By Chenxiao, China

At the end of April 2023, I received a letter from my upper leadership saying that a leader of a certain church was dismissed because they weren’t doing real work. They hadn’t found a suitable replacement, so they temporarily arranged for me to take over the church’s work. After reading the letter, I didn’t have much time to think and quickly went to the church. I learned that some waterers were lazy and slack in their duties and needed to be replaced, and many newcomers were negative, weak, and not gathering regularly, requiring prompt watering and support. The church’s gospel work was also ineffective. I thought, “Why did the leadership send me to this church with such poor work results? If I stay here for a long time and fail to improve the work, what will my leadership think of me? Will they say I’m not suitable for this duty? Since I’m here, I’ll rely on God and do my best to cooperate.” Thinking that I had to reassign the personnel first in order to do the work well, I worked from dawn till dusk, busy with these tasks every day.

After a while, the personnel adjustments were done, and the watering work gradually showed some results. Later, Sister Li Ming, a gospel worker, was chosen as a church leader. I was very happy, because this sister had a sense of burden in her duties and was focused on life entry, and it was great to have her cooperate with me in doing church work. But unexpectedly, not long after Sister Li had been chosen, we suddenly received a letter from the upper leadership saying that Li Ming was being hunted by the CCP and that it wasn’t safe for her to do her duty in the local area, and that she needed to be relocated. Reading this letter, I thought, “We have only just managed to choose a church leader, and now she has to leave. I was hoping that with Li Ming supervising the gospel work, my burden would be lightened a bit, but now, not only has my burden not been lessened, but an experienced gospel worker is also being relocated. If the work remains ineffective, what will the upper leadership think of me?” Although reluctant, I had no choice but to submit. Later, I found two gospel workers to cooperate on the gospel work, but then, a large-scale crackdown ruined my plans. Over the next few days, I kept hearing news about brothers and sisters being arrested one after another, including the gospel workers I’d just found. This all left me feeling paralyzed, and I thought, “Why am I so unlucky? I’ve faced so many setbacks in the two months since I came to this church, and I’ve finally managed to adjust the personnel, but now see what’s happening. Not only have the work results failed to improve, but even the personnel who could cooperate have been arrested. It seems like I just have bad luck! The previous leader had a smooth and stable time in their duty. Why am I so unlucky that all these bad things are happening to me? All my recent efforts have gone to waste! The upper leadership is sure to think that I have no work capabilities.” As I thought about this, I couldn’t help but cry and feel utterly despondent. With no work results, I lost the motivation to follow up on issues and even wanted to leave this place. As I lived in this state, I found my spirit sinking further into darkness and despair.

Later on, I ate and drank a passage of God’s words relevant to my state. I read God’s words: “What is the problem with people who always think that they are unlucky? They always use the standard of luck to measure whether their actions are right or wrong, and to weigh up which path they should take, the things that they should experience, and any problems that they face. Is that right or wrong? (Wrong.) They describe bad things as unlucky and good things as lucky or advantageous. Is this perspective right or wrong? (Wrong.) Measuring things from this kind of perspective is wrong. It is an extreme and incorrect method and standard for measuring things. This kind of method often leads people to sink into depression, and it often makes them feel uneasy, and that nothing ever goes their way, and that they never get what they want, which eventually leads them to feel constantly anxious, irritable, and uneasy. When these negative emotions go unresolved, these people constantly sink into depression and feel that God does not favor them. They think that God treats others with grace but not them, and that God takes care of others but not them. ‘Why do I always feel uneasy and anxious? Why do bad things always happen to me? Why do good things never come my way? Just once is all I’m asking for!’ When you view things with this kind of erroneous way of thinking and perspective, you will fall into the trap of good and bad luck. When you are continually falling into this trap, you will constantly feel depressed. In the midst of this depression, you will be particularly sensitive to whether the things that befall you are lucky or unlucky. When this happens, it proves that this perspective and idea of good and bad luck has taken control of you. When you are controlled by this kind of perspective, your views and attitude toward people, events, and things are no longer within the range of the conscience and reason of normal humanity, but have fallen into a sort of extreme. When you fall into this extreme, you will not emerge from your depression. You will keep getting depressed time and time again, and even if you do not normally feel depressed, as soon as something goes wrong, as soon as you feel that something unlucky has happened, you will immediately sink into depression. This depression will affect your normal judgment and decision-making, and even your happiness, anger, sorrow, and joy. When it affects your happiness, anger, sorrow, and joy, it will disturb and destroy the performance of your duty, as well as your will and desire to follow God. When these positive things are destroyed, the few truths you have come to understand will vanish into thin air and be of no help to you at all” (The Word, Vol. 6. On the Pursuit of the Truth. How to Pursue the Truth (2)). God says that describing anything bad as unlucky and anything good as lucky or advantageous is the view of someone who goes to extremes, someone who has wrong perspectives. This was exactly what I was like. When I came to this church to do my duties and found out that the results of various items of the church’s work were poor, that the waterers lacked a sense of burden for their duties, that many newcomers were negative and weak, and that the gospel work wasn’t getting good results, I felt unlucky. To do the work well, I had busied myself from dawn to dusk, gathered and fellowshipped, and reassigned personnel. After a while, when I saw the watering work gradually moving in a positive direction, I felt happy and motivated to do my duty. But later when an experienced gospel worker had been transferred and then, shortly after, a widespread crackdown had taken place and gospel workers were being arrested, and no one could cooperate on the gospel work, I had fallen into emotions of despondency and couldn’t muster up the energy to do anything. These behaviors of mine stemmed from my incorrect perspective. When the work was yielding good results and everything was going smoothly, I felt like I had gained the admiration of the upper leadership and this made me happy. But when the work wasn’t yielding good results and things weren’t going as I wanted them to, I had felt negative and weak, blamed my bad luck, and had even wanted to give up my duty. I thought of how disbelievers never accept anything that happens to them from God, and when unfavorable situations arise, they complain about and misunderstand God, and even betray Him. I understood that if my state wasn’t turned around, I was really in danger too. So I prayed to God, hoping He would guide me to turn around my state.

