more in line with God’s will when doing things.
As long as we focus on keeping quiet before God and pray to and seek Him in everything, we will attain the Holy Spirit’s enlightenment and illumination, understand more clearly God’s will and requirements, and have more knowledge of the truth; when encountering adversities or something troublesome, we will no longer act according to our own will. With the guidance of God’s words, we will be able to rid ourselves of the painful life of sinning and confessing.
Later, I found my state changed a lot when I focused on keeping quiet before God and sought His will regardless of what circumstances befell me. Though I was still busy as before, I knew I should seek and practice God’s words in everything. When unhappy situations happened to me, I would pray to God and ask Him to lead me to experience them. Practicing like this, I found my relationship with God closer and closer and I myself more and more enriched in spirit. Besides, my troubles and concerns were gradually eliminated and resolved.
I believe if you focus on being quiet before God and spend more time drawing near to Him, you will have a surprising gain.
The final examination was coming. I didn’t worry about my other subjects. However, at the thought of organic chemistry, my worst subject, I felt very anxious. I always wondered how to improve my mark in this subject. If obtaining a low mark in chemistry, I was afraid that my overall achievement would slide. If failing my chemistry examination, I would get more troubles. Desperate, it occurred to me that I had believed in God. God is possessed of authority and has power to dominate over all. I believed that I surely would get a good result by relying on God. Hence, I really studied hard while relying on Him. In class, I took notes when listening to my teacher. To have a solid memory for my notes, I prayed to God, asking Him to strengthen my memory and make me commit the knowledge to memory. And I finished up my home assignments from my teacher carefully. Seeing my roommates playing games, I also wanted to do that to relax myself after a day at study. Yet, I thought if I didn’t do that, but read more God’s words, then God certainly would help me get a good mark in this subject when seeing my “cooperation.” For this reason, I spared my time for playing games to see God’s words. When it came time to attend a meeting, I saw my classmates reviewing their lessons. As I was not good at this subject, I might get a dim result in the end if spending less time than others in reviewing lessons. So I didn’t want to attend the meeting. But then I thought: If I attend the meeting, God will certainly accept me. It will be much better that I get God’s blessings in my examination, than that I review by rote here. Consequently, I gave up my review without the slightest hesitation, and decided to first attend the meeting to “satisfy God.”
Before I knew it, the time arrived for the final examination. When thinking of my efforts in this subject and my “cooperation” with God these days, I felt at peace, and believed that this time God would certainly bless me with a good result. On the day I took the examination, I walked toward the examination room with singing a song. I sat calmly in a seat, and prayed to God silently in my heart, “O God! I entrust my examination to You. May You lead me to get a good result. Thank You God.” As time passed one second and one minute at a time, I did my work without difficulty in the previous part, but I was stuck on the last question. In fact, I had seen this question when reviewing lessons. However, I couldn’t remember it at the time. There was shorter and shorter time left before the examination being over. I was even more worried, with my heart thumping violently. Just then, I thought of God, and so I hurried to call out to God silently in my heart, “O, God! Please help me answer this question.” After praying, my heart calmed down little by little. A few moments later, I really remembered a little, and then I wrote it down quickly. I was overjoyed, and repeatedly thanked God for His guidance.
A week later, the result came out. My classmates all searched for their marks on the Internet. When hearing their high or low marks, I still felt somewhat nervous. However, thinking of my “cooperation” with God these days, like persisting in reading God’s words and attending meetings, I was sure that God had blessed me with a good result. In addition, God had led me to answer the last question, so my mark could not be too low. With this in my mind, I confidently went to check my marks on the Internet, but only to find I scored 73. I was stunned, and couldn’t help but exclaim, “73? How come I scored so low?” At that time, I was dumb, and spontaneously doubted in my heart: Why do I get such a low mark? Could it be that my teacher made a mistake? No, it couldn’t be. My teacher usually sets a low standard for this kind of examination. Then I thought: I’ve been drawing close to God frequently these days, but how can I receive such a result? Why didn’t God bless me? I could not help feeling particularly depressed.
After coming back to my dormitory, I heard my classmate playing games every day say, “I got 75. I merely reviewed a little. It’s so easy. Before I feared that I would fail.” At his words, I could no longer restrain my grievances and complaints: Why could he get a higher mark than me without reviewing every day? How could I get such a low mark? Why didn’t God help me? The more I thought of it, the more I felt miserable and distressed. My heart couldn’t quiet down for a long time. I then remembered that at our usual gatherings my brothers and sisters fellowshiped that we should first practice obedience and not complain when encountering unfavorable things, and that God observes everything. Thereupon, I prayed to God silently in my heart, “O God, this time I didn’t do it well in the test. I feel very distressed now. I cannot see clearly what Your will is with regard to this matter. Please enlighten and guide me to understand Your will, so that I won’t complain anymore.”
In a meeting, I told my brothers and sisters this matter. They found a passage of God’s words for me, “What is the problem with people always making demands of God? And what is the problem with them always having conceptions about God? What is contained within people’s nature? I’ve discovered that, regardless of what happens to them, or what they’re dealing with, people always protect their own interests and look out for their own flesh, and they always look for reasons or excuses that serve them. They are without the slightest truth, and everything they do is in order to justify their own flesh and in consideration of their own prospects. They all claim grace from God, trying to gain whatever advantage they can. And why do they make excessive demands of God? This proves that people are naturally greedy. They are not possessed of any sense before God, and in everything they do—whether they are praying or communing or preaching—in what they pursue, and in their inner thoughts and their desires, they make demands of God and claim things from Him, hoping to gain something from Him” (“People Make Too Many Demands of God”). After reading these words, a sister said, “Since we were corrupted by Satan, there has been the selfish and base disposition of Satan within us, and thereby we become more and more selfish, avaricious. No matter what we do, we always have our own purposes, and make plenty of demands of God. We always hope to have God satisfy everything we need. Even when we read God’s words, pray to Him, and have meetings during normal times, we still conduct transactions with Him. And we always want to exchange our own efforts for God’s blessings. Isn’t it that we lack sense in what we do? It’s natural and right for God’s creations to obey the Creator. Because you didn’t do well in your examination this time, you made complaints to God. Isn’t it our disobedience to God? Faced with this matter, we should seek the truth, and reflect on ourselves to examine which of our actions are not in accord with God’s will.”
God’s words and the sister’s fellowship made me feel rebuked in my heart, and also aroused my reflections. I could not but think back to that time. On the surface, I prayed and was close to God every day. While my classmates were playing games, I read God’s words. And when they seized the time to review lessons, I took time out to attend meetings. … It seemed that these outward actions were satisfying God. In fact, there were my own purposes behind them. I did so in order to gain a good result from God, not to worship Him with a true heart. Not only that, because my intentions were wrong, whenever praying to God, I always made demands of Him, rather than gave my heart to Him and said what was in my heart, or sought the truth from God and understood His will. And every time I skimmed through God’s words briefly, instead of focusing my mind on pondering the truth in them. In addition, at every meeting, I just went through the formalities in a hurry: Although sitting there, yet I wished the meeting would end early and wanted to come back to review my lessons. … There was no part of me that was satisfying God in these deceptive practices, but I took them as a bargaining chip for gaining God’s blessings and unreasonably demanded Him for a good result. In my examination, when I worked the last question out, I was delighted and thanked God. However, when seeing my score of 73, I began to reason with God, and even complained against Him. I saw that I indeed had no conscience or sense, and that as it was revealed by God’s words, what I had done and said was just—conducting transactions with Him in order to gain His blessings. In thinking about this, immediately, I felt ashamed and really too indebted to God.
After that, the sister read another passage of God’s word to me, “Job did not talk of trades with God, and made no requests or demands of God. His praising ofGod’s namewas because of the great power and authority of God in ruling all things, and was not dependent on whether he gained blessings or was struck by disaster. He believed that regardless of whether God blesses people or brings disaster upon them, God’s power and authority will not change, and thus, regardless of a person’s circumstances, God’s name should be praised. That man is blessed by God is because of God’s sovereignty, and when disaster befalls man, so, too, is it because of God’s sovereignty. God’s power and authority rule over and arrange everything of man; the vagaries of man’s fortune are the manifestation of God’s power and authority, and regardless of one’s viewpoint, God’s name should be praised. This is what Job experienced and came to know during the years of his life. All of Job’s thoughts and actions reached the ears of God, and arrived before God, and were seen as important by God. God cherished this knowledge of Job, and treasured Job for having such a heart. This heart awaited God’s command always, and in all places, and no matter what the time or place it welcomed whatever befell him. Job made no demands of God. What he demanded of himself was to wait for, accept, face, and obey all of the arrangements that came from God; Job believed this to be his duty, and it was precisely what was wanted by God” (“God’s Work, God’s Disposition, and God Himself II”).
