By Kristina, USA

I was really shy when I was young, and whenever guests came over, I would hide behind my parents, and when my parents told me to call them uncle or aunt, I felt too shy to do so. My mom would joke with the guests, saying, “This kid is mute and can’t speak.” My mom would also often say I would never amount to anything or make anything of myself. Because of my clumsiness with words, I was often laughed at and criticized, and I was really scared to speak in front of others. Whenever I found myself in a situation where I had to speak, I would do my utmost to get out of it. During my school years, I never participated in any activities, and I always hid in a corner, quietly studying. The year I graduated from university, the teacher said I was qualified to be recommended for graduate school, and I was very happy, but when I heard there would be an interview with the professors, I became very anxious, thinking about how my communication skills were poor, and that if I answered incoherently, I’d end up humiliating myself. I fought with myself for a few days but still couldn’t find the courage to attend the interview. After finding God, I saw brothers and sisters gathering and fellowshipping openly and simply, and that no one laughed at anyone, and I felt liberated. Gradually, I started to train to speak from the heart with everyone, sharing my state and understandings. Sometimes I would ramble a bit, but the brothers and sisters didn’t look down on me, and I felt less constrained. Over time, I began to talk more. Later, during one gathering, I strayed off-topic while fellowshipping, and the group leader interrupted me. I felt my face flush with embarrassment, and I just wanted to find a hole to hide in. I remembered my parents saying I would never amount to anything, and it seemed that they were right. I felt that my clumsiness with words made me completely useless, and that I’d spend my life unnoticed in the corner. At that moment, I told myself, “I should speak less in front of people to avoid exposing my flaws and being laughed at.” After that, for a long time, I kept my lips sealed. Outside of group gatherings, I remained silent, just listening to others’ fellowship. Sometimes I had my own experiential understanding, but then I’d think about how I couldn’t structure what I wanted to say and about how I rambled, and I thought that if I were interrupted again, I’d be utterly humiliated, so I didn’t want to fellowship. Later on, I was working on making videos for the church. The brothers and sisters chose me as the team leader because they saw I was more skilled in this area. But when I thought about how being a team leader meant I’d have to frequently implement and follow up on work, and that I’d have to fellowship and solve brothers’ and sisters’ problems, I felt worried, thinking, “With my clumsy speech, what if I fail to do this duty well? That would be so humiliating.” The more I thought about it, the more scared I became, so I told the leader that I had poor caliber and couldn’t do this duty, so they should choose another brother or sister for the role. The leader fellowshipped God’s intentions to me, suggesting that I rely on God and train for a while to see how it goes, and I reluctantly agreed. During my time as team leader, I was really passive, and each time I had to host a gathering or fellowship, I would shrink back, letting my partnered sister speak more. My partnered sister didn’t understand why I was doing this. She said that I’d been able to discover issues while doing my duty, had my own thoughts and perspectives, and could express some insights while fellowshipping God’s words, and that my caliber wasn’t that poor, so she wondered why I always avoided speaking. She encouraged me to practice more. But no matter what she said, I still felt inadequate, and I even tried resigning on several occasions. In the end, I was dismissed because I was too passive in my duty. Later, the team leader asked me to cooperate with her on supervising the team’s work. I was a bit worried, thinking, “I’m not good at speaking; I hope I don’t embarrass myself.” The team leader fellowshipped God’s intentions with me, saying she needed someone who was knowledgeable about these skills to cooperate with her. Hearing the leader say this made me feel a bit guilty. Although I was clumsy with words, I could still do some work in this area, and cooperating with the team leader was necessary for the work. If I always shirk, wouldn’t this be delaying the work? With these thoughts in mind, I agreed. After that, I kept asking myself, “Why do I always try to run away and pull out when asked to be the team leader? What exactly is it that’s causing this behavior?” With these confusions in mind, I prayed to God to seek.

