By Wang Tao, China

When I was three years old, my parents divorced due to their emotional incompatibility, and when I was four, I had a stepmother. In the haze of my distant memories, I remember that several elderly ladies from the neighborhood often told me, “Poor child, you’re going to suffer later, stepmothers never care for their children! Don’t anger your stepmother, little one, you need to be obedient and hardworking so you won’t be beaten and get to eat.” At that time, I only half understood what they meant, and I felt a bit scared, so I never dared to make my stepmother angry. But to my surprise, my stepmother treated me very well, as if I were her own son. Later, I had a younger brother, and my stepmother continued to care for and love me just the same. In fact, she was even more loving than my biological mother. My stepmother often told my brother and me, “Your father and I work hard and suffer to earn money, and everything we do is to build new houses for you both and to prepare for when you both get married. When you grow up and start your own families, you must be filial to us. No matter how much hardship we endure, it will all be worth it!” Each time, I solemnly promised, “Mom, when I grow up, I’ll definitely take care of both of you.” My stepmother would always show a relieved smile and nod continuously when she heard this. My stepmother went through great hardship to raise me and she helped me marry and get started with my own family and career. I always remembered my grandmother’s words: “Giving birth isn’t as important as raising a child,” and “You get what you give with people, four ounces for half a pound as they say.” I thought this was the principle of human conduct, and that if a person lacks conscience and is ungrateful, they aren’t worthy of being called human.

In 1994, our whole family came to believe in the Lord Jesus. My wife and I often went out to care for the church, sometimes not returning for a day or two, even when our two-year-old child and the work in the fields needed our time and attention. My mother took the initiative to take on those chores so that we could serve the Lord well. In 2002, our entire family accepted the work of Almighty God of the last days. My parents fully supported me in my duties. Because I’d become well-known in my area for my faith in the Lord, after accepting this stage of work, my gospel work in the area attracted the attention of the police. To avoid being arrested by the police, I left home and spent many years doing my duties elsewhere. During the holidays, the sight of others reunited with their families made me really worry about my own family and miss my parents. During the busy farming season, in particular, I’d think about how my mother suffered from back and leg problems and rheumatism, and how in rainy weather when her pain became particularly bad, I usually tried to prevent them from doing heavy farm work at home. But now my wife and I were both out doing our duties, and my parents weren’t just taking care of our child but also working in the fields. They were working so hard, and I thought of risking a return home to help with the farm work so they wouldn’t have to labor anymore. But if I went back, I would likely be arrested by the police, and I wouldn’t be able to help my parents much. Besides, I was busy with my duties and couldn’t abandon my church work to return home. As I walked along the road, I saw farmers harvesting wheat in the fields, and it was as if I was watching my own mother lifting her head to wipe the sweat from her brow in the fields. Tears began to stream down my face, and I couldn’t help but complain, “If it weren’t for my faith in God and my gospel work putting me at risk of arrest, I could have returned home to help my parents during the busy season!” The more I thought about it, the more I felt indebted to my parents. That evening, the image of my parents laboring unsteadily in the fields came to mind, and I couldn’t help but secretly shed tears. So I often prayed to God, entrusting my parents into His hands.