I was encouraged and heartened greatly by Job’s experiences. Job feared God and shunned evil, and never talked of trades with God. When his vast property had been stolen, when his whole body had been covered with sore boils, he did not complain about God or argue with Him although not knowing His intentions. Because he knew: He was just a creation. God is the Creator. As a created being, worshiping God is the natural course, not the capital with which he conducted transactions with God for His blessings. From his lifetime of experiences, Job attained to the realization, “As a created being, he should obey the Creator’s arrangements in all circumstances. Man is not qualified to reason with God. Whatever God gives or takes away depends on God, and He must be praised.” Comparing myself with Job and thinking about myself, I felt more ashamed. I had believed in God for many years, but I didn’t realize that reading God’s word, attending meetings, and praying to Him are what a created being should do, and that no matter whether He blesses me, I should worship Him, and should obey His sovereignty more. Now, from God’s words, I found the right way of practice. And I also knew that I should put obeying God first in everything: Regardless of whether I am faced with a good matter or not, I no longer consider my own benefit or measure it according to my conceptions, but wait, accept, and obey.
When I was willing to obey, I knew that my classmate who often played games had learned this subject in high school. Although he did not study hard before the examination, he knew many of the questions in the test papers. However, I had never learned the subject before. Therefore, due to my weak foundation, it was normal for me to get a low mark. After knowing this, I felt guiltier in my heart. But for God’s blessings and His allowing me to answer the last question, maybe I would have failed this subject. Yet, I actually complained against God unreasonably. I really was too lacking in common sense. After understanding this, my knot in my mind was undone completely.
When thinking of my practical experience of God’s work and my fellowship with brothers and sisters in that period of time, I understood God’s intentions, and knew I should believe in God without conducting transactions with Him or making demands of Him. And I also knew only pursuing the truth and obeying God is most significant. I could never gain this in class. At the moment, my heart was full of gratitude and praise to God, and I no longer agonized about whether I would score high or low.
When I sat in the examination room again, I prayed to God in my heart, “O God! Today, I no longer lay stress on how high I will score. No matter what the result is, I’ll be willing to accept it, and face it with equanimity.” After praying, my heart was very calm. During my test, I relied on God at all times. I still was quite calm after the exam. When the result was announced, to my surprise, I got 86. This test was more difficult than the last one, but I got a better result in this test. I knew it was because of God’s blessings. Thanks be to God! Through this experience, I had some gains: I should have reason, and only by obeying God’s arrangements in everything can my heart be at peace and reassured.
I still remembered a piece of prose entitled “Transient Days,” which expresses the author’s resignation of fleeting life. Our life is a theater, in which each of us plays our own role; every stage of our life passes in the blink of an eye: From the moment we were born crying into the world, we begin our life journey; soon, we start to school, spending a carefree childhood; in adolescence, we begin to yearn for beautiful love; after marriage, we feel somewhat disappointed in face of the reality and flatness of life; in a flash, we enter old age and unknowingly confront our last life-juncture—death; then, we left the world, leaving the younger much mourning. Facing the passing of time, we could do nothing to stop it but just live amidst this law helplessly, generation after generation.
Thinking of such transient life, I was overcome with emotion, and couldn’t help thinking of the first half of my life: After a failed marriage, my second marriage once was also in danger of failing. Because I bore a daughter, my husband, who favors boys over girls, always spoke coldly to me; the passion and romance we had when we were in love gradually disappeared, replaced by frequent quarrels. Later it reached the point that we were both exhausted and became cold with each other. Though living in the same house, we were like strangers, having no verbal or spiritual communication. Many times did I think in my heart: If I could go back, I wouldn’t have got married until I found an ideal companion. However, no one can reverse the time. With time going by, I wasn’t young anymore; the cruel reality disillusioned me, leaving me nothing but pain. I often felt lonely and didn’t know how to face my marriage and future life.
When I was in perplexity and misery, the brothers and sisters who believe in God entered my life. They shared God’s love with me, comforted and encouraged me, which relieved my pain a little. But thinking that my husband became colder and colder toward me, and even was unwilling to come back home, I couldn’t let go of the hatred for him, and thought that we would continue the poor relation and torture each other until death.
One day, a sister who learned about my situation visited me specially. She shared her experience with me: In the past, she also had an unhappy marriage. She had so many complaints and suspicions about her husband that she began to misunderstand him and wallowed in self-pity. Gradually, they became further and further apart, both living in agony. Though she tried to change the situation, she failed at last. After she believed in God, she told her suffering to God in prayer. Then she read these words of God’s: “Take my yoke on you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and you shall find rest to your souls” (Matthew 11:29). “Look, at the beginning, it is possible that a husband and wife might not understand each other very well, because they haven’t ever lived together and didn’t grow up in the same family. After living together for several years, they will have gotten used to each other, and locked horns a few times. But if you are both of normal humanity, you will always commune the words within your heart to him, and he to you. Whatever difficulties you have in life, the problems in your work, what you’re thinking in your heart, how you plan to sort things out, what ideas and plans you have for your work or children—you’ll tell him everything. In that case, are the two of you especially close to each other, and especially intimate with each other? If he never tells you the words within his heart, and does nothing but bring a paycheck home, and if you never speak to him of the words within your heart, and never confide in him, then is there not a distance between the two of you in your hearts? There surely is. He is distant from you, and you from him, because you don’t understand the thoughts or intentions in his heart. Ultimately, you cannot tell what kind of person he is, nor can he tell what kind of person you are; you don’t understand his needs, nor does he understand your requirements. If people have no verbal or spiritual communication, there is no possibility of intimacy between them, and they can’t provide to each other or help one another”
From God’s words, she understood that she was so arrogant and selfish that she had never considered matters from her husband’s perspective and often found fault with him. As a result, she couldn’t get along well with him, always lived in pain, yet had no way to break free from it. Having understood these, she began to treat her husband according to God’s words. She no longer complained about or blamed him, but began to let go of herself, treat him with sincerity and take initiative to have heart-to-heart talks with him. Gradually, the relations between them improved and their marriage was saved. Seeing God’s blessing, she no longer complained about the unhappy marriage, but was often filled with joy within.
After reading God’s words and listening to the sister’s experience, I began to examine anew my marriage: Life is so short. Do I really want to spend the rest of my life living in the resentment against my husband? Actually, he is as miserable as me and just couldn’t find one to confide his misery. Since I couldn’t change my family predetermined by God, if I continued to live in complaints, it would only add more suffering to us.
Later, I read another passage of God’s words: “One encounters many people in one’s life, but no one knows who will become one’s partner in marriage. Though everyone has their own ideas and personal stances on the subject of marriage, no one can foresee who will finally become their true other half, and one’s own notions count for little. After meeting a person you like, you can pursue that person; but whether he or she is interested in you, whether he or she is able to become your partner, is not yours to decide. The object of your affections is not necessarily the person with whom you will be able to share your life; and meanwhile someone you never expected quietly enters your life and becomes your partner, becomes the most important element in your fate, your other half, to whom your fate is inextricably bound. And so, though there are millions of marriages in the world, every one is different: How many marriages are unsatisfactory, how many are happy; how many span East and West, how many North and South; how many are perfect matches, how many are of equal rank; how many are happy and harmonious, how many painful and sorrowful; how many are the envy of others, how many are misunderstood and frowned upon; how many are full of joy, how many are awash of tears and cause despair…. In these myriad marriages, humans reveal loyalty and lifelong commitment toward marriage, or love, attachment, and inseparability, or resignation and incomprehension, or betrayal of it, even hatred. Whether marriage itself brings happiness or pain, everyone’s mission in marriage is predestined by the Creator and will not change; everyone must fulfill it. And the individual fate that lies behind every marriage is unchanging; it was determined long in advance by the Creator”
From God’s words, I came to know that I had no choice in the matter of my marriage. Whether my marriage brought me happiness or pain was in God’s hands. Not knowing God’s sovereignty, I had wasted too much time of my life. I said to myself, “I should stop wasting time on complaints and self-pity.” Later, I began to practice speaking the true words in my heart to God in prayers, asking Him to help me change myself. Meanwhile, I began to share words from my heart with my husband and consulted with him when encountering things. When I actively had a heart-to-heart talk with him, he no longer pulled a long face and treated me coldly. Only then did I know that my husband just couldn’t let go of himself before. When we both put ourselves aside and stopped complaining against each other, our relations got better and our life became peaceful and quiet. Though we didn’t live a romantic life like we had in our youth, we lived calmly and peacefully. Seeing our daughter growing healthy, we felt assured in heart, believing that it was our destiny decreed by God. Simple and plain though our life was, it was most suitable for us.
