By Mingxin, China

In early November of 2022, the pandemic situation where I was doing my duties was becoming more and more serious, and in the space of a few days, several surrounding areas became high-risk zones. Immediately following that, the whole county was sealed off and everyone was made to quarantine at home. Shortly after, the pandemic ripped through the community I was in, and over a hundred people were taken off into isolation one after another, with people still being taken away constantly. I couldn’t believe how fast the disease was spreading, with so many people becoming infected in just a few short days. I couldn’t help but worry, “Will my partnered sisters and I get infected too?” But then I thought, “We’re different from nonbelievers. We believers are protected by God. Besides, we are responsible for video work, which is pretty important. Our work is also getting good results. If brothers and sisters in other places are having problems, then they will write to us to ask for our help. If we get infected and can’t do our duties, won’t that delay the work? The Bible says: ‘A thousand shall fall at your side, and ten thousand at your right hand; but it shall not come near you’ (Psalm 91:7). If God does not permit it, even if the whole community gets infected, we will remain untouched.” These thoughts gave me a feeling of calm and an ineffable sense of superiority. I’d sometimes see host sisters afraid of getting infected, and I’d feel as if they lacked faith. I’d think, “You’re hosting us, God will protect you too.”

The pandemic eventually spread beyond all control in our community. Every day I’d see workers disinfecting large outdoor spaces and the host sisters would often talk about how nonbelievers kept getting taken off into isolation. I was so glad to be a believer, and I felt like a baby in the hands of God. With God’s care and protection, there was no way the pandemic could touch us. But shortly after, something unexpected happened. On November 18, a sister I was cooperating with suddenly started running a fever and coughing after washing herself. Then the host sisters started to get feverish and suffer headaches, and I couldn’t help but wonder, “Could they have gotten infected?” But I quickly dispelled these thoughts, believing they couldn’t be true. But the next day, my whole body suddenly felt sore and weak, and another sister became feverish as well. We did a test, and both we and the sisters hosting us tested positive. At first, I simply couldn’t dare believe this to be true and I didn’t know how I could be infected. I kept thinking back on my recent behaviors in my duties, telling myself, “I didn’t do anything that clearly resisted God, and our work has been going pretty well too. I shouldn’t be getting punished, so why have I gotten infected? Could it be that God has seen me grow in stature, and is using this sickness to try me so that I can bear witness for Him? If that’s the case, so long as I don’t complain and keep at my duty, God won’t let anything happen to me.” Then, I kept reminding myself to keep at my duty as before and that with God’s protection, my condition would soon turn around. But things didn’t happen as I’d imagined, and my condition not only didn’t improve, but kept getting worse and worse instead. My fever kept coming back and I felt really sore all over, particularly with my throat being sore and swollen. Whenever I tried eating or drinking, it felt like I was swallowing a knife, and when I tried to sleep at night, my nose became blocked and I could only breathe through my mouth, making my throat even more sore and dry. I started to complain in my heart, “Why isn’t this illness getting better?” And there were two nights in particular when I was struck by chest tightness and had difficulty breathing. I thought of the images of those who had died because of respiratory failure caused by the disease and became even more afraid. I kept worrying, “How can my condition keep getting worse? Am I going to die? Is God trying me or punishing me with this illness?” These thoughts made my heart feel really heavy. During those few days of sickness in particular, when it was raining and cold in the house, it was as if there was an air of death over me, and I felt a kind of unplaceable bitterness in me, as if I had been abandoned by God. My previous sense of superiority had evaporated by this point. I thought about how God had graced and blessed me before, and how the others had looked up to and envied me, but now I felt utterly insignificant, as if one day I might just silently fade away…. The more I thought about it, the more miserable I felt, like the path ahead of me had gone dark, and I didn’t have the energy to do anything. Coupled with the adverse reactions I was having to the sickness, I just wanted to lie down and rest. Though I knew that I had to stick to my duty, my whole body had been completely sapped of energy, and I thought, “Not only am I not getting better, I’m actually getting sicker and sicker. I can’t keep to my duty and I haven’t borne any testimony. Could this be the end for me?” In my pain, I prayed to God, “Oh God! I feel so weak right now and don’t understand Your intention. I don’t know how to get through this, please enlighten and guide me!”