In December 2012, I was arrested by the police while preaching the gospel. During the interrogation, the police used cruel methods to torture me, and while in a daze, the police chief made me watch a video on his phone. I saw my ninety-year-old grandmother with sunken eyes and a vacant gaze, and it looked as if she might die at any moment. I also saw my mother, her hair gray and her face streaked with tears. Her lips trembled as if she was arguing about something, and she seemed very shaken up. As I watched the footage, tears streamed down my face. The chief of the national security team seized on this moment to say, “We’ve also checked with people from your village, and everyone speaks well of you. You’re a dutiful son. Your grandmother is nearing a hundred, and your parents are both in their seventies. They’re all looking forward to your return for a family reunion! Your grandmother is on the verge of passing. Don’t you want to see her one last time? As the saying goes, ‘In life, filial piety comes first.’ Didn’t your parents raise you so that they could rely on you and enjoy their twilight years? Can you bear to let them spend their old age in such solitude? They’re both elderly. You never know when you could be looking at them for the last time. If you’re sentenced to eight to ten years for your faith, you may never see them again, and you’ll end up regretting it for the rest of your life. If you just tell us what you know, I’ll send you straight home for a reunion. Think it over!” Upon hearing this, memories of my grandmother and mother caring for and loving me flooded my mind, and I couldn’t help but burst into tears. My mother hoped that I would care for them when they grew old, and now they were both so old and in poor health, and at the time they needed me most, I wasn’t there to fulfill my responsibilities as a son. Instead, I had caused them to live in fear due to my arrest. If I were sentenced to eight to ten years in prison, I might never see them again. The more I thought about it, the more negative I became, and I started to harbor grievances, thinking, “If I hadn’t come here to preach the gospel and gotten arrested, couldn’t I have cared for them? What should I do now? Should I prepare for prison, or should I compromise with Satan and devils to repay my parents’ kindness? If I betray my brothers and sisters, or the interests of God’s house, then I would be a shameful Judas, and my conscience would never find peace, and I’d be cursed by God and go to hell!” My heart was in turmoil, and my head felt like it was going to explode and I was on the verge of a breakdown. I cried out to God in prayer, “God, please save me! What should I do?” At that moment, a section of God’s word came to mind: “At all times, My people should be on guard against the cunning schemes of Satan, guarding the gate of My house for Me; they should be able to support each other and provide for each other, so as to avoid falling into Satan’s trap, at which time it would be too late for regrets” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. God’s Words to the Entire Universe, Chapter 3). God’s words calmed my restless heart. Satan was scheming to use my affection to crush me and make me betray God. I couldn’t fall for its tricks. I had to stand firm in my testimony! So I said, “I don’t know anything. Do what you want with me!” The police exhausted their efforts but obtained no useful information, and in the end, the court sentenced me to three and a half years in prison.

In July 2016, my sentence in that hell on earth came to an end. When I got home, my mother cradled my head in her arms and started crying bitterly. I comforted her, wiping the tears from her face. I thought to myself, “Because of the CCP’s arrests and persecution, I haven’t been home in over a decade. My parents have been constantly worried for my safety, especially during my years in prison, during which time they were even more worried about me. Now they’re both in their seventies, and I really don’t want to make them worry for me anymore. Now that I’m back, I want to spend more time with them and fulfill my responsibilities as a son.” A few days later, my uncle came to see me and complained to me, “You haven’t been back in all these years, your mother’s been hospitalized several times and there’s no trace of you, and everyone says you’re a lousy son! Your parents are both very old now, and they’ve been taking care of your child and working the fields for you, and now they’re both ill. You think this has been easy on them? Now that you’re back, you need to spend your days at home living properly and make sure they’re taken care of so that people will stop gossiping about you!” Watching my uncle walk away, I felt a pang of discomfort. I’d really become an ungrateful child in their eyes. I thought that maybe I could just do my duties at the local church, which would allow me to care for my parents. But as I thought this way, I found myself inadvertently sinking into a dark mindset, and so I consciously prayed to God, seeking His intentions. I realized that in my current situation, I couldn’t do my duties at home, that I could be arrested at any time, and that I couldn’t let filial piety stop me from doing my duties. Over these years, I’d enjoyed so much grace and the watering and provision of the truth from God, so I couldn’t lose my conscience now, and I had to do my duties to repay God’s love. So I went out to preach the gospel again.