Later, I read more of God’s words: “These people who are always concerned about whether they have good or bad luck—is the way that they view things correct? Does good luck or bad luck exist? (No.) What is the basis for saying that it does not exist? (The people we meet and the things that happen to us every day are determined by God’s sovereignty and arrangements. There is no such thing as good luck or bad luck; everything happens out of necessity and has meaning behind it.) Is that correct? (It is.) This view is correct, and this is the theoretical basis for saying that luck does not exist. Whatever happens to you, whether good or bad, it is all normal, just like the weather through the four seasons—not every day can be sunny. You cannot say that sunny days are arranged by God, whereas cloudy days, rain, wind, and storms are not. Everything is determined by God’s sovereignty and arrangements, and is generated by the natural environment. This natural environment arises according to the laws and rules that God arranged and established. All of this is necessary and imperative, so no matter what the weather, it is generated and brought about by natural laws. There is nothing good or bad in it—only people’s feelings about it are good or bad. People do not feel good when it is raining, windy or cloudy, or during hailstorms. People particularly do not like it when it is raining and damp; their joints ache and they feel weak. You might feel bad about rainy days, but can you say that rainy days are unlucky? This is just a feeling that the weather arouses in people—luck has nothing to do with the fact that it is raining. You might say that sunny days are good. If it is sunny for three months, without a drop of rain, people feel good. They can see the sun every day, and it is dry and warm with an occasional slight breeze, and they can go outdoors whenever they want. But the plants cannot tolerate it, and the crops die due to drought, so there is no harvest that year. So, does you feeling good mean that it is really good? Come the autumn, when you have no food to eat, you will be saying, ‘Oh dear, it’s not good to have too many sunny days either. If it doesn’t rain, the crops suffer, there’s no food to harvest, and people go hungry.’ At this point, you realize that endless sunny days are not good either. The fact is that whether a person feels good or bad about something is based on their own selfish motives, desires, and self-interest, rather than on the essence of the thing itself. So, the basis on which people gauge whether something is good or bad is inaccurate. Because the basis is inaccurate, the final conclusions that they draw are also inaccurate. Returning to the subject of good luck and bad luck, now everyone knows that this saying of luck does not hold water, and that it is neither good nor bad. The people, events, and things that you encounter, whether good or bad, are all determined by God’s sovereignty and arrangements, so you should face them properly. Accept what is good from God, and accept what is bad from God as well. Do not say that you’re lucky when good things happen, and that you’re unlucky when bad things happen. It can only be said that there are lessons for people to learn within all these things, and they should not reject or avoid them. Thank God for the good things, but also thank God for the bad things, because all of them are arranged by Him. Good people, events, things, and environments provide lessons that they should learn, but there is even more to be learned from bad people, events, things, and environments. These are all experiences and episodes that should be part of one’s life. People should not use the idea of luck to measure them. So, what are the thoughts and perspectives of people who use luck to measure whether things are good or bad? What is the essence of such people? Why do they pay so much attention to good luck and bad luck? Do people who focus a lot on luck hope that their luck is good, or do they hope that it is bad? (They hope that it is good.) That is right. In fact, they pursue good luck and for good things to happen to them, and they just take advantage of them and profit from them. They do not care how much others suffer, or how many hardships or difficulties others have to endure. They do not want anything that they perceive as unlucky to happen to them. In other words, they do not want any bad things to happen to them: no setbacks, no failures or embarrassments, no being pruned, no losing things, no losing out, and no being deceived. If any of that happens, they regard it as bad luck. No matter who arranges it, if bad things happen, it is unlucky. They hope that all good things—from being promoted, standing out from the crowd, and benefiting at others’ expense, to profiting from something, making lots of money, or becoming a high-ranking official—happen to them, and they think that is good luck. They always measure the people, events, and things that they encounter based on luck. They are pursuing good luck, not bad luck. As soon as the slightest thing goes wrong, they get angry, annoyed, and dissatisfied. To put it bluntly, these types of people are selfish. They pursue benefiting themselves at other people’s expense, making a profit for themselves, coming out on top, and standing out from the crowd. They would be satisfied if every good thing happened to them alone. This is their nature essence; it is their true face” (The Word, Vol. 6. On the Pursuit of the Truth. How to Pursue the Truth (2)). From God’s words, I saw that people often judge their luck based on whether they personally benefit. If the situation is advantageous to them, they call it “good luck,” and if not, they call it “bad luck.” People with this mindset only want benefits for themselves, and they are extremely selfish. In reality, every situation God arranges is good, and there’s no such thing as “good luck” or “bad luck.” Situations that seem favorable or unfavorable to people are all meant to let them learn lessons and are beneficial for their life entry. Just like the weather, both sunny and rainy days are necessary to humankind. Constant sun would soon dry up crops, and prolonged rain would drown them. So, whether it’s sunny or rainy, it’s all part of God’s sovereignty and arrangements, and beneficial for humankind. When I used to encounter things that didn’t align with my wishes, I would always think that I was just unlucky, but this was because I had ambitions and desires within me and always pursued others’ admiration, and when I didn’t get what I wanted, I’d feel hapless and unlucky, complain and grumble about God, and live in a state of despondency. Reflecting on myself, after I came to this church, I had initially wanted to do my duty well to gain people’s admiration, so I had worked from dawn to dusk without complaint. But when things didn’t go as I wished and gospel workers were arrested, I had worried that without people cooperating on the work, it wouldn’t be possible to achieve good results, and when my desire for reputation and status had gone unsatisfied, I had felt unlucky, and my previous enthusiasm had quickly faded. Various items of this church’s work had already been delayed by the earlier false leader’s lack of real work, and the arrests of the brothers and sisters had further hindered the normal progress of much of the work. The upper leadership had arranged me here hoping that I would be able to show consideration for God’s intentions, drive forward various items of the work, and protect the church’s interests. But at the sight of the great difficulties I faced, I had become despondent, lost my motivation for my duty, and complained about my “bad luck.” This behavior of mine had truly disgusted God. A person who was truly loyal to God, when seeing the church facing a severe crackdown with all these brothers and sisters arrested, would have put their best effort into doing all they could, reassigning personnel, and minimizing losses. But at such a critical time as this, I had only been concerned about my own reputation and status. I had been truly selfish and lacking in conscience and humanity! I now understood that God had allowed this situation to befall me in order to change my corrupt disposition, because the importance I had placed on reputation and status was too great, and I needed this situation to help reveal and transform me.