After this, I read two passages of God’s words: “When God arranges for someone to get an illness, whether major or minor, His purpose in doing so is not to make you appreciate the ins and outs of being sick, the harm the illness does to you, the hardships and difficulties the illness causes you, and all the myriad feelings the illness causes you to feel—His purpose is not for you to appreciate sickness through being sick. Rather, His purpose is for you to learn the lessons from sickness, to learn how to feel for God’s intentions, to know the corrupt dispositions you reveal and the wrong attitudes you adopt toward God when you’re sick, and to learn how to submit to God’s sovereignty and arrangements, so that you can achieve true submission to God and be able to stand firm in your testimony—this is absolutely key. God wishes to save you and cleanse you through sickness. What about you does He wish to cleanse? He wishes to cleanse all your extravagant desires and demands toward God, and even cleanse the various plans, judgments, and schemes you make at all costs to survive and live” (The Word, Vol. 6. On the Pursuit of the Truth I. How to Pursue the Truth (3)). “Though you have undergone all kinds of suffering and experienced all manner of torment, that suffering is not at all like the trials of Job; it is, instead, the judgment and chastisement received by people because of their rebelliousness, because of their resistance, and because of My righteous disposition; it is righteous judgment, chastisement, and curse. Job, on the other hand, was a righteous man among the Israelites who received Jehovah’s great love and tenderness. He had committed no evil acts, and he did not resist Jehovah; rather, he was faithfully devoted to Jehovah. Because of his righteousness, he was subjected to trials, and he underwent fiery trials because he was a faithful servant of Jehovah. The people of today are subjected to My judgment and curse because of their filthiness and unrighteousness. Though their suffering is nothing like what Job went through when he lost his livestock, his property, his servants, his children, and all of those dear to him, what they suffer is fiery refinement and burning. And what makes it more serious than what Job experienced is that such trials are not lessened or removed because people are weak; instead, they are long-lasting, and continue until people’s final day of life. This is punishment, judgment, and curse; it is merciless burning, and even more, it is humankind’s rightful ‘inheritance.’ It is what people deserve, and it is where My righteous disposition is expressed. This is a known fact” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. What Is Your Understanding of Blessings?). From God’s word, I understood that God allowing me to get infected wasn’t to make me live in sickness or consider my flesh, nor was it to reveal me or eliminate me, much less was it because I had stature as I thought, worthy of bearing witness to God like Job, but rather, it was because I had a corrupt disposition. God was using this sickness to reveal my corruption, to cleanse me, and to change me. If I could reflect on myself and seek the truth, then this would be a good chance to gain the truth, but I was always living in notions and imaginings, and determining that God wouldn’t let me get sick. I just wanted to live in God’s embrace like a baby and not experience life’s storms. After I got sick, I didn’t focus on reflecting on myself and learning a lesson, but instead, I had the absurd thought that I had stature, and that God was using this situation to make me bear witness for Him. I refrained from complaining and kept at my duty, thinking that by doing so, I could stand firm in my testimony and satisfy God, and then God would take away this sickness. As a result, when my condition kept worsening instead of improving, I complained and hoped that God would take away this sickness, even to the point of becoming guarded, misunderstanding, and thinking that God wanted to reveal me and eliminate me. In what way was I experiencing God’s work? I thought of the people of Nineveh. Their corruption, wickedness, and evil deeds incurred God’s wrath, so God sent Jonah to announce to them that they had 40 days to repent. The people of Nineveh all believed God, and king and commoner alike truly repented to God in sackcloth and ashes, and they eventually earned God’s mercy and forgiveness. My being infected contained God’s intention, and like the Ninevites, I had to repent to God.