During one gathering, the leader read a passage of God’s words, and it addressed my issue, clearing up this confusion in my heart. Almighty God says: “There are some people who, as children, were ordinary-looking, inarticulate, and not very quick-witted, causing others in their families and social environments to give rather unfavorable appraisals of them, saying things like: ‘This kid is dull-witted, slow, and a clumsy speaker. Look at other people’s children, who are so well-spoken that they can wrap people around their little finger. Whereas this kid just pouts all day long. He doesn’t know what to say when meeting people, doesn’t know how to explain or justify himself after doing something wrong, and can’t amuse people. This kid is an idiot.’ The parents say this, relatives and friends say this, and their teachers also say this. This environment exerts a certain, invisible pressure on such individuals. Through experiencing these environments, they unconsciously develop a certain kind of mindset. What kind of mindset? They think that they are not good-looking, not very likable, and that others are never happy to see them. They believe that they are not good at studying, are slow, and always feel embarrassed to open their mouths and speak in front of others. They are too embarrassed to say thank you when people give them something, thinking to themselves, ‘Why am I always so tongue-tied? Why are other people such smooth talkers? I’m just stupid!’ Subconsciously, they think they are worthless…. People who feel inferior do not know what their strengths are. They just think that they are unlikable, always feel stupid, and do not know how to deal with things. In short, they feel they cannot do anything, are unattractive, are not clever, and have slow reactions. They are unremarkable compared to others and do not get good grades in their studies. After growing up in such an environment, this mindset of inferiority gradually takes over. It turns into a kind of lingering emotion that becomes tangled with your heart and fills your mind. Regardless of whether you are already grown, have gone out into the world, are married and established in your career, and regardless of your social status, this feeling of inferiority that was planted in your environment growing up is impossible to get rid of. Even after you start believing in God and join the church, you still think that you have average looks, have poor intellectual caliber, are inarticulate, and cannot do anything. You think, ‘I’ll just do what I can. I don’t need to aspire to be a leader, I don’t need to pursue profound truths, I’ll just be content with being the least significant one, and let others treat me however they like.’ When antichrists and false leaders appear, you feel unable to discern or expose them, that you are not cut out for doing that. You feel that as long as you yourself are not a false leader or antichrist then that is enough, that as long as you do not cause disruptions and disturbances then that is fine, and that it is enough so long as you can stand in your own position. In the depths of your heart, you feel that you are not good enough and are not as good as other people, that others are perhaps objects for salvation, and that you, at best, are a service-doer, and so you feel you are not up to the task of pursuing the truth. Irrespective of how much truth you are able to understand, you still feel that, seeing as God has predestined you to have the kind of caliber you do and to look the way you do, then perhaps He has predestined you to be merely a service-doer, and that you have nothing to do with pursuing the truth, becoming a leader, becoming someone in a position of responsibility, or being saved; instead, you are willing to be the most insignificant person. This feeling of inferiority is perhaps not inborn in you, but on another level, because of your family environment and the environment you grew up in, you were subjected to moderate blows or improper judgments, and this caused the feeling of inferiority to arise in you. This emotion affects the correct direction of your pursuits, influences the proper aspiration for your pursuits, and it also inhibits your proper pursuits. Once your proper pursuit and the proper determination you should have in your humanity are inhibited, then your motivation to pursue positive things and to pursue the truth is stifled. This stifling is not brought about by your surrounding environment or by any person, and of course God has not determined that you should suffer it, rather it is brought about by a strongly negative emotion deep in your heart” (The Word, Vol. 6. On the Pursuit of the Truth I. How to Pursue the Truth (1)). After reading God’s words, I realized that I’d always been scared of speaking in front of others and doing my duty as a team leader because of my feelings of inferiority. When I was young, I was too shy to greet strangers, and my parents would often say I was mute and couldn’t speak, and that I would never amount to anything, and relatives would say I was an idiot for not knowing how to abide by social conventions in what I’d say. These words deeply hurt my self-esteem and made me feel inferior. As a result, I constantly defined myself as someone who wasn’t good at speaking, and whenever I was in a situation that required me to speak up, I would panic, and so I avoided and rejected any duties that required me to fellowship and speak frequently. When I saw people who were more articulate and who had better caliber than I did, I felt inferior and ashamed, and I would just become negative and withdraw. Even when given the opportunity to be a team leader, I felt I wasn’t cut out for it, and I had no willingness to cooperate actively. My feelings of inferiority affected my perspectives and goals of pursuit, causing me to constantly delimit myself and avoid taking on responsibilities, which made me miss many opportunities to be perfected, leading to losses to my life entry. Now God’s house had still given me the opportunity to train to be a team leader, and I didn’t want to delimit myself with the constraints of my feelings of inferiority, so I prayed to God, asking Him to guide me and give me faith, so that I could break free from the bonds and constraints of my feelings of inferiority.