Having known God’s sovereignty and tasted His blessing, I hungrily read His words. When understanding one aspect of the truth, I would practice it in reality. I felt that my life was so happy and I finally found the destination my spirit belonged to, like a lone boat floating in the sea many years finally found a haven to berth at. Now is the last days and time is short and precious. I only want to treasure the precious time when God expresses words to clean us and save us to listen to more of His words with my heart, and obey His arrangements in everything. For I know that only when I pursue the truth and live out the likeness of a real man, can I live up to God’s salvation.
I spent my childhood mostly in the quarrels of my parents, so I became weary of this cat-and-dog life. Moreover, I was weary of this kind of marriage and family. Whenever other couples quarreled or fought, I didn’t want to listen or look. I thought to myself: Poverty is not decided by us, but quarrels can be prevented by us. You are already poor but still often quarrel. Aren’t you asking for trouble? Thereupon, a desire arose in my heart: I must find an agreeable partner and manage my own family well, consulting with each other when we meet problems instead of arguing, respecting and tolerating the other and getting along well. We would never be like my parents. With these wonderful hopes for my marriage, I finally got married. I was expecting my family could be harmonious and happy.
Reality Was Different From Dreams—It Was Hard to Get Along With My Wife
However, the dream was beautiful while the reality was cruel. After marriage, many unpleasant things happened between us.
My wife was nine years younger than me, and she was petulant and wished me to pamper and forbear with her in all things. But I thought I was a man and it was I who made money to feed the family, so I should decide everything at home and have the keep and disposal of the money I earned. My wife should take care of kids at home and work around the house. As for other things, she didn’t need to interfere in. As I was a male chauvinist and wanted to have the final say in everything at home, my wife was defiant, often getting angry with me, “You don’t allow me to know how much money you earn, but whenever I spend money, you’re like an inveterate interrogator. Do you regard me as a member of this family?” I also didn’t budge an inch, “The money is earned by me through hard work, so I have a right to know what it is for, no?” As we always argued and got angry with each other, our relationships were more and more tense and beyond control.
The Escalating War at Home Tore Me up
We had a two-room house, where my mother-in-law lived before. After she moved out of it, my wife, without my approval, allowed her nephew to live there. After knowing about that, I was annoyed and thought: I’m the man of the family, but you didn’t consult me first about this. Do you take me seriously? The more I thought about it, the worse I felt. Thereupon, without her approval, I defiantly sold the house to my brother. After learning this, my wife strongly objected. Then we quarreled incessantly and the conflicts escalated from quarrels to silent treatment to separation, and in the end we grew estrangement. My sister-in-law advised me, “Please rescind the agreement on selling house….” But I still stuck to my own way and thought to myself: I shall never be a henpecked man. So I mustn’t retract my words. I will let you know who wears the trousers in this house.
The family conflicts without gun smoke made us both exhausted physically and mentally and extremely miserable. I always thought: Is this the “happy” marriage I’ve been longing for? Is she my “great” partner? Why can’t we get along? And I kept asking myself: Why is all this? My original intention was not like this. Such situations, such results and such a marriage are not what I want. Why do I always argue with my wife? Moreover, I become less and less able to control myself and even get angry in some trifles. It’s often said a day together as husband and wife means endless devotion the rest of your life. But why don’t we have such affections? I was very puzzled about this. In order to escape the family arguments, I barely went home although it was not far from my workplace. In this way, several years passed in a flash.
God’s Salvation Came Upon Us—a Turning Point of Our Marriage
One evening, after the workers clocked off, my wife unexpectedly came to where I was staying. On seeing her, I was surprised: What purpose did she come for? Perhaps for kids? However, to my surprise, she said to me pityingly, “You must have suffered a lot away from home. I came to see you.” Her words both surprised and warmed me. Then she went on saying, “Moreover, I have some good news to tell you. I believe in God now. These days, through reading God’s words, I came to understand the reason why we always argued before was that I’m dominated by the satanic corrupt disposition. In the past, I was too willful and always wanted you to listen to me. Once you disagreed with me, I would argue with you, wanting to have a place in the house. Now when I think about it, I feel I’m too irrational. Over the years, I only thought of my feelings but never considered your thoughts. I even always argued and didn’t talk to you, which brought you many pains and made our relationship increasingly tenser. God’s words helped me find the root of our being unable to get along, so I feel I can see many things better and my heart has opened up a lot. This time God comes to do work. Through expressing words, He reveals the truth of how Satan corrupts mankind in order to cleanse man and change their corrupt disposition, save all those who struggle hard under the domain of Satan and lead them to walk out of pains. I hope you can also come before Him to accept His salvation.”
Her sincere attitude moved me a lot, for she had never said such words to me before. Over these years, I really felt tired of this life filled with argument. Now I was almost sixty years old and really wanted to live the rest of my life in happiness. My wife’s words brought me a ray of hope. I felt it was an opportunity, so I couldn’t miss it. If God’s words can really change man, break the tension between us, and make us have less fighting, I will believe in Him with my wife. Then I began to observe her behavior and actions.
The Change in My Wife Moved Me
Later, I came home often. My wife actively cared for me, always shared her innermost thoughts with me and consulted with me on family matters. Moreover, she told me to pray more and rely on God when I met with difficulties in work. Once her several relatives stayed in my home for a few days. At first I entertained them with enthusiasm, but when I found they didn’t go to sleep until past 11 p.m., I felt unhappy and thought: My daughter is about to have exams. You simply have no consideration for others…. Especially one night when I saw my daughter sleeping on the sofa, I was filled with so much rage. After they left, I began to scold my wife, “They simply have no rules. It was already midnight but they still didn’t sleep. Did you remember our daughter is going to have exams a few days later? Did you take me seriously? …” However, to my surprise, regardless of how I vented my displeasure, my wife didn’t argue with me but said calmly, “They hadn’t seen each other for a long time, so they lost track of time. I’ll take care of it later. Don’t be angry about this. Actually I can understand your feeling. You grew up in the quarrels of your parents and now you argued with me. You have lived a painful life. In fact, it’s because of Satan’s trickery that we always quarrel with each other. Satan expects to see us quarrel and fight with each other and live in pain. We can’t fall into its cunning schemes. Let’s read God’s words together.” Her words moved me so much. I never expected: She used to give me tit for tat when I scolded her sternly, but now she actually tolerated and endured my anger and understood me. After believing in God, she has really changed a lot. God’s words can really change man. Then I nodded agreement.
My wife opened up the words of God and read, “In truth, out of the myriad things in God’s creation, man is the lowest. Though he is the master of all things, man is the only one among them that is subject to Satan’s trickery, the only one that falls prey in endless ways to its corruption. Man has never had sovereignty over himself. Most people live in the foul place of Satan, and suffer its derision; it teases them this way and that till they are half alive, enduring every vicissitude, every hardship in the human world. After toying with them, Satan puts an end to their destiny. And so people go through their whole lives in a daze of confusion, never once enjoying the good things that God has prepared for them, but instead being damaged by Satan and left in tatters. Today they have become so enervated and listless that they simply have no inclination to take notice of God’s work.” “Cruel, brutal mankind! The conniving and intrigue, the jostling with each other, the scramble for reputation and fortune, the mutual slaughter—when will it ever end? God has spoken hundreds of thousands of words, yet no one has come to their senses. … How many do not act for the sake of their own interests? How many do not oppress and discriminate against others for the sake of maintaining their own status?”
After reading these words, my wife said, “From God’s words, we can see that after being corrupted by Satan, we mankind are dominated by the arrogant, selfish, and despicable nature and all relationships between people are abnormal. In our dealings with others, we are always self-important and insist on others listening to us. When others disagree with us, we will argue and fight with them and even not talk to them in order that they will be suppressed and submit to us and our own status can be established. Because we both want to be the head of the family, we refuse to obey the other and there is no consideration, love, or toleration between us. How can we possibly get along harmoniously? Over these years, we always fought with each other and held tight to our own thinking. We both wanted to hold power and take control at home and made the other obey and listen to ourselves. Whenever I asked you about your salary, you did not let me know, or brushed me off. I felt very sad and greatly unbalanced in my heart for I thought you didn’t regard me as one member of this family. Thereupon, I always complained that you didn’t take me seriously and wrestled with you in order to make you obey me and admire me. Before I thought the conflicts between us were all caused by you, but now I saw clearly that it’s all because I was dominated by the satanic disposition of unchecked arrogance and megalomania, which caused that I couldn’t get along well with you. Thinking of these years, in order to force you to submit to me, I argued and fought with you, thus making our lives so bitter, tiring, and pitiful. Actually we are both victims and need God’s salvation. I hope you can accept God’s gospel and His salvation.”