Yet deep down, my emotional attachment to my mother lingered, and I found myself disturbed in certain situations. The elderly sister of my host home often felt dizzy. One time, she was ill and stayed in the hospital for over ten days. I thought of my mother, “She’s nearly eighty now and has high blood pressure and heart disease, and she often gets dizzy. What if she falls ill and needs to be hospitalized? As the sayings go, ‘Giving birth isn’t as important as nurturing a child’ and ‘In life, filial piety comes first.’ As their son, I’m not even able to be there for my parents and serve them, won’t my relatives and neighbors say I’m unfilial, ungrateful, and lacking in conscience?” During that time, I couldn’t shake how much I missed and worried about my mother. The image of my mother’s hopeful gaze lingered in my mind, and the mockery of my relatives and neighbors rang in my ears. My heart felt repressed, and I spent my days just going through the motions in my duties, without getting any results. I realized that my state was affecting my ability to do my duties, so I prayed to God to seek help. Later, I read these words of God: “If you believe that your parents are the closest people in the world to you, that they are your bosses and your leaders, that they are the people who gave birth to you and raised you, who provided you with food, clothes, a home, and transportation, who brought you up, and that they are your benefactors, will it be easy for you to let go of their expectations? (No.) If you believe these things, you will be very likely to approach your parents’ expectations from a fleshly perspective, and it will be hard for you to let go of any of their inappropriate and unreasonable expectations. You will be bound and suppressed by their expectations. Even if you feel dissatisfied and unwilling in your heart, you will not have the power to break free from these expectations, and you will have no choice but to let them take their natural course. Why will you have to let them take their natural course? Because if you were to let go of your parents’ expectations, and to ignore or reject any of their expectations, you would feel that you were an unfilial child, that you were ungrateful, that you’d let your parents down, and that you weren’t a good person. If you take a fleshly perspective, you’ll do everything you can to utilize your conscience to repay your parents’ kindness, to make sure that the suffering your parents endured for your sake wasn’t endured for nothing, and you will also want to realize their expectations. You will try hard to accomplish everything they ask you to do, to avoid disappointing them, to do right by them, and you will make the decision to care for them when they’re old, to ensure that their last years are happy, and you will even think a little bit further, to handling their funerals, satisfying them at the same time as satisfying your own desire to be a filial child. While living in this world, people are influenced by various kinds of public opinion and social climates, as well as different thoughts and views that are popular in society. If people do not understand the truth, they can only view these things from the perspective of fleshly feelings, and at the same time, they can only handle these things from that perspective” (The Word, Vol. 6. On the Pursuit of the Truth I. How to Pursue the Truth (17)). What God’s words exposed was exactly my state. I’d been viewing things from the perspective of fleshly affection. I believed that everything I had came from my parents, and that as a person, I should be grateful and repay my parents for raising me, that I should strive to meet my parents’ demands and expectations, and that this was what a person with conscience should do. My parents divorced when I was young, and many people said I was a pitiful child who would be mistreated by his stepmother, but my stepmother treated me like her own son. In my young heart, she was even closer to me than my biological mother. I felt that she had worked hard and scrimped and saved to raise my brother and I, that she supported my education and helped me start my own family and career, and that she was the person I respected and cherished the most in my life. So I made a secret vow in my heart that I would be good to her and care for her in her old age. My mother made few demands of me, hoping only that when she and my father grew old, I would care for them and ensure they had someone to rely on. This was my mother’s only expectation of me. I thought to myself, “As a person with a conscience, I should do my best to fulfill my parents’ wishes, and I should be filial to my parents. If I’m not, I’ll be an unfilial and ungrateful person with no conscience, and I’d be deserving of society’s condemnation.” Because I was performing my duties elsewhere, during holidays and busy farming seasons, I often felt really worried, as I was afraid that my parents would work too hard and fall ill, and so I wanted to return home to help them. I appeared to be doing my duties, but my heart couldn’t find peace, and I was just going through the motions in my duties. After I was arrested, the police used my affection toward my parents to tempt me to betray my brothers and sisters, and if it weren’t for God’s words enlightening and guiding me, I might have betrayed God because of my affection. When I saw the elderly sister from my host home become ill and hospitalized, I was reminded of my mother, and I thought about how weak and ill she was, and how I couldn’t go back to care for her. I felt guilty and distressed, and became negative and weak. I quietly harbored grievances against God in my heart, believing that I couldn’t meet my parents’ expectations or be filial, and that this was all because of my faith in God and my duties. I saw that after so many years of believing in God, I hadn’t gained any truth, and that I was still unable to view things according to God’s words. Whenever matters involved my family, I’d always find myself governed by my fleshly affection, which meant I still held the views of a nonbeliever. So I prayed for God to enlighten and guide me to understand the truth to solve my problems.