Later, I read another passage of God’s words, which showed me the path to resolve my feelings of inferiority. Almighty God says: “Regardless of what situation caused your feeling of inferiority to arise or who or what event caused it to arise, you should harbor the correct understanding toward your own caliber, your strengths, your talents, and the quality of your own humanity. It is not right to feel inferior, nor is it right to feel superior—they are both negative emotions. Inferiority can bind your actions, bind your thoughts, and influence your views and standpoint. Similarly, superiority has this negative effect, too. Therefore, whether it is inferiority or another negative emotion, you should harbor the correct understanding toward the interpretations that lead to the arising of this emotion. Firstly, you should understand that those interpretations are incorrect, and whether it is regarding your caliber, your talent, or the quality of your humanity, the assessments and conclusions they make about you are always wrong. So, how can you accurately evaluate and know yourself, and break away from the feeling of inferiority? You should take God’s words as the basis for gaining knowledge of yourself, learning what your humanity, caliber, and talent are like, and what strengths you have. … In this kind of situation, you must make a correct evaluation and take the correct measure of yourself according to God’s words. You should establish what you have learned and where your strengths lie, and go out and do whatever it is that you can do; as for those things which you cannot do, your shortcomings and deficiencies, you should reflect on and know them, and you should also accurately evaluate and know what your caliber is like, and whether it is good or bad. If you cannot understand or gain clear knowledge of your own problems, then ask the people around you with understanding to make an appraisal of you. Regardless of whether what they say is accurate, it will at least give you something to reference and consider and will enable you to have a basic judgment or characterization of yourself. You can then solve the essential problem of negative emotions like inferiority, and gradually emerge from them. Such feelings of inferiority are easy to resolve if one can discern them, awaken to them, and seek the truth” (The Word, Vol. 6. On the Pursuit of the Truth I. How to Pursue the Truth (1)). After reading God’s words, my heart felt brighter. To overcome feelings of inferiority, I need to have an accurate understanding of myself, measure myself according to God’s words, objectively assess my strengths and weaknesses, and strive to accomplish what I’m capable of, and for my shortcomings, I should face them calmly and treat them correctly. This way, I can do my duties without feeling constrained. I reflected on all my years of feeling inferior, and I saw that I felt this way because my parents always criticized me for being clumsy with my words and for being bad at expressing myself, and I felt that my communication skills were poor, and that I couldn’t express my thoughts concisely, so whenever I had to do duties where I needed to speak and fellowship frequently, I felt scared. I then calmed down to assess myself, “After reading God’s words, I’m able to gain some insights, and I can share my experiential understandings to help my brothers and sisters, which they said were helpful to them. I can also solve some skill-related problems, and even though my communication skills are poor and I ramble, these problems aren’t so bad that I can’t express myself clearly or accomplish any tasks. Furthermore, this isn’t a terminal issue, as I can make improvements in this area by writing articles and training more in fellowship.” Recognizing this, I no longer felt so overwhelmed by the pressure of doing my duties as a team leader, and I found myself able to cooperate actively. When I noticed the issues my brothers and sisters faced in their duties, I did my best to help solve them, and I regularly followed up on the work progress of the brothers and sisters in our team, looking into their difficulties and discussing solutions with them, and if I couldn’t solve something, I would consult with my partnered sister, and in the end, we could always find some way forward. By practically cooperating like this, I found that I could express my thoughts clearly, that my brothers and sisters could understand me, and I gained some confidence in my duties as a team leader. After some time, the leaders came to me and said that after some discussion, they wanted to cultivate me as a supervisor. I was both surprised and happy to hear this news, but then I quickly thought about how my language skills were poor, and how I could barely manage as a team leader, and that the brothers and sisters in the team were aware of my shortcomings, and they were able to understand if my fellowship was lacking, but as a supervisor, I would interact with many more people, and gatherings and work implementations would require me to take the lead in fellowship. With my poor speaking skills, I feared that I would expose my shortcomings as soon as I opened my mouth to fellowship, and that if I fellowshipped poorly, I’d end up utterly humiliating myself. So I told the leaders, “I can’t do it, I’m not cut out for this role, it’d be better to cultivate another sister.” The leaders then fellowshipped God’s intentions to me, encouraging me not to delimit myself, to train and see how it goes, and to cooperate with others to solve any difficulties. So I agreed to cooperate for a while.