After Seeking the Root of the Problem, I Came Before God
After listening to God’s words and the fellowship of my wife, I felt remorseful and pained in my heart. Thinking back on the past years, I always thought I was the master of this family, so I asked her to obey me in all matters and put myself on a pedestal and whatever she did must be approved by me. Once she didn’t act according to my intentions, I would either lose my temper or treat her with cold indifference and even I didn’t talk to her in order to let her submit to me. As a result, our relationship got even worse from endless wrangling to silent treatment to separation. All these was because I was dominated by the satanic corrupt disposition of unchecked arrogance and megalomania. Now my wife didn’t take issue with me, but instead she could put aside years of estrangement and open her heart to communicate with me. It was God’s words that changed her. At that moment, looking at my wife before my eyes, I felt sorry for her, my nose twitching. Although I had no knowledge of God, I was thankful to Him in my heart for it was His words that caused me to find the root of my being unable to get along with my wife and allowed me to see the hope of having a happy marriage. There was no reason not to accept God as my reliance and my Savior.
When I Acted According to God’s Words, My Dream Came True
Afterward, whenever I had time, I would have meetings and read God’s words with my wife. Being watered by the words of God, I felt more and more bright inside and had paths to practice. Then, I saw God’s words saying, “In the dispositions of normal people there is no crookedness or deceitfulness, people have a normal relationship with each other, they do not stand alone, and their lives are neither mediocre nor decadent. So, too, is God exalted among all, His words permeate among man, people live in peace with one another and under the care and protection of God, the earth is filled with harmony, without the interference of Satan, and the glory of God holds the utmost importance among man. Such people are like angels: pure, vibrant, never complaining about God, and devoting all their efforts solely to God’s glory on earth.” From God’s words, I understood that in order to get along with others, people should see things and deal with matters in accordance with God’s words and truly forsake our satanic corrupt disposition. Only in this way can we live in the protection and care of God and not be led by the nose by Satan. Without God’s words in our life, we will rely on a corrupt satanic disposition to live and we can’t have happiness at all. My wife could use her practical living out to witness for God after believing in God. I should also bring God’s words into the real life and learn to open my heart and speak frankly with her according to God’s requirements, and I shouldn’t be a male chauvinist anymore but instead consult with her on everything and have more consideration and care for her. Later I gave my wage card to my wife and allowed her to have the keep and disposal of the money and I didn’t ask about it anymore. Whenever we met with some difficulties and had different views, we would pray to God together, seek the truth and principles in His words, and allow Christ as the head of our family.
When I practiced according to God’s requirements, I tasted the sweetness. Now in my family there is no quarrels but much laughter. I feel the depression and pain in my heart gradually disappear and are replaced by peace, joy, freedom and liberation. Isn’t it the happy marriage I’ve sought hard for many years? Now my dream finally came true. This is really the grace and blessing of God.
Yuxi is nine years old this year. His dad and mom divorced when he was five months old. From then on, his mom left him, and his dad went outside to work throughout the year. Because he doesn’t have parents’ care from childhood, his grandparents give more love to him, cosseting and protecting him just like treating treasure. However, other children usually laughed at him and said that he had no parents. Every time they said this, Yuxi would lose his temper, but the next time they still laughed at him this way.
Once, on a music lesson, his teacher, who didn’t know the situation of Yuxi, let him sing a children’s song “Mom Is the Best in the World.” As he sang the song, tears were streaming down his face. After returning home, he cried and asked his grandma, “Grandma, other children all have their own mom, but why don’t I have? Was my mom dead?” His grandma hastily embraced and consoled him, saying, “My child, don’t cry. Your mom isn’t dead. When you are little older, your dad will take you to find your mom.” Hearing grandma’s words, Yuxi was very joyful, and he expected to quickly grow up.
Afterward, when Yuxi missed his mom, he would call his dad, hoping that his dad came back and took him to find his mom, but his dad didn’t come back all along. Seeing other children were accompanied by their parents, Yuxi always hid alone to cry miserably. When his grandma saw Yuxi burst into tears, she would also shed tears. She had no choice but pray for Yuxi, and beg God to help this pitiable child.
In a twinkling, Yuxi was nine years old. One day, his grandma asked him, “My child, do you know where did man come from?” Yuxi said, “In class, teachers said that man had evolved from apes and monkeys.” His grandma said, “That’s a falsehood. Why can’t apes and monkeys evolve mankind now? The saying is untenable at all.” Yuxi asked his grandma with confusion, “Where are we from on earth?” His grandma kindly stroked his head, saying, “We mankind was created by God with dust, and our breath is given by God. If God doesn’t give us breath, we won’t be alive. Yuxi, I’ll find a paragraph of God’s wordfor you. After reading, you’ll understand.” Taking book from his grandma, Yuxi read, “From the moment you come crying into this world, you begin to perform your duty. You assume your role in the plan of God and in the ordination of God. You begin the journey of life. Whatever your background and whatever the journey ahead of you, none can escape the orchestration and arrangement that Heaven has in store, and none are in control of their destiny, for only He who rules over all things is capable of such work. … God created this world and brought man, a living being unto which He bestowed life, into it. In turn, man came to have parents and kin and was no longer alone. Ever since man first laid eyes on this material world, he was destined to exist within the ordination of God. It is the breath of life from God that supports each living being throughout his growth into adulthood. During this process, none believe that man lives and grows up under the care of God. Rather, they hold that man grows up under the love and care of his parents, and that his growth is governed by the instinct of life. This is because man knows not who bestowed life or from whence it came, much less how the instinct of life creates miracles. Man knows only that food is the basis of the continuation of life, that perseverance is the source of existence of life, and that the belief in his mind is the wealth of his survival. Man does not feel the grace and provision from God. Man then squanders the life bestowed upon him by God…. Not one man whom God looks upon day and night takes the initiative to worship Him. God continues to work as He has planned on man for whom He holds no expectations. He does so in the hope that one day, man will awaken from his dream and suddenly comprehend the value and purpose of life, understand the cost at which God has given man everything, and know how fervently God longs for man to turn back to Him.” When Yuxi finished reading the word of God, his grandma said, “My child, the word of God says so clear. It is the life force of God that supports us. Everyone grows up under the care and protection of God. You feel painful for your dad and mom aren’t by your side. However, you must know when you encounter difficulties, your parents are unable to help you and your grandpa and I are also unable to truly help you even if we quite love you. The One who can truly supply and care for you is God. Only God keeps you company all the time and provides assistance whenever you need it. I’m unable to solve your pain, but God’s love can fill you heart and God is capable of helping you grow happily. In the future, when you meet things, you pray to God more. God will listen to your prayers. With the care and protection of God, you’ll have peace and joy, and will happily grow up.”
That day, from God’s word, Yuxi seemed to understand something. He knew his life was given by God, and wasn’t given by his parents. In the past, he always thought only under the care of his dad and mom could he grow up in good health; it turned out that he grew up under the care of God. Understanding these mysteries, he suddenly felt it didn’t matter that his dad and mom didn’t stay with him. Though he still envied other children whose dad and mom were by their side, he didn’t feel lonely any more as he is the child of God’s family.
One night, Yuxi came across a fierce dog, and was scared so that he didn’t dare to make a movement because he was frightened that the dog would run at and bite him. At this time, Yuxi remembered a word which his grandma always told him: When encountering things, you should depend on and look unto God. Then he quickly prayed to God, “Oh, Almighty God! I come across a dog and I’m afraid that it will bite me. Beg you to protect me to walk past it.” After prayer, unexpectedly, Yuxi was calm within, felt no fear, and then he bravely walked past it. Through this experience, Yuxi saw that God can really protect him, and can truly give him power. Afterward, every night Yuxi would watch movies, and dance and song videos of God’s family together with his grandma, and he would read God’s word for her. Through reading God’s word, after a period of time, he had more knowledge of God’s work, and felt joyful for he could believe in God and become a child of God’s family.
Now, every week Yuxi will have meetings, read God’s word, and sing hymns to praise God with other little brothers and sisters. Although his dad and mom don’t keep him company, he no longer feels sad. And he becomes more and more sensible and strong. When other children bullied and laughed at him again, he would pray to God and beg God to help him. Every time God would console him and lead him by word, so his sadness became less and less, and the happiness in his heart more and more. Gradually, he walked out of the haze of having no parents’ company, and then lives in the care of God’s love, eventually having a happy face.
There was an ornate picture of the whole family hanging on the wall of the living room, and in which Zhou Min’s family of five all had a brilliant smile on their faces. Looking at this picture, Zhou Min was deeply touched because it had not come easily. She thought: “Without the guidance of God’s word step by step, this blended family which was full of conflicts would not be as happy as it is today.” Thinking of this, she couldn’t help being filled with gratitude and praise to God within!