Later, I read these words of God: “Due to the conditioning of Chinese traditional culture, in Chinese people’s traditional notions they believe that one must observe filial piety toward their parents. Whoever does not observe filial piety is an unfilial child. These ideas have been instilled in people since childhood, and they are taught in practically every household, as well as in every school and in society at large. When a person’s head has been filled with such stuff, they think, ‘Filial piety is more important than anything. If I weren’t to observe it, I wouldn’t be a good person—I’d be an unfilial child and I’d be denounced by society. I’d be a person who lacks conscience.’ Is this view correct? People have seen so many truths expressed by God—has God demanded that one show filial piety toward their parents? Is this one of the truths that believers in God must understand? No, it is not. God has only fellowshipped on some principles. By what principle do God’s words ask that people treat others? Love what God loves, and hate what God hates: This is the principle that should be adhered to. God loves those who pursue the truth and are able to follow His will; these are also the people that we should love. Those who are not able to follow God’s will, who hate and rebel against God—these people are detested by God, and we should detest them, too. This is what God asks of man. … Satan uses this kind of traditional culture and notions of morality to bind your thoughts, your mind, and your heart, leaving you unable to accept God’s words; you have been possessed by these things of Satan, and rendered incapable of accepting God’s words. When you want to practice God’s words, these things cause disturbance within you, cause you to oppose the truth and God’s requirements, and make you powerless to rid yourself of the yoke of traditional culture. After struggling for a while, you compromise: You prefer to believe traditional notions of morality are correct and in line with the truth, and so you reject or forsake God’s words. You do not accept God’s words as the truth and you think nothing of being saved, feeling that you still live in this world, and can only survive by relying on these people. Unable to endure society’s recrimination, you would rather choose to give up the truth and God’s words, abandoning yourself to traditional notions of morality and the influence of Satan, preferring to offend God and not practice the truth. Is man not pitiful? Do they not have need of God’s salvation?” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Only by Recognizing One’s Own Misguided Views Can One Truly Transform). From God’s words, I understood that because I’d been influenced by traditional culture since childhood, and also due to the influences of my upbringing, I regarded traditional ideas such as “A kindness received should be gratefully repaid,” “Filial piety is a virtue to be held above all else,” and “Do not travel far while your parents yet live” as principles to comport myself. I saw my parents as my benefactors and as lifelong creditors, and I believed that if I couldn’t be filial and allow my parents to enjoy their old age, I would be an unfilial child with no conscience, deserving of society’s scorn and condemnation. Under the influence of traditional cultural values, during holidays and busy farming seasons, or when I saw elderly brothers and sisters falling ill and being hospitalized, memories of my parents would flood back to me, and because I couldn’t return home to care for my parents, my mood would drop for several days, affecting my performance of my duties. My mother’s expectations of me became an emotional debt in my heart that I could never repay. When I was arrested and interrogated by the police, they used sayings like “In life, filial piety comes first” to mislead me, and if it weren’t for God’s words enlightening and guiding me, I might have succumbed to my fleshly affection and betrayed God. Reflecting on those who betrayed God due to their affection after being arrested, I realized that though they satisfied their families and their fleshly desires, they lost God’s salvation. I saw that without resolving affection issues, one could betray God at any moment. Through my faith in God and my performance of my duties, I came to understand some truths, I came to understand the significance of life, and my corrupt disposition changed a bit. My being able to walk on the right path of life was God’s grace. However, instead of being grateful, I harbored grievances against God, thinking that if it weren’t for my faith in God and the CCP hunting me down, I wouldn’t have to turn my back on my home, and I’d still be able to fulfill my filial duty to my parents. The fact that I couldn’t be filial to my parents was clearly due to the CCP’s arrests and persecution, and yet I blamed God. I saw that due to Satan’s misleading, I was confused and unable to discern right from wrong, and that I was rebelling against and opposing God without even realizing it. Realizing this, I felt deep regret in my heart, and I prayed to God, “God, I know that living in this state is a rebellion against You, and I don’t want to live according to these ideas instilled in me by Satan. Please enlighten and guide me to understand the truth and gain discernment.”