At this time, I reflected on the states I had revealed while facing this illness. I recalled some of God’s words: “In God’s family, among brothers and sisters, no matter how high your status or standing, or how important your duty, and no matter how great your talent and contributions, or how long you have believed in God, in the eyes of God you are a created being, an ordinary created being, and the noble titles and appellations you have bestowed on yourself do not exist. If you always regard them as crowns, or as capital that enables you to belong to a special group or be a special personage, then by doing this you resist and conflict with God’s views, and are incompatible with God. What will be the consequences of this? Will it cause you to resist the duties that a created being should perform? In the eyes of God, you are but a created being, but do not regard yourself as one. Can you truly submit to God with such a mindset? You always think wishfully, ‘God shouldn’t treat me like this, He could never treat me like this.’ Does this not create a conflict with God? When God acts at odds with your notions, your mentality, and your needs, what will you think in your heart? How will you deal with the environments God has arranged for you? Will you submit? (No.) You will not submit, and you will certainly resist, oppose, grumble, and complain, puzzling over it again and again in your heart, thinking ‘But God used to protect me and treat me graciously. Why has He changed now? I can’t live anymore!’ So you start being petulant and acting up. If, at home, you behaved like this toward your parents, it would be excusable and they wouldn’t do anything to you. But it’s not acceptable in God’s house. Because you are an adult and a believer, even other people won’t stand for your nonsense—do you think God would tolerate such behavior? Will He condone you doing this to Him? No, He won’t. Why won’t He? God is not your parent, He is God, He is the Creator, and the Creator would never allow a created being to be petulant and unreasonable or to throw tantrums in front of Him. When God chastises and judges you, tests you, or takes away from you, when He places you in adversity, He wants to see a created being’s attitude in how they treat the Creator, He wants to see what kind of path a created being chooses, and He will never allow you to be petulant and unreasonable, or to spout preposterous justifications. After understanding these things, shouldn’t people think about how they should deal with everything that the Creator does? First of all, people should assume their proper places as created beings and acknowledge their identity as created beings. Can you acknowledge that you are a created being? If you can acknowledge it, then you should assume your proper place as a created being and submit to the Creator’s arrangements, and even if you suffer a little, you do so without complaint. This is what it means to be someone with sense. If you do not think you are a created being, but reckon that you have titles and a halo over your head, and that you are a person of status, a great leader, conductor, editor, or director in God’s family, and that you are someone who has made worthy contributions to the work of God’s family—if that is what you think, then you are a most unreasonable and brazenly shameless person. Are you people with status, standing, and worth? (We are not.) Then what are you? (I am a created being.) That’s right, you are just an ordinary created being. Among people, you can flaunt your qualifications, play the seniority card, brag about your contributions, or talk about your heroic exploits. But before God, these things do not exist, and you must never talk about them, or show them off, or assume the airs of an old hand. Things will go awry if you flaunt your qualifications. God will regard you as utterly unreasonable and arrogant to the extreme. He will be repulsed and disgusted by you, and sideline you, and you will be in trouble then” (The Word, Vol. 6. On the Pursuit of the Truth I. What It Means to Pursue the Truth (11)). God’s words woke me from my slumber! I’d been viewing my important duty, the results of my work, and the approval of the leaders, workers, brothers, and sisters as capital, and I began to flaunt my qualifications and highlight my achievements, in the thought that I was different from nonbelievers and that God would surely protect me from the pandemic, and that even if I did get sick, it would be because I had stature and God was trying me to make me bear witness to Him, as if I were somehow separate from the rest of corrupt humanity. I saw just how arrogant I had become. In reading these words of God in particular: “Things will go awry if you flaunt your qualifications. God will regard you as utterly unreasonable and arrogant to the extreme. He will be repulsed and disgusted by you, and sideline you, and you will be in trouble then,” I realized the sheer loathing God has toward such people. Thinking back on the course of my illness, not only had I not submitted, but I also flaunted my qualifications before God and made unreasonable demands, truly repulsing and disgusting God. If I didn’t repent, I would be spurned and eliminated by God. Realizing this, I quickly prayed to God, “Oh God! If it weren’t for this illness, I wouldn’t have reflected on myself and I wouldn’t even have realized that I was resisting You. Oh God, please have mercy upon me, and enable me to submit and learn a lesson.”