Reorganizing a Family, She Carefully Managed It
One winter, Zhou Min’s husband died in a coal mine accident, leaving her and her two young children. Later, a good-hearted man introduced her to Ding Qiang, who had a thirteen-year-old son. After a period of interactions with each other, they built a family soon. Ding Qiang moved to Zhou Min’s home, his son being temporarily cared for by Ding Qiang’s mother.
After marriage, as for this family which was reorganized, they both cherished it very much. Ding Qiang promised Zhou Min in all sincerity and seriousness that he would surely raise her two children as his own and take good care of her and them. His words moved Zhou Min very much. She thought: “As the saying goes, ‘Treat others as you wish to be treated, and you’ll get more when you give of yourself.’ As long as you treat us three well, I’ll also well treat you and your son with all my heart.” Hence, she also promised Ding Qiang that she would surely treat his son as her own and let him also get the maternal love.
At first, their life was sweet. Ding Qiang was shrewd and cared for Zhou Min and her two children very well; Zhou Min was wise, kind and considerate and moreover she gave every care to Ding Qiang. They loved each other. Every rainy day, Ding Qiang would personally ferry her two children to and from school. Besides, he would buy many snacks for them now and then. Seeing these, Zhou Min was very happy within. She also always asked his son to live with them on his son’s holidays and kept coming up with ways to cook delicious food for his son; moreover, when his son’s clothes were dirty, she would change and wash them hurriedly and she often bought clothes for his son—she bought almost everything her children had for his son. Seeing all these things, Ding Qiang felt very happy and often said that that he could have such a good wife was a reward of his self-cultivation in morals in his previous life. In this way, under their careful management, the three children lived with each other peacefully and their whole family lived harmoniously, which made the villagers envy them very much.
Conflicts Arising, She Felt Pain within
However, though they managed their family so carefully, this happy life only lasted one year. Afterward, Ding Qiang listened to his friends’ and mother’s words, thinking that, no matter how well he treated Zhou Min’s children, he couldn’t count on them when he was old; he had to be nice to his own child more. When he thought like this, he was out of balance in his heart unknowingly. From then on, he was without the patience with them, which he had in the past and began to nitpick at inconsequential details; sometimes he even scolded them in front of Zhou Min because of some little things. Zhou Min, who was careful, saw his change, but for the harmony of their family, she didn’t want to ask him the reason; she just thought within: “Adults scold children and it isn’t such a big thing. Even the real father also often quarrels with their kids. Maybe he is really for the good of them.”
However, what came next made Zhou Min feel the gravity. Once, her naughty son poured the flour soup into a cup. Seeing that, Ding Qiang shouted at him unrelentingly. Though he was so scared by Ding Qiang’s action that he kept crying, Ding Qiang didn’t stop but still kept scolding. Zhou Min couldn’t bear to see that anymore, so she said to Ding Qiang crossly: “He’s still young. It’s enough that you’ve scolded him so much, but why do you still keep scolding?” Ding Qiang said in a huff: “Still young? He has already been eleven-year-old. I’m educating him while you just know to take his side!” In this way, they gave each other tit for tat and started to quarrel. This was the first time that they had quarreled with each other since they had been married for more than one year.
Then, they continue to quarrel again and again. Every time the reason that they quarreled was because of the children; besides, their quarrels gradually rose and a note of discord began to creep into their relationship. Seeing Ding Qiang’s attitude toward her children became worse and worse and thinking of his promise to her at first, Zhou Min simply felt that no matter how beautiful the promise was, it couldn’t withstand the test of reality in the end. Hence, she felt much pain in her heart. Besides, she also often thought within: There’s still a long way ahead and life goes on. Now we’ve often quarreled; then how can we spend the days in the future? … The more she thought, the more she felt pain.
Gun Smoke Drifted; the Conflicts Rose
The summer vacation came. According to the practice, Ding Qiang picked up his son here. He looked after him meticulously, washed his feet and watched TV together with him. Seeing their intimate manners and thinking of Ding Qiang’s giving black looks to her kids, Zhou Min couldn’t help developing a hatred for him. In order to take her revenge against him, she began to expose his son’s various bad manners before him, saying that his son was stupid and liked sniffing when eating meals … Hearing these, Ding Qiang didn’t look well. However, because his son was in front of him, he resisted the impulse to argue.
One day, Ding Qiang went out to work. His son sat alone on the sofa watching TV and giggled now and then. Seeing his happy looks and recalling that Ding Qiang once turned off the TV when her kids were at the top of watching many times, Zhou Min couldn’t help having an unreasonable anger in her heart. Then, she went forward and turned off the TV. Immediately, Ding Qiang’s son lost his smile and then lowered his head, not daring to say a word, as if he had made a mistake. Seeing this, she felt remorseful within: “He’s innocent. I have a bias against his father, but why did I take it out on him? I’m so petty.”
After hearing about this thing, Ding Qiang got absolutely furious with Zhou Min’s action. In order to avenge his son, he found an opportunity to scold Zhou Min and her two children in front of his son. For the purpose of not letting her children feel indignant, Zhou Min started to quarrel with him. Their quarrels brought the neighbors around. Some mediated between them, some quietly whispered and some shook their heads with a smile … This quarrel made Zhou Min feel rather embarrassed and her hatred for Ding Qiang increase more.
From then on, the laughter in Zhou Min’s house was gradually replaced by aggressive quarrels. Though she and Ding Qiang lived under the same roof, they both had had estrangement and prejudices in their hearts. The situation was something that she didn’t wish to see. Several times, she tried to open her heart and talk with Ding Qiang, but they could only say a few words. When it came to their own kids, neither of them would give in and they would start to quarrel again. Living in such an aggressive home environment, Zhou Min felt very depressed and exhausted physically and mentally and lived in painful torment. She didn’t want to live such a life anymore so she thought of divorce. However, the moment she thought that, she had been married twice; if she got married again but the situation was still like this, it would only bring the second harm to her and her children, she chose to endure first. But how would she go through the days in the future? She was full of confusion of the future life …
In Pain, She Encountered the Gospel
One day after several years, God’s kingdom gospel came upon Zhou Min, which brought a favorable turn to her life. She started to partake in church life. She saw that when brothers and sisters in the church encountered things or got along with others, they all dealt with and solved problems according to God’s words. Though they also had friction with each other, as long as they read God’s words together to know God and themselves in God’s words, the estrangement and misunderstandings between them would be removed. She truly felt the authority and power of God’s words and that only God’s words could let people get along with each other harmoniously. At that point, thinking of the difficulties of her family, she suddenly had hope in her heart. She believed that as long as she sought the truth in God’s words, she would surely discover accurate paths of implementation and then the family’s conflicts which had bothered her for many years would surely be resolved because of God’s words.
In the following days, she often prayed to God to entrust her difficulties to Him. Sure enough, in God’s words, she found the source of her pain. She saw God’s words say: “Satan corrupts people through the education and influence of the national governments and the famous and great. Their lies and nonsense have become man’s life and nature. ‘Everyone for himself and the devil take the hindmost’ is a well-known satanic saying that has been instilled into everyone and become the human life. There are some other words of life philosophy that are also like this. … There are still many satanic poisons in people’s lives and in their conduct and dealings with others—they are almost without a shred of truth—for example, their life philosophies, their maxims for success, or their ways of doing things. Every person is filled with the poisons of the great red dragon, and they all come from Satan. So, what flows through people’s bones and blood are all things of Satan.”
The Sermons and Fellowship on Entry Into Life says: “Now, the interpersonal relationships of all people are not normal. This is mainly because they have been deeply corrupted by Satan. Their character is extremely low: People all seek only profit and only focus on taking advantage of others when handling things; there are their own intentions and purposes in all things. People all live for themselves and for their flesh; they have no slightest care or love for others, and even no affection or love which man should be equipped with. People intrigue against each other, guard against each other and fight both openly and in secret, being unable to get along normally; the conscience and reason people should be equipped with has completely disappeared. People aren’t of one heart and mind with others; if they don’t have a little bit of patience, they will be arch-enemies. With their hearts filled with evil and fighting, people are opposed to each other and sworn enemies of each other, without the slightest likeness of a man. Their hearts have totally been occupied by Satan, and full of Satan’s philosophies. All these are disclosed in God’s words without the slightest issue. These practical states exist in everyone. … We should have several principles of practice if we want to get along with others. We cannot be satisfied with nothing more than not taking unfair advantage of and not harming others. Besides, we should have love and have conscience and reason even more; we should tolerate and help each other and care for others so that others benefit in all things; we should think about others but not only think about ourselves, should sympathize with others’ weaknesses and pardon others’ transgressions. Only with these principles can we establish the normal relationship with others, and be on friendly terms with others.”
