By Lu Yi, China

In February 2024, I was doing a text-based duty in the church. I gradually grasped some principles and didn’t encounter many difficulties in my work. I felt that every day was quite dull and somewhat tedious. I recalled how, when I had first started doing text-based work, there would constantly be deviations in the performance of my duty. Although it was hard to endure at the time, I reaped some gains through seeking the truth. I thought, “Recently, the work has yielded some results, with fewer deviations and issues. I rarely face any pruning, and there hasn’t been anything particularly moving or heart-wrenching. Where should I go to reflect on myself and learn lessons? Without life entry, isn’t doing my duty just about exerting efforts and laboring? What can I ultimately gain from this?” I couldn’t help but feel some worry in my heart.

One day, I watched several experiential testimony videos. Most of them had been written by leaders and workers, and the things they had experienced varied greatly. I felt envious in my heart, thinking, “Being a leader is better. You interact with more people, face more situations, and there are lessons to learn every day, so the hope of gaining the truth and attaining salvation is greater.” I then remembered that before, when I had been a supervisor in the church, I’d interacted with more people, and had made some progress in discerning people and treating them according to principles. It hadn’t been like it was now, in my text-based duty, interacting only with the few people around me each day, and having no major issues to face. I felt that there were too few opportunities to learn lessons and gain the truth. I had believed in God for over ten years. If, in the end, I didn’t gain the truth, wouldn’t I be revealed and eliminated? I felt inexplicably despondent, and even thought about changing my duty or environment to get some experiences, even if it meant preaching the gospel or watering new believers. But I knew such thoughts weren’t that realistic. The church had cultivated me in text-based work for such a long time, and duties are not reassigned casually without special circumstances. At that time, I felt despondent and lacked motivation in my duty.

During a gathering, I opened up about my state to a sister I was cooperating with. She fellowshipped with me, saying, “Life entry is possible in small and big matters. It’s not necessary to experience heart-wrenching events or face pruning in order to reflect on oneself and learn lessons. The key is to grasp the daily revelations of one’s thoughts, and pay attention to learning lessons from all the various things you encounter.” I happened to watch the experiential testimony video The Little Things in Life Are Also Learning Opportunities. The protagonist’s state was very similar to mine. After watching it, I realized that the stagnation in my life entry wasn’t because my duty was monotonous, but because there was a problem with my perspective on things. In my seeking, I read a passage of God’s words: “Any duty you perform involves life entry. Whether your duty is rather regular or erratic, dull or lively, you must always attain life entry. The duties some people perform are rather monotonous; they do the same thing every day. However, when performing them, the states these people reveal are not all that homogenous. Sometimes, when in a good mood, people are a bit more diligent and do a better job. Other times, due to some unknown influence, their corrupt satanic dispositions stir up mischief in them, causing them to have improper views and be in bad states and bad moods; this results in them performing their duties in a perfunctory manner. People’s internal states are constantly changing; they can change at any place and any time. No matter how your state changes, it is always wrong to act based on your mood. Say you do a bit better when you are in a good mood, and a bit worse when you are in a bad mood—is this a principled way of doing things? Will this allow you to perform your duty to an acceptable standard? No matter what their mood, people must know to pray before God and seek the truth; only in this way can they refrain from being constrained and swayed to and fro by their moods. When performing your duty, you should always examine yourself to see if you are doing things according to principle, if your performance of your duty is up to standard, whether or not you are simply doing it in a perfunctory manner, whether you have tried to shirk your responsibilities, and whether there are any problems with your attitude and the way you think. Once you have self-reflected and these things become clear to you, you will have an easier time fulfilling your duty” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Life Entry Begins With the Performance of Duty). After reading God’s words, I realized that no matter what duty one does in God’s house, as long as one pursues the truth, there can be progress in life. Reflecting on myself, I had thought that doing text-based work, with its limited interactions and few experiences, would lead to slow life entry. So I had lived in the emotion of resistance, unwilling to do this duty. Only now did I see how distorted this perspective was. If you don’t pursue the truth, then no matter what duty you do, you will have no life entry, and ultimately, you will gain nothing. I thought of Xiaomiao, an antichrist I knew who had always served as a leader before. But she hadn’t taken the right path or pursued the truth, always chasing after fame and status. In the end, she had disrupted and disturbed the church’s work, totally refused to repent, and had been revealed and eliminated. Conversely, some brothers and sisters did duties that seemed insignificant, and had few interactions with others, yet whenever things happened, they focused on seeking the truth and reflecting on themselves, and gained some experiential understanding. I realized that whether or not you have life entry and gain the truth doesn’t depend on the duty you do, but on whether you pursue and practice the truth. Even though my text-based work seemed on the surface to be somewhat monotonous and didn’t involve interacting with many people, there were still lessons to be learned from the things I usually encountered. For instance, when the workload increased and there were more sermon articles to evaluate for selection, I would become careless and perfunctory, failing to scrutinize the details. This had led to errors, resulting in rework and delaying the progress. While evaluating sermon articles for selection, I would also reveal an arrogant disposition, thinking that I’d done my duty for a long time and had gained some work experience, so I didn’t seek the principles and relied on my own will. As a result, I had discarded some qualified sermon articles. Additionally, when the work had shown some results, I had lived in a complacent state, resting on my laurels and just coasting along. In life, sometimes the sister I cooperated with said something inadvertently that touched on my pride, and I had become very sensitive. I would even suspect that she looked down on me, and had ended up being preoccupied with my own pride and status. I realized that in daily life and work, I would come across various big and small matters. As long as I diligently paid attention to them, sought, and pondered, I could learn lessons from everything. I realized that my lack of life entry was not caused by the duty I did, but by my failure to pursue the truth and my focus solely on getting things done. Despite being busy every day, I had learned no lessons.