After that, I wondered, “I realized that I was influenced by my feelings of inferiority, and I was able to view myself correctly, so why did I still hesitate to take on the role of supervisor and want to run from it?” During one of my devotionals, I read a couple of passages from God’s words, which helped me gain some clarity on some of my issues. God says: “What kind of disposition is it when people always put up a front, always whitewash themselves, always put on airs so that others think highly of them, and cannot see their faults or shortcomings, when they always try to present their best side to people? This is arrogance, fakery, hypocrisy, it is the disposition of Satan, it is something wicked. Take members of the satanic regime: No matter how much they fight, feud, or kill in the dark, no one is allowed to report or expose them. They are afraid that people will see their demonic face, and they do everything they can to cover it up. In public, they do their utmost to whitewash themselves, saying how much they love the people, how great, glorious and infallible they are. This is the nature of Satan. The most prominent feature of Satan’s nature is trickery and deception. And what is the aim of this trickery and deception? To hoodwink people, to stop them from seeing its essence and true colors, and thus achieve the aim of prolonging its rule. Ordinary people may lack such power and status, but they, too, wish to make others hold a favorable view of them, and for people to have a high estimation of them, and elevate them to a high status in their hearts. This is a corrupt disposition, and if people do not understand the truth, they are incapable of recognizing this” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. The Principles That Should Guide One’s Conduct). “People who never open their hearts, who always try to hide and conceal things, who pretend that they are respectable, who want people to think highly of them, who don’t allow others to get a full measure of them, who want people to admire them—are these people not foolish? These people are the most foolish! That’s because the truth about people will be exposed sooner or later. What path do they walk with this kind of comportment? This is the path of the Pharisees. Are hypocrites in danger or not? These are the people God detests the most, so do you think they are in danger or not? All those who are Pharisees walk the road to destruction!” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. In Giving One’s Heart to God, One Can Obtain the Truth). God exposes that people often conceal and disguise themselves, hiding their flaws and shortcomings from others to protect their reputation and status. Such people are arrogant, fake, and hypocritical. I examined my behavior in light of God’s words, and I realized that I was the kind of person exposed by God. Since childhood, I had been controlled by the idea that “People need their pride just as a tree needs its bark,” and I placed great importance on my pride and status in others’ hearts, always wanting people to have a good opinion and image of me. Because I was clumsy with my speech and often criticized by adults in my childhood, I believed this was my shortcoming, so whenever I was in a situation where I’d have to speak, I’d choose to avoid it. After finding God, during fellowship at gatherings, I was once interrupted by brothers and sisters for rambling and going off-topic, and I felt humiliated. After that, I didn’t want to fellowship during gatherings anymore and was afraid to speak in front of others. My behavior was a way of concealing and disguising myself, preventing others from seeing my flaws and shortcomings so I wouldn’t be looked down upon, and instead make people think I was modest and not a show-off, giving people a good impression and opinion of me. When brothers and sisters gather together, the purpose is to fellowship on their experiential understandings regarding God’s words and to help and support one another, but because I wanted to hide my shortcomings, I avoided fellowshipping my experiential understandings. The church cultivated me to serve as a team leader and gave me an opportunity for training, yet I kept running from and declining duties. Even as a team leader, I lacked the resolve to cooperate, was negative and passive, and wanted to resign. To protect my pride and status, I kept shirking my duties, using my poor caliber as an excuse to cover up my desire for reputation and status. This way, brothers and sisters not only wouldn’t question my refusal to do my duties, but would also perceive me as reasonable, self-aware, and not competing for status, and they’d form a good impression of me. I was using underhanded methods to protect my pride and status, and in this, I was deceiving and misleading my brothers and sisters. This was truly deceitful of me!