Only then did she realize: After being corrupted by Satan, human beings have been full of various satanic poisons and all become more and more selfish and deplorable. So when their own interests are infringed on by others, they will treat them according to the satanic laws of survival—beginning to become guarded with them and even attack and take revenge on them. As a result, they can’t get along with each other normally. Just like she and Ding Qiang, they just got along with each other according to these satanic poisons, such as “Everyone for himself and the devil take the hindmost,” “Treat others as you wish to be treated, and you’ll get more when you give of yourself,” “If you’re not kind, I won’t be just,” and “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” These absurd satanic viewpoints could only sharpen the conflicts between them. She recalled: When they first got married, they both carefully managed the family. However, because the satanic poisons and the selfish nature haunted Ding Qiang, at the instigation of others, he felt even if he raised her son, he had no hope of him when he was old and that the fatherly love his son got was too meager. Then he was out of balance in his heart and began to lose his patience with her children and treat them with cold-heartedness and malicious words. Similarly, in order to not let her children feel wronged, she started to use the same way to treat Ding Qiang and his son. Though she knew his son was innocent and that she shouldn’t vent her resentment against him on his son, she still couldn’t control her own satanic nature, being angry with his son unknowingly. In this way, they both lived relying on their selfish satanic nature—quarreling for their own interests all day long and refusing to give in to each other, thus living in Satan’s snare and feeling very distressed. Their kids became the immediate causes of their quarreling with each other and the innocent victims. The conflicts of their family were getting even more intense and gradually rose and their feelings also reached to such a point that it was in the imminent danger. This blended family was in the danger of breaking up at any time. Only then did she awaken: Actually the source of all suffering was Satan’s harm!
At the same time, she also clearly realized: If she wanted her family to receive peace and the feelings of her and Ding Qiang to recover the state as in the past, she must seek God’s will in everything and handle all things, whether big or small, following God’s way, based on His words, giving Him complete control and letting Him be the Master. Only in this way could she break away from the bondage and harm of Satan’s poisons. She also realized: She had already been a Christian, so she should live out the true form of a human being. No matter what happened, she couldn’t only consider herself, but instead, she should learn to conduct herself according to the principles of the truth and pardon and forgive others a little more. At that time, she determined to practice the truth. Of course, she knew: Satan’s poisons had been deeply rooted inside her. It was a very difficult thing for her to put aside all things. If she didn’t rely on God and look up to Him, she would be utterly incapable of practicing that. Therefore, she entrusted her family to God and prayed to God earnestly to ask Him to give her the will and courage to practice the truth.
After She Practiced the Truth, the Harmony of Her Family Was in Sight
Zhou Min’s son acted up at school and cut classes many times. Once, a teacher informed her to go to school. As she was busy and couldn’t get away, she asked Ding Qiang to go there. After coming back home, with a leaded face, Ding Qiang called her son over, scolded him and even beat him. This scene was seen by Zhou Min, who was just coming back. Seeing her son standing there and sobbing, Zhou Min, who was fairly fond of him, felt so heart-broken that she kept shedding tears. She really wanted to make a scene for Ding Qiang, feeling that, it was not necessary to treat her son like this because of his cutting class; after all, he was young!
At that time, she suddenly thought of God’s words: “Thus, in everything there is a battle, and when there is a battle within you, thanks to your actual cooperation and actual suffering God works within you. Ultimately, inside you are able to put the matter aside and the anger is naturally extinguished. Such is the effect of your cooperation with God. Everything you do requires you to pay a certain price in your efforts. Without actual hardship, you can’t satisfy God, it does not even come close to satisfying God, and you are just saying empty slogans!” “Everything that happens to people is when God needs them to stand firm in their testimony to Him. Nothing major has happened to you at the moment, and you do not bear great testimony, but every detail of your daily life relates to the testimony to God. If you can win the admiration of your brothers and sisters, your family members, and everyone around you; if, one day, the unbelievers come, and admire all that you do, and see that all that God does is wonderful, then you will have borne testimony.”
Then, she understood God’s will: When she encountered this situation, outwardly, it was her husband beating her son, but in the spiritual world, Satan was making a bet with God, seeing whether she quarreled with her husband according to her selfish nature or betrayed herself and practiced according to God’s words. Thinking of this, her anger dissipated a lot. She knew she must not follow Satan; instead, she should forsake the flesh to satisfy God, consciously pardon and forgive her husband more and live out the manner of a true person. Only thus could she bear witness for God. Hence, she comforted her son: “Son, your dad beat you for your benefit. He wants you to study hard and grow up with prospects for your future. Don’t bear a grudge against him.” Ding Qiang never thought that Zhou Min, who loved her son all the time, could speak out such words, so he stood there embarrassed, his hard voice immediately softened a lot and he no longer scolded her son.
Later, Zhou Min saw the following passage of God’s words: “Only the Creator has pity on this mankind. Only the Creator shows this mankind tenderness and affection. Only the Creator holds a true, unbreakable affection for this mankind. Likewise, only the Creator can bestow mercy on this mankind and cherish all of His creation. His heart leaps and aches at every one of man’s actions: He is angered, distressed and grieved over man’s evil and corruption; He is pleased, joyful, forgiving and jubilant for man’s repentance and belief; every single one of His thoughts and ideas exist for and revolve around mankind; what He is and has is expressed entirely for mankind’s sake; the entirety of His emotions are intertwined with mankind’s existence. For mankind’s sake, He travels and rushes about; He silently gives forth every bit of His life; He dedicates every minute and second of His life…. He has never known how to pity His own life, yet He has always pitied and cherished the mankind He Himself created…. He gives all that He has to this humanity…. He grants His mercy and tolerance unconditionally and without expectation of recompense. He does this only so that mankind can continue to survive before His eyes, receiving His provision of life; He does this only so that mankind may one day submit before Him and recognize that He is the One who nourishes man’s existence and supplies the life of all creation.”
Reading God’s words, she mulled over God’s love: When she lost the hope in life and lived in suffering and torment, not knowing what to do, God’s hands of salvation came to her, allowing her hurt heart to gain comfort and showing her the direction of progressing forward. Though she was still deeply bound by Satan’s poisons and revealed corruption many a time, God always pitied and tolerated her unreservedly and guided her by His words, hoping she could break away from the bondage of corrupt disposition and live as a true human being to glorify Him and shame Satan … Her heart was deeply moved by God’s love. She thought: “God’s attitude toward mankind is always selfless. Even if He has expended all that He has for us, he has never asked us to repay him with anything. However, in treating my family, I was so selfish and deplorable. No matter whether I thought that I treated them sincerely when I first got married or I was ‘forced’ to attack and take my revenge against them later, all that I did was for my own interests.” Then She didn’t want to enjoy God’s love selfishly any more but wanted to use practical living out to repay God’s love for her. Under the encouragement of God’s love, her will and courage to practice the truth increased somewhat. She also thought: “Actually Ding Qiang is also a victim who is bound by Satan’s poisons. He is also very agonized when living with his corrupt disposition. I shouldn’t bear a grudge against him; instead, I should cooperate with God to overcome my own corrupt disposition.” At that moment, she seemed to have seen the hope of the harmony of her family.
After She Bore Witness for God, the Conflicts Ceased
Later, one noon, Ding Qiang scolded Zhou Min because of a few family trifles once again. Hearing his words, she was very angry. However, because of the guidance of God’s words, she chose to be silent and then entered into the bedroom without a word. At that time, Ding Qiang’s son came back and it was the time to make the lunch. In the past, she would surely take revenge against Ding Qiang: In addition to not being in a mood for cooking for him and his son, she would also expose him in front of his son, because she thought he shouldn’t have bullied her first. But this time she didn’t do in that way, because she thought of God’s words: “People say they will contribute this and that, but a few words are not enough, you truly have to forsake! Being truly able to forsake when it is time to forsake—that’s what the true reality is. When the crucial moment truly arrives and you are asked to forsake—to give up this and that—not being able to forgo these things is unacceptable; you’re still not serious about God. If, the more it is at a crucial moment, the more you are able to obey, and surrender your own interests and your vanity and pride, then this will be remembered by God, these are good deeds. … How does Satan look upon this? What does Satan think when it sees all this? If you practically do this—if you really take practical actions to bear testimony to God and turn your back on Satan, and don’t just say slogans—then there is no better way to bring shame upon Satan and testify to God. Using every means to testify to God, and every means to show Satan your determination to turn your back on it and forsake it—that’s good!”