Later on, I asked myself, “I used to think I was getting results in my work and gaining the approval of brothers and sisters, and that God should approve of me and protect me from the pandemic, but is this how God really sees it?” One day, I found an answer in God’s words. Almighty God says: “You might imagine that, having been a follower for so many years, you have put in hard work no matter what, and you should be granted a bowl of rice in God’s house just for being a laborer. I would say that the majority of you think this way, for you have always pursued the principle of how to take advantage of things and not be taken advantage of. Thus, I am telling you now in all seriousness: I do not care how meritorious your hard work is, how impressive your qualifications, how closely you follow Me, how renowned you are, or how much you have improved your attitude; as long as you have not met My demands, you will never be able to win My praise. Write off all those ideas and calculations of yours as soon as possible, and start treating My requirements seriously; otherwise, I will turn everyone to ash in order to bring an end to My work and, at worst turn My years of work and suffering into nothing, for I cannot bring My enemies and those people who reek of evil and have Satan’s appearance into My kingdom or take them into the next age” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Transgressions Will Lead Man to Hell). “Ultimately, whether people can attain salvation is not dependent on what duty they do, but on whether they can understand and gain the truth, and on whether they can, in the end, entirely submit to God, put themselves at the mercy of His orchestration, give no consideration to their future and destiny, and become a qualified created being. God is righteous and holy, and these are the standards He uses to measure all mankind. These standards are immutable, and you must remember this. Inscribe these standards in your mind, and at any time, do not think of finding some other path to pursue some unreal thing. The requirements and standards God has for all who want to attain salvation are forever unchanging. They remain the same no matter who you are” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Part Three). God’s words are very clear. God does not evaluate people based on the duties they do or how much capital they have, but on whether a person pursues the truth, and is able to submit to Him and let Him orchestrate as He wishes. This is what is most important. Without pursuing the truth, no matter how important my duty might be, how much I contributed, or how many people admired me, I would be unable to gain God’s approval or salvation. This sickness revealed me completely. Because I lacked the truth and had distorted views, I had no faith in God or will to suffer, much less any love for God. When tried, I didn’t reflect on myself or seek the truth, and just had the absurd idea that I was being tried because I had stature. When facing intense pain, I complained and wanted God to remove my sickness, to the point of not wanting to do my duty. In what way did I have any stature at all? I had no faith or submission whatsoever. As a person rebelling against and resisting God, I still wanted to receive His protection and blessings, and to be saved and enter the kingdom of heaven. How utterly shameless! I had performed my duties for many years and my work had attained some results, and I had gained the admiration of others, and I took these things as capital. I became arrogant and conceited, held no place for God in my heart, flaunted my qualifications, demanded what God should and shouldn’t do, and felt qualified to bear witness to God. I was resisting God without even realizing it. This realization made my heart feel heavy. I asked myself what exactly I had been pursuing all this time if after all these years of faith I hadn’t gained the truth. In my seeking, I read a passage of God’s words: “From beginning to end, what is the attitude of antichrists toward their duty? They believe doing one’s duty is a transaction, that whoever expends the most in their duty, makes the biggest contribution to God’s house and endures the most years in God’s house will have a higher chance of being blessed and getting a crown in the end. This is the logic of antichrists. Is this logic correct? (No.) Is this kind of perspective easy to reverse? It is not easy to reverse. This is decided by the nature essence of antichrists. In their hearts antichrists are averse to the truth, they do not seek the truth at all and are taking the wrong path, so their perspective of making transactions with God is not easy to reverse. Ultimately, antichrists do not believe God is the truth, they are disbelievers, they are here to speculate and gain blessings. For disbelievers to believe in God, this in itself is untenable, it is a preposterous thing, and they want to make a transaction with God and obtain blessings by enduring suffering and paying the price for God, this is an even more preposterous thing” (The Word, Vol. 4. Exposing Antichrists. Item Nine (Part Seven)). In pondering God’s words, I realized that my not attaining the truth after all these years wasn’t because the truth favors other people, but because I had never put any effort into the truth and because I’d only pursued blessings and rewards. In all these years, I’d never sought or pondered what I should be pursuing in my faith, what path I should take, and what kind of person pleases God, and I’d rarely examined my intentions and views in doing my duty or the path I had taken. I had always been content to focus on work, thinking that if I did more work and attained more results, then God would surely bless me and be pleased with me, and that even if disasters struck, God would protect me and not let any harm befall me. Through the exposure of God’s words, I finally realized that my ideas followed the logic of an antichrist, were the transactional views of a disbeliever, and that I was trying to trick God and use Him to attain my own goals. This was resisting God! I thought of Paul in the Age of Grace. He spread the gospel to so many people, even throughout most of Europe, and he brought many people to faith. But all the things Paul did weren’t to bear witness to the Lord Jesus, nor to do the duties of a created being, but rather to use his spreading of the gospel to bargain with God in exchange for a crown of righteousness. During his work, Paul always exalted himself and showed off, and his disposition became increasingly arrogant. He flaunted his qualifications before God and brazenly demanded from Him, saying, “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: From now on there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness” (2 Timothy 4:7–8). He even bragged that he lived as Christ. In the end, because he resisted God and offended His disposition, Paul was punished. Were my views on pursuit and the path I was on not the same as Paul’s? I only wanted to pursue blessings and to use doing my duty to attain my goals. I was so selfish and despicable! Without this revelation, I would still not realize the seriousness of my corrupt disposition, and if I carried on, I would be spurned and eliminated by God. This realization filled me with guilt and I knelt in prayer, “Oh God! My sickness is due to Your righteousness and for the purpose of saving me. I am but an insignificant created being. You have exalted and graced me and given me the chance to do a duty, but I have been so arrogant and unreasonable. I was resisting and bargaining with You, yet I was unaware of it. Oh God, I don’t want to rebel against or resist You, I want to repent.”