One morning during my devotionals, I read more of God’s words: “When you let go of your ambitions and desires, when you stop rejecting or avoiding whatever misfortune befalls you, and you stop measuring such things by how lucky or unlucky you are, many of the things that you used to see as unfortunate and bad, you will now think of as good—the bad things will turn into good things. Your mentality and the way that you view things will change, which will enable you to feel differently about your life experiences, and at the same time reap different rewards. This is an extraordinary experience, one which will bring you unimagined rewards. It is a good thing, not a bad thing. … Do not pursue so-called ‘good luck,’ and do not reject so-called ‘bad luck.’ Give your heart and your whole being to God, let Him do the acting and orchestrating, and submit to His orchestrations and arrangements. God will give you what you need in just measure when you need it. He will orchestrate the environments, people, events, and things that you require, according to your needs and deficiencies, so that you can learn the lessons that you ought to be learning from the people, events, and things that you come across. Of course, the prerequisite to all this is that you must have a mentality of submission toward God’s orchestrations and arrangements” (The Word, Vol. 6. On the Pursuit of the Truth. How to Pursue the Truth (2)). God says that when we stop viewing events as good luck or bad luck, we can gain unexpected insights in the situations God arranges for us and see God’s deeds and sovereignty through our experiences. Therefore, when facing adverse situations, we should accept them from God instead of trying to escape or avoid them. Behind what people consider “bad” events, there is always God’s intention and the experiences we need to go through. God uses such situations to train us, allowing our lives to grow—this is His good intention. I realized I needed to correct my wrong perspective and do my best by relying on God. I believed God would prepare the right people to cooperate in the church’s work. When I thought this way, my state improved a lot. So, I began looking for people to help with gospel work. At that time, there was a sister who was feeling weak and discouraged due to family burdens. We reached out to her and offered fellowship and support. After a period of fellowship, her state improved, and she was willing to take on her duty. Another sister also became willing to take on her duties after our fellowship. I realized that God had arranged this environment to teach me to do real work, like fellowshipping to address brothers’ and sisters’ issues. Once they understood God’s intention, they would cooperate actively. Additionally, this environment helped us cultivate more people to start doing their duties. I was grateful to God!