Later, I read these words of God: “If you really are willing to pursue the truth and salvation, then the first step is to begin with breaking away from your corrupt dispositions, from your various fallacious thoughts, notions, and actions. Accept the environments that God has arranged for you in your daily life, embrace His scrutiny, testing, chastisement, and judgment, strive to gradually practice according to the truth principles when things befall you, and progressively turn God’s words into the principles and criterion for how you comport yourself and act in your daily life, and into your life. This is what should be manifested in a pursuer of the truth, and it’s what should be manifested in a person pursuing salvation. It sounds easy, the steps are simple, and there is no lengthy exposition, but putting it into practice isn’t so easy. This is because there are too many corrupt things within people: their pettiness, little schemes, selfishness, and baseness, their corrupt dispositions, and all kinds of tricks. On top of this, some people possess knowledge, they have learned some philosophies for worldly dealings and manipulative tactics in society, and they possess some shortcomings and flaws in terms of their humanity. For example, some people are gluttonous and lazy, others are glib-tongued, some have a severely scummy nature, others are vain, or rash and impulsive in their actions, along with many other faults. There are many deficiencies and problems that people need to overcome in terms of their humanity. However, if you wish to attain salvation, if you wish to practice and experience God’s words, and gain the truth and the life, you must read God’s words more, attain an understanding of the truth, be able to practice and submit to His words, and start off by practicing the truth and upholding the truth principles. These are just a few simple sentences, yet people do not know how to practice or experience them. Regardless of your caliber or education, and regardless of your age or years of faith, in any case, if you’re on the right path of practicing the truth, with the correct goals and direction, and if what you pursue and exert is all for the sake of practicing the truth, what you ultimately gain will undoubtedly be the truth reality and God’s words becoming your life. First determine your goal, then gradually practice according to this path, and in the end, you will certainly gain something. Do you believe this? (Yes.)” (The Word, Vol. 6. On the Pursuit of the Truth. How to Pursue the Truth (20)). Pondering God’s words, I understood that to achieve salvation, the key lies in whether one pursues the truth and whether there is a change in one’s life disposition. This is the crux. For example, I had kept complaining about not having life entry and worrying about not being able to gain salvation. I had been passive and negative in my duty, and had even considered getting myself reassigned to another duty. This matter I had faced had been a good opportunity for me to seek the truth and reflect on myself. But instead of seeking and entering, I had constantly aimed too high, wanting to experience significant matters. This was not a manifestation of pursuing the truth! How could I attain the truth and achieve salvation if I continued in this way? I had only wanted to experience significant matters, and had overlooked the small, daily matters. Sometimes, when I revealed wrong states or improper thoughts or ideas emerged, I’d thought that they weren’t a big issue as long as they didn’t affect my duty, and that it didn’t matter whether they were resolved or not. This had led to many lessons that I should have learned being lost pointlessly, which was also a deviation in my life entry. Actually, as long as you are purposeful and diligent in your pursuit of the truth, you can learn lessons from any situation. For example, sometimes after eating and drinking God’s words, you gain some understanding of your own state and issues and find a path for practice, which leads to some gains. Sometimes, even if you haven’t experienced something personally, if the brothers and sisters around you have, then by listening carefully to their fellowship, you can also gain benefits and lessons all the same. What’s more, by paying attention to examining your thoughts and ideas in doing your duty, being able to reflect on yourself, and practicing according to God’s words, it can also lead to growth in life. Realizing this, I felt that I had been too numb and had lost many opportunities to gain the truth, even falsely attributing my lack of life entry to the monotony of my duty. I had been like someone at a feast, suffering from hunger—truly foolish!