Later, I wondered, “There’s another reason why I complained and couldn’t submit when I fell ill. It’s because I fear death. How can I resolve this problem?” I prayed and sought, and in God’s words I read: “The matter of death has the same nature as other matters. It is not up to people to choose for themselves, much less can it be changed by the will of man. Death is the same as any other important event in life: It is entirely under the predestination and sovereignty of the Creator. If someone were to beg for death, they may not necessarily die; if they were to beg to live, they may not necessarily live. All this is under the sovereignty and predestination of God, and it is changed and decided by the authority of God, by God’s righteous disposition, and by God’s sovereignty and arrangements. Therefore, say you contract a serious illness, a potentially fatal serious illness, you will not necessarily die—who decides whether you will die or not? (God.) God decides. And since God decides and people cannot decide such a thing, what are people feeling anxious and distressed about? It’s like who your parents are, and when and where you are born—these things cannot be chosen by you, either. The wisest choice in these matters is to let things take their natural course, to submit, and not to choose, not to expend any thought or energy on this matter, and not to feel distressed, anxious, or worried about it” (The Word, Vol. 6. On the Pursuit of the Truth I. How to Pursue the Truth (4)). God’s words made me understand that whether I live or die from this sickness is all in God’s hands and not up to any human. It’s just like when I was born, the family I was born into, and what I look like aren’t things that I can choose. Similarly, when and where I die is out of my hands. It all depends on God’s sovereignty and predestination. If God predestined me to die of this sickness, then there’s nothing I could do about it, and if it wasn’t my time to die, then no matter how serious my disease became, I wouldn’t die. My worries and concerns were unnecessary, and I couldn’t change anything, they were just unneeded extra pain and burdens. I should give myself over to God, be at the mercy of His orchestrations and arrangements, and do my duty well. God says: “Whether you are sick or in pain, as long as you have a single breath left, as long as you are still living, as long as you can still speak and walk, then you have the energy to perform your duty, and you should be well-behaved in the performance of your duty with your feet planted firmly on the ground. You must not abandon the duty of a created being or the responsibility given to you by the Creator. As long as you are not yet dead, you should complete your duty and fulfill it well” (The Word, Vol. 6. On the Pursuit of the Truth I. How to Pursue the Truth (3)). From God’s words I understood that it is perfectly natural and justified for a created being to do a duty, just as it is right for children to show filial piety to their parents. Having the chance to do a duty in the church is God’s grace, and no matter if I live or die, and no matter how much pain I suffer, I should submit to God’s orchestrations and arrangements and fulfill my responsibilities and duties. This is the only way to live a life of value and meaning. I also thought of Noah. After he had accepted God’s commission, God’s worries became his worries, and God’s thoughts became his thoughts. He never backed down no matter the pain or difficulties he faced, and after 120 years, he finished the ark and completed God’s commission. Noah’s loyalty and submission comforted God, and this is the example I should follow. This realization filled me with strength and I made a resolution: So long as I have air in my lungs, I will never abandon my duty or cast aside my responsibilities.

Afterward, I put my heart into my duty, no longer worried about whether my condition was worsening or if I would die. I thought that so long as I would live another day, I ought to do my duty well, so that even if I died one day, I would not have lived in vain. Sometimes I was so busy with my duties that I forgot I was even sick. I truly gained some appreciation of the words: “To dwell in sickness is to be sick, but to dwell in the spirit is to be well” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Utterances of Christ in the Beginning, Chapter 6). Before long, my symptoms subsided and my test results came back negative. I knew that this was all the mercy of God. I felt God’s love and salvation in this pandemic and I thank God from the bottom of my heart!