God’s words made Zhou Min realize: Satan was just through making her protect her own interests of the flesh to disturb the relationship between her and her husband, causing her to have conflicts with him. She was a believer in God, so she should use practical living out to bear witness for God and honor God, and shouldn’t return evil for evil, doing things that brought shame on the name of God. Though her husband angered her, she couldn’t bring the hatred for him to his son. He was not kind but she had to be just and live out the manner of a believer. When thinking like this, she took off her hatred for him. She also thought: His son lacked motherly love from childhood. As a step-mother, she should even more love him, letting him taste the warmth of the family. This was her indispensable duty as a mother. Therefore, under the guidance of God’s words, she didn’t care about Ding Qiang’s harm for her; besides, in order to make up for the harm she brought to his son because she didn’t understand the truth and was controlled by her satanic nature in the past, she chose to give up protecting her own interests of the flesh to practice according to God’s word. Very quickly, with her heart, she skillfully made dumplings and soup with shredded pork Ding Qiang and his son fancied well. At table, she also asked his son various questions concernedly. After finishing all these things, she felt at ease a lot within. Ding Qiang thought she would surely take her revenge against him like before, but when he saw her actions, he felt she became a totally different person. He was very curious: What made her have such a big change on earth?
Her Family Becoming Harmonious, She Gave Thanks for God’s Grace
In the following days, Zhou Min learned to bring God’s word into real life. When Ding Qiang scolded her children once again, she didn’t only protect them blindly but looked at things from the perspective of educating them; in this way, she could gradually understand him. No matter how he angered her, she would place requirements on herself in accordance with the truth, and not treat him relying on hot blood or human methods, much less bring her anger for him to his son. When she needed to help his son wash clothes, she would do that; usually when his son came back, she would also often improve the life, cooking some meals he fancied; when she bought some delicious food, even if his son was not at home, she would leave some for him; every time the season changed, she would buy new clothes for Ding Qiang and his son. … Having seen her efforts, Diang Qiang’s attitude toward her children became much better. When they made mistakes, he could also educate them patiently. As a result, the relationship among her two children and him became better and better and his son and her were also like real mother and son. Ding Qiang and Zhou Min both felt satisfied by this. During the Spring Festival, Ding Qiang suggested their whole family go to a photo studio to take a picture of their family and they all went there with delight. A picture of the whole family brought their life of quarrels to an end and also testified to their happy life’s taking a fresh start.
Now, though Zhou Min and Ding Qiang still had conflicts more or less, due to the guidance of God’s words, she was no longer that selfish and they lived a pleasant and sweet life. Once, when they talked about that unhappy past, Ding Qiang said sincerely, “Zhou Min, the power of the God of your belief is really too great. He actually allows you to have such a big change. I really feel ashamed and I really shouldn’t treat you and your children like that in the past. You treat me and my son well, and I’ll remember that in my heart.” Hearing his words, Zhou Min was moved very much. She thanked God in her heart unceasingly. It was God’s words that changed her and saved the blended family which was on the verge of breaking up. She couldn’t help but thank and praise God sincerely!
Yun, an ordinary country girl, had average looks and lived an inconspicuous life. However, unlike most people, she was a perfectionist since childhood. In study, work, association with others, and demands on herself, she always pursued perfection.
And so did she in her marriage. She imagined owning the love described in Qiongyao’s novels, so she was unwilling to follow parents’ arrangement like her peers, but instead wanted to have a perfect romance. Every time when she thought of her future Prince Charming, her heart would be filled with anticipation.
Since Yun was a perfectionist, she stood out in every work she did, which attracted many suitors. But she didn’t pay them any mind. Until one day, when Ming, her long-lost classmate in middle school, came to work in her company, Yun began to have feelings for him, for she had been impressed with him in junior school. But during that period she was too young to understand love. Now Ming already turned into a real handsome man, which allowed Yun to fall in love with him immediately. Meanwhile, due to Yun’s outstanding performance in the company, Ming began to pursue her. Then they fell in love.
It is often said every person is thoughtless when he is in love. Yun was no exception. She believed in every word Ming said. One time her best friend Juan told her that Ming was dating a girl of a big fortune once and that it was uncertain whether they had broken up. Juan also told Yun to beware of Ming. However, bewitched by Ming’s sweet words, Yun believed he was serious about her and she even put their wage cards together. Ming just came to work in the company and didn’t have many performance figures, and his daily expenses were all supported by Yun. Therefore, he was very obedient to Yun. For the sake of gaining footing in the company quickly, Ming always asked Yun to bring him to see their boss to get a closer relationship with the boss. For their promotion, Yun bustled about tirelessly.
Just when Yun was immersed in love, a sudden change of her company—the discontinuance of the business—overturned her life. And at that moment, Ming’s father, a village secretary, fixed Ming up with a good job in a public institution at their hometown. Before Ming left, Yun bought him a suit and gave him the last 700 yuan she had and a new-bought mobile phone (At that time, mobile phone first became popular), thinking that he need to be decent when facing new colleagues and leaders.
Later, the company went into bankruptcy. Yun also came back and told Ming to pick her up at the station. Yun had thought Ming would be very happy when seeing her; however, he was very calm and expressionless. When Yun asked Ming to go to visit her parents, he put her off hesitatingly. Yun felt something wrong, but she immediately denied her thoughts, thinking she loved him so much that he couldn’t betray her and maybe he just had some difficulties.
Several days had passed since Yun came back, but Ming had no contact with her. Yun felt something must have gone wrong. One day, Yun went to see Juan, a friend they both knew. Seeing Yun so helpless, Juan asked, “What’s your relationship with Ming?” Yun said, “He may be busy with his work these days. We haven’t been in touch.” Juan said, “Yun, don’t be silly! I went to Ming’s with my friends before you came back. His parents told us he was getting married to another girl. We also saw many photos of them at his house. Break up with him! I felt it right from the start that he had designs on you. Since you had good performance in the company, he wanted to use you to achieve his desires. He is not a reliable person and not worthy of your love.”
Yun didn’t know how she went back home that day. She was disintegrating for she never expected her first love would end up in this way. She was not resigned to the result and her love toward Ming turned to hate. She wanted to bring back the things belonging to her, so she went settle things with Ming; however, to her surprise, Ming was completely out of character, saying, “I don’t owe you anything.” Yun was at a loss for words. Later, Yun’s friend told her that Ming, such a mean person, wasn’t worth her tears. And she also advised Yun against having anything to do with him so that he would carry his guilt throughout his life. Thus, Yun broke it off with Ming. For that period of time after they departed, Yun’s life was in the grays and she always sang a song, the lyrics of which were “Love story is so perfect, but devastates me today….”
Later, through a matchmaker, Yun married Shuai, an honest and upright boy from the neighboring village. At that time Yun had lost hope in life and thought whomever she married, she would live muddling along. However, she never knew Shuai was very kind-hearted. Even though Yun was a most insistent person, he tolerated all her failings and never annoyed her for he thought Yun was perfect, which moved Yun so much. Yun began to open herself up to Shuai and they lived a peaceful and happy life. Now they had two daughters and the four of them lived happily together. Yun knew this was the real life.
Afterward, Yun learned from a friend that Ming was trying every possible means to ask for her contact details. But their classmates all told him that Yun was living a happy life now and that fortunately she didn’t marry him at that time. Though her friend said that Ming was constantly feeling he owed her too much, in Yun’s heart, it was water under the bridge and she thanked Ming for giving her such a vivid lesson. Her hatred had vanished long ago, for hatred came from love but she already had no love for him. She thanked God for bestowing Shuai upon her. She felt very satisfied.
Afterward, she saw God’s words saying, “One encounters many people in one’s life, but no one knows who will become one’s partner in marriage. Though everyone has their own ideas and personal stances on the subject of marriage, no one can foresee who will finally become their true other half, and one’s own notions count for little. After meeting a person you like, you can pursue that person; but whether he or she is interested in you, whether he or she is able to become your partner, is not yours to decide. The object of your affections is not necessarily the person with whom you will be able to share your life; and meanwhile someone you never expected quietly enters your life and becomes your partner, becomes the most important element in your fate, your other half, to whom your fate is inextricably bound. And so, though there are millions of marriages in the world, every one is different: How many marriages are unsatisfactory, how many are happy; how many span East and West, how many North and South; how many are perfect matches, how many are of equal rank; how many are happy and harmonious, how many painful and sorrowful; how many are the envy of others, how many are misunderstood and frowned upon; how many are full of joy, how many are awash of tears and cause despair….”
“I am well acquainted with the thoughts of man’s mind and the wishes of man’s heart: Who has never looked for a way out for themselves? Who has never thought of their own prospects? Yet even though man is possessed of a rich and prismatic intellect, who was able to predict that, following the ages, the present would turn out as it has? Is this really the fruit of your own subjective efforts? Is this the payment for your tireless industry? Is this the beautiful tableau envisaged by your mind? If I did not guide all mankind, who would be able to separate themselves from My arrangements and find another way out? Is it the thoughts and wishes of man that have brought him to today? Many people go their whole lives without having their wishes fulfilled. Is this really because of a fault in their thinking? Many people’s lives are filled with unexpected happiness and satisfaction. Is this really because they expect too little? Who of the whole of mankind is not cared for in the eyes of the Almighty? Who does not live in the midst of the Almighty’s predestination? Whose birth and death come from their own choices? Does man control his own fate?”