Through seeking and thinking things through, I realized that I had another viewpoint within me. I believed that only those with good speaking skills were qualified to be leaders and workers, and that if one lacked good speaking skills, they weren’t cut out for this role. But was this viewpoint actually right? I read a passage of God’s words: “Among the various types of talented people I mentioned just now, the first type was those who can be supervisors of the various items of work. The first requirement for them is that they have the ability and caliber to comprehend the truth. This is the minimum requirement. The second requirement is that they carry a burden—this is indispensable. Some people comprehend the truth more quickly than ordinary people, have spiritual understanding, are of good caliber, possess work capability, and after practicing for a period of time, can absolutely stand on their own two feet. But there is a serious problem with these people—they carry no burden. … There are also people whose caliber is more than adequate for a job, but unfortunately they just don’t carry a burden, they don’t like to take on responsibility, they don’t like trouble, and they don’t like worrying. They are blind to the work that needs doing, and even if they can see it, they don’t want to take care of it. Are people of this type candidates for promotion and cultivation? Absolutely not; people must carry a burden in order to be promoted and cultivated. Carrying a burden can also be described as having a sense of responsibility. Having a sense of responsibility is more to do with humanity; carrying a burden relates to one of the standards God’s house uses for measuring people. Those who carry a burden while additionally possessing two other things—the ability and caliber to comprehend the truth, and work capability—are the type of people who can be promoted and cultivated, and this type of people can be supervisors of the various items of work. These are the required standards for promoting and cultivating people to become various types of supervisors, and people who meet these standards are candidates for promotion and cultivation” (The Word, Vol. 5. The Responsibilities of Leaders and Workers. The Responsibilities of Leaders and Workers (5)). From God’s words, I see that to be a leader and worker mainly depends on a person’s humanity and their ability to comprehend the truth. Also, it depends on if they have a sense of burden for the work and a sense of responsibility. When people with good communication skills fellowship the truth to solve problems, they can articulate their thoughts clearly and logically, and they can grasp key points, allowing others to understand them immediately. This is beneficial to their fulfillment of duties. However, if a supervisor has good speaking skills, caliber, and strong work capabilities, but they have poor humanity, crave comfort, and dislike working, and they lack a sense of burden for their duties and are irresponsible, then such a person is also unsuited to be a leader and worker. Many leaders and workers have had good speaking skills and caliber, but due to their lacking a sense of burden for their duties and not doing real work, and indulging in the benefits of their positions, they were dismissed. Conversely, there have been leaders and workers with slightly poorer speaking skills and caliber, but who have a sense of burden for their duties and a sense of responsibility, who work diligently, and who can resolve real issues for their brothers and sisters in their duties. Such leaders and workers can perform real work as well, and the church provides them with opportunities for training. In the past, I delimited myself as being unfit to be a team leader or a supervisor just because of my poor speaking abilities and communication skills. This was due to my failure to seek the truth, and I couldn’t continue to delimit myself with these fallacious views.

Moving forward, I focused on how I could fully shoulder my duties to the best of my abilities, and strive to reach my potential, and I also consciously reflected on God’s words, focusing on seeking and practicing the truth in the situations I encountered. When I had some actual understanding of God’s words, I practiced writing testimony articles. Gradually, I learned how to speak logically and coherently, and how to clearly express my thoughts so that others could understand, and I began to get to grips with the skills involved in communication. When it came time to implement work during gatherings, I was no longer as scared as before when my partnered sister asked me to take the lead, and I could also summarize issues and deviations with everyone, thus improving the effectiveness of my duties. By practicing this way, I felt at peace and at ease, and gradually, I walked out of the shadow of my feelings of inferiority, and I became much brighter than before. I was no longer the person who hid in the dark corner, too scared to say anything. I am grateful for the enlightenment and guidance of God’s words for allowing me to gradually step out of the shadow of my inferiority and to become able to do my duties as a created being.