In September, I suddenly received a letter saying that the gospel deacon had been arrested. Over the next few days, there was more news of brothers and sisters being arrested. I thought to myself, “Just as we finally adjusted the team and saw some results, now the gospel workers are being arrested again. Why am I so unlucky? These misfortunes keep happening to me!” But then I realized my state was not right, so I quickly prayed to God in silence, asking Him to guide me through this situation. I remembered God’s words: “The fact is that whether a person feels good or bad about something is based on their own selfish motives, desires, and self-interest, rather than on the essence of the thing itself. So, the basis on which people gauge whether something is good or bad is inaccurate. Because the basis is inaccurate, the final conclusions that they draw are also inaccurate. Returning to the subject of good luck and bad luck, now everyone knows that this saying of luck does not hold water, and that it is neither good nor bad. The people, events, and things that you encounter, whether good or bad, are all determined by God’s sovereignty and arrangements, so you should face them properly. Accept what is good from God, and accept what is bad from God as well. Do not say that you’re lucky when good things happen, and that you’re unlucky when bad things happen. It can only be said that there are lessons for people to learn within all these things, and they should not reject or avoid them. Thank God for the good things, but also thank God for the bad things, because all of them are arranged by Him. Good people, events, things, and environments provide lessons that they should learn, but there is even more to be learned from bad people, events, things, and environments. These are all experiences and episodes that should be part of one’s life. People should not use the idea of luck to measure them” (The Word, Vol. 6. On the Pursuit of the Truth. How to Pursue the Truth (2)). From God’s words, I understood that people often judge whether situations are good or bad based on their personal desires and interests, not on the truth. The arrest of the gospel deacon happened with God’s permission; God arranges who is arrested according to His sovereignty and orchestrations, and these are experiences that people need to go through. I should submit, take care of the aftermath, and do what I can to cooperate. After this, I started to handle the aftermath. Later, I learned that the gospel team leader continued gathering and preaching the gospel with three newcomers. They weren’t intimidated by the great red dragon, and their gospel work was even more effective than before. Additionally, a few sisters, concerned about the impact on church work, took the initiative to do their duties. Seeing all this, I felt deeply touched. I realized that every situation God arranges has a purpose. Those who were arrested have experiences they need to go through, and those who were not have testimonies to bear. God uses the great red dragon’s persecution to render service for perfecting people.

Through this experience, I understood that these situations didn’t happen because of “bad luck,” or because God had high demands of me. Instead, God was using them to purify and transform me. When I adjusted my mindset and actually cooperated, I saw God’s work unfold. As long as I prayed sincerely and wholeheartedly did my duties, God opened up a path for me. Going forward, I am willing to continue relying on God to fulfill my duties.