Later, I read a passage of God’s words that was very helpful for my state, and I also came to know how to practice and enter. Almighty God says: “The matters that involve following God’s way are not divided between major or minor ones, they are all a big deal—can you understand that? (We can understand it.) In terms of everyday matters, there are some which people view as very major and significant, and others that are viewed as minor trifles. People often see these major matters as being very important, and they consider them to have been sent by God. However, as these major matters play out, due to people’s immature stature and because of their poor caliber, people often fall short of God’s intentions, cannot obtain any revelations, and cannot acquire any actual knowledge that is of value. As far as minor matters are concerned, these are simply overlooked by people and left to slip away one bit at a time. As such, people have lost many opportunities to be examined before God and to be tested by Him. What does it mean if you always overlook the people, events, and objects, and situations that God has arranged for you? It means that every day, and even at every moment, you are constantly renouncing God’s perfection of you, as well as His leadership. Whenever God arranges a situation for you, He is watching in secret, looking upon your heart, observing your thoughts and deliberations, watching how you think, and waiting to see how you will act. If you are a careless person—one who has never been serious about God’s way, His words, or the truth—then you will not be mindful of or pay attention to what God wishes to complete or the requirements He expected you to meet when He arranged a certain environment for you. Neither will you know how the people, events, and objects that you encounter relate to the truth or God’s intentions. After you face repeated circumstances and repeated trials like this, with God not seeing any results in you, how will He proceed? After having repeatedly faced trials, you have not honored God as great in your heart, nor have you taken the circumstances that God arranged for you seriously, and regarded them as trials or tests from God. Instead, one after the other, you have rejected the opportunities that God bestowed upon you, letting them slip away time and time again. Is this not extreme rebellion that people exhibit? (It is.)” (The Word, Vol. 2. On Knowing God. How to Know God’s Disposition and the Results His Work Shall Achieve). God’s words pointed out the way of practice for life entry. Following God’s way does not distinguish between big or small matters. Regardless of whether the matters encountered are big or small, they involve various truth principles and require seeking the truth in order to enter. I thought of Peter, who had walked the path of pursuing the truth by focusing on self-reflection and seeking God’s intentions in all matters. He had strictly practiced and entered according to God’s words, and in the end, he had gained the truth and was perfected by God. In contrast, I had been neglecting my proper work and had been aiming too high, always wanting to learn lessons from some significant matters while overlooking what I had considered to be insignificant matters. As a result, I had missed many opportunities to gain the truth. Thinking about myself, I hadn’t even paid attention to small matters most of the time. So then, what lessons could I learn from the big ones? Moving forward, I needed to learn to follow Peter’s path. Regardless of whether the matters I encountered were big or small, I should focus on examining the thoughts and ideas behind my actions, and what wrong intentions I had, as well as any corrupt dispositions I revealed. I needed to pay more attention to seeking the truth to address these matters. Also, although my work had yielded some results, I couldn’t be satisfied with the current situation. I needed to reflect more and summarize the deviations and gaps in the work, the problems I hadn’t noticed, and strive to do the work better. Realizing this, I no longer resisted text-based work. In doing my duty, I also began to focus on my own entry, not letting things slip by and avoiding being a “careless person.” After practicing this way, I achieved some gains.

Just days later, the supervisor assigned us several sermon articles to evaluate for selection. We quickly completed the evaluation and selection, but the brothers and sisters offered different suggestions regarding the results of our assessments. Later, I realized that our assessments had indeed been off the mark. So I thought that, moving forward, it would be enough to rectify this, but then I realized this approach would be inadequate. Any deviation in my duty needed to be taken seriously. I needed to ponder on why the deviation had occurred and where, and whether it was due to corrupt dispositions or lack of expertise. If I only briefly considered the issue without paying attention to reflecting on my own problems, what lessons could I learn? I then read these words of God: “If you want to obtain the truth, where do you start? Start with the people, events, and things around you, and learn how to learn lessons and seek the truth. It is only by seeking the truth and God’s intentions in the people, events, and things around you that you will be able to obtain the truth” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. To Gain the Truth, One Must Learn From the People, Events, and Things Nearby). Then I pondered: The issues raised by the brothers and sisters could have been avoided if we had been more attentive during the evaluation, but why were there such deviations? Reflecting on it, I realized that my mindset during the sermon articles’ evaluation was flawed. I felt that the quality of the sermon articles these brothers and sisters had written previously was lacking, so I disdained them due to my arrogant disposition. I didn’t carefully review their sermon articles, which led to the deviations. I saw that if I didn’t resolve my corrupt dispositions, I could not do my duty well.

After experiencing this, I genuinely realized that to pursue life entry, one must first have a heart that hungers and thirsts for righteousness, and start with both big and small matters that come up each day. One should observe in each situation what corrupt dispositions they have revealed, actively seek and reflect on the thoughts and ideas within themselves, and then follow God’s words and the truth principles to practice and enter. By accumulating bit by bit and focusing on learning lessons in everything, one’s life experience will become richer, and they will be closer to the goal of salvation. Thank God!