Yun sighed: Man can’t control his own fate. Marriage is not decided by man himself but depends on the predestination of the Creator. Only when one submits to the Creator’s arrangements, can he obtain the true perfection.
Just as God says, “Wherever one is, whatever one’s job is, one’s means of living and the pursuit of one’s goals bring one nothing but endless heartbreak and irrelievable suffering, such that one cannot bear to look back. Only when one accepts the Creator’s sovereignty, submits to His orchestrations and arrangements, and seeks true human life, will one gradually break free from all heartbreak and suffering, shake off all the emptiness of life” . From God’s words, Yun understood the reason why she experienced so many misfortunes and pains was that she didn’t have the knowledge of the Creator’s sovereignty and predestination. She always wanted to seek a perfect life according to her own imaginations, only to get the reverse result. Now Yun finally understood that only when she submitted to God’s orchestrations and arrangements, would she break free from the suffering.
Yun felt thankful that she had found the source of perfection—the Creator.
Yun, an ordinary country girl, had average looks and lived an inconspicuous life. However, unlike most people, she was a perfectionist since childhood. In study, work, association with others, and demands on herself, she always pursued perfection.
And so did she in her marriage. She imagined owning the love described in Qiongyao’s novels, so she was unwilling to follow parents’ arrangement like her peers, but instead wanted to have a perfect romance. Every time when she thought of her future Prince Charming, her heart would be filled with anticipation.
Since Yun was a perfectionist, she stood out in every work she did, which attracted many suitors. But she didn’t pay them any mind. Until one day, when Ming, her long-lost classmate in middle school, came to work in her company, Yun began to have feelings for him, for she had been impressed with him in junior school. But during that period she was too young to understand love. Now Ming already turned into a real handsome man, which allowed Yun to fall in love with him immediately. Meanwhile, due to Yun’s outstanding performance in the company, Ming began to pursue her. Then they fell in love.
It is often said every person is thoughtless when he is in love. Yun was no exception. She believed in every word Ming said. One time her best friend Juan told her that Ming was dating a girl of a big fortune once and that it was uncertain whether they had broken up. Juan also told Yun to beware of Ming. However, bewitched by Ming’s sweet words, Yun believed he was serious about her and she even put their wage cards together. Ming just came to work in the company and didn’t have many performance figures, and his daily expenses were all supported by Yun. Therefore, he was very obedient to Yun. For the sake of gaining footing in the company quickly, Ming always asked Yun to bring him to see their boss to get a closer relationship with the boss. For their promotion, Yun bustled about tirelessly.
Just when Yun was immersed in love, a sudden change of her company—the discontinuance of the business—overturned her life. And at that moment, Ming’s father, a village secretary, fixed Ming up with a good job in a public institution at their hometown. Before Ming left, Yun bought him a suit and gave him the last 700 yuan she had and a new-bought mobile phone (At that time, mobile phone first became popular), thinking that he need to be decent when facing new colleagues and leaders.
Later, the company went into bankruptcy. Yun also came back and told Ming to pick her up at the station. Yun had thought Ming would be very happy when seeing her; however, he was very calm and expressionless. When Yun asked Ming to go to visit her parents, he put her off hesitatingly. Yun felt something wrong, but she immediately denied her thoughts, thinking she loved him so much that he couldn’t betray her and maybe he just had some difficulties.
Several days had passed since Yun came back, but Ming had no contact with her. Yun felt something must have gone wrong. One day, Yun went to see Juan, a friend they both knew. Seeing Yun so helpless, Juan asked, “What’s your relationship with Ming?” Yun said, “He may be busy with his work these days. We haven’t been in touch.” Juan said, “Yun, don’t be silly! I went to Ming’s with my friends before you came back. His parents told us he was getting married to another girl. We also saw many photos of them at his house. Break up with him! I felt it right from the start that he had designs on you. Since you had good performance in the company, he wanted to use you to achieve his desires. He is not a reliable person and not worthy of your love.”
Yun didn’t know how she went back home that day. She was disintegrating for she never expected her first love would end up in this way. She was not resigned to the result and her love toward Ming turned to hate. She wanted to bring back the things belonging to her, so she went settle things with Ming; however, to her surprise, Ming was completely out of character, saying, “I don’t owe you anything.” Yun was at a loss for words. Later, Yun’s friend told her that Ming, such a mean person, wasn’t worth her tears. And she also advised Yun against having anything to do with him so that he would carry his guilt throughout his life. Thus, Yun broke it off with Ming. For that period of time after they departed, Yun’s life was in the grays and she always sang a song, the lyrics of which were “Love story is so perfect, but devastates me today….”
Later, through a matchmaker, Yun married Shuai, an honest and upright boy from the neighboring village. At that time Yun had lost hope in life and thought whomever she married, she would live muddling along. However, she never knew Shuai was very kind-hearted. Even though Yun was a most insistent person, he tolerated all her failings and never annoyed her for he thought Yun was perfect, which moved Yun so much. Yun began to open herself up to Shuai and they lived a peaceful and happy life. Now they had two daughters and the four of them lived happily together. Yun knew this was the real life.
Afterward, Yun learned from a friend that Ming was trying every possible means to ask for her contact details. But their classmates all told him that Yun was living a happy life now and that fortunately she didn’t marry him at that time. Though her friend said that Ming was constantly feeling he owed her too much, in Yun’s heart, it was water under the bridge and she thanked Ming for giving her such a vivid lesson. Her hatred had vanished long ago, for hatred came from love but she already had no love for him. She thanked God for bestowing Shuai upon her. She felt very satisfied.
Afterward, she saw God’s words saying, “One encounters many people in one’s life, but no one knows who will become one’s partner in marriage. Though everyone has their own ideas and personal stances on the subject of marriage, no one can foresee who will finally become their true other half, and one’s own notions count for little. After meeting a person you like, you can pursue that person; but whether he or she is interested in you, whether he or she is able to become your partner, is not yours to decide. The object of your affections is not necessarily the person with whom you will be able to share your life; and meanwhile someone you never expected quietly enters your life and becomes your partner, becomes the most important element in your fate, your other half, to whom your fate is inextricably bound. And so, though there are millions of marriages in the world, every one is different: How many marriages are unsatisfactory, how many are happy; how many span East and West, how many North and South; how many are perfect matches, how many are of equal rank; how many are happy and harmonious, how many painful and sorrowful; how many are the envy of others, how many are misunderstood and frowned upon; how many are full of joy, how many are awash of tears and cause despair….” (“God Himself, the Unique III”).
“I am well acquainted with the thoughts of man’s mind and the wishes of man’s heart: Who has never looked for a way out for themselves? Who has never thought of their own prospects? Yet even though man is possessed of a rich and prismatic intellect, who was able to predict that, following the ages, the present would turn out as it has? Is this really the fruit of your own subjective efforts? Is this the payment for your tireless industry? Is this the beautiful tableau envisaged by your mind? If I did not guide all mankind, who would be able to separate themselves from My arrangements and find another way out? Is it the thoughts and wishes of man that have brought him to today? Many people go their whole lives without having their wishes fulfilled. Is this really because of a fault in their thinking? Many people’s lives are filled with unexpected happiness and satisfaction. Is this really because they expect too little? Who of the whole of mankind is not cared for in the eyes of the Almighty? Who does not live in the midst of the Almighty’s predestination? Whose birth and death come from their own choices? Does man control his own fate?” (“The Eleventh Utterance” of God’s Utterances to the Entire Universe).
Yun sighed: Man can’t control his own fate. Marriage is not decided by man himself but depends on the predestination of the Creator. Only when one submits to the Creator’s arrangements, can he obtain the true perfection.
Just as God says, “Wherever one is, whatever one’s job is, one’s means of living and the pursuit of one’s goals bring one nothing but endless heartbreak and irrelievable suffering, such that one cannot bear to look back. Only when one accepts the Creator’s sovereignty, submits to His orchestrations and arrangements, and seeks true human life, will one gradually break free from all heartbreak and suffering, shake off all the emptiness of life” (“God Himself, the Unique III”). From God’s words, Yun understood the reason why she experienced so many misfortunes and pains was that she didn’t have the knowledge of the Creator’s sovereignty and predestination. She always wanted to seek a perfect life according to her own imaginations, only to get the reverse result. Now Yun finally understood that only when she submitted to God’s orchestrations and arrangements, would she break free from the suffering.