Then I read these words of God: “Let’s look at the matter of your parents giving birth to you. Who was it that chose for them to give birth to you: you or your parents? Who chose whom? If you look at this from God’s perspective, the answer is: neither of you. Neither you nor your parents chose for them to give birth to you. If you look at the root of this matter, this was ordained by God. We’ll put this topic to one side for now, as this matter is easy for people to understand. From your perspective, you were passively born to your parents, without having any choice in the matter. From the perspective of your parents, they gave birth to you through their own independent will, right? In other words, putting aside God’s ordination, when it comes to the matter of giving birth to you, it was your parents who had all the power. They chose to give birth to you, and they called all the shots. You did not choose for them to give birth to you, you were passively born to them, and you didn’t have any choice in the matter. So, since your parents had all the power, and they chose to give birth to you, they have an obligation and a responsibility to bring you up, to raise you into an adult, to supply you with an education, with food, clothes, and money—this is their responsibility and obligation, and it is what they ought to do. Whereas you were always passive during the period that they were raising you, you didn’t have the right to choose—you had to be raised by them. Because you were young, you didn’t have the capacity to raise yourself, you had no choice but to be passively brought up by your parents. You were raised in the way that your parents chose, if they gave you nice food and drinks, then you ate and drank nice food and drinks. If your parents provided you with a living environment where you survived off chaff and wild plants, then you survived off chaff and wild plants. In any case, when you were being raised, you were passive, and your parents were fulfilling their responsibility. It’s the same as your parents caring for a flower. Since they want to care for a flower, they should fertilize it, water it, and make sure that it gets sunlight. So, regarding people, no matter whether your parents looked after you meticulously or took great care of you, in any case, they were just fulfilling their responsibility and obligation. Regardless of the reason why they raised you, it was their responsibility—because they gave birth to you, they should take responsibility for you. … In any case, by raising you your parents are fulfilling a responsibility and an obligation. Raising you into an adult is their obligation and responsibility, and this cannot be called kindness. If it cannot be called kindness, then is it not something that you ought to enjoy? (It is.) This is a kind of right that you should enjoy. You should be raised by your parents, because before you reach adulthood, the role that you play is that of a child being brought up. Therefore, your parents are just fulfilling a kind of responsibility toward you, and you are just receiving it, but you are certainly not receiving grace or kindness from them” (The Word, Vol. 6. On the Pursuit of the Truth I. How to Pursue the Truth (17)). From God’s words, I understood that it is God’s sovereign decree for parents to raise their children. Regardless of how much hardship and effort parents put into caring for their children, this is simply their responsibility and obligation, and can’t be considered kindness. Growing up in such a family was also God’s arrangement for me, and no matter how much suffering my parents endured or what kind of price they paid in raising me, they were simply fulfilling their responsibilities and obligations. This had already been predetermined by God, and shouldn’t be regarded as kindness, and I didn’t need to repay them. God arranged for a stepmother to care for and love me, and this was God’s grace, so I should be grateful to God and not attribute all the credit to my parents. But I didn’t understand the truth, and I believed that without my parents, I would have nothing, that it was my mother’s love that changed my unfortunate life. She wasn’t my biological mother but she was even closer to me than my birth mother ever was, so I regarded her as the most important person in my life, and always wanted to repay the debt I owed her for her loving care, but didn’t consider how to do my duties to satisfy God. Was I not utterly lacking in humanity? It’s like when parents hire a nanny, and they entrust their child into her care for a period of time, and the nanny provides the child with everything they need. But if this child recognizes the nanny as their mother, and they only see the nanny’s care and don’t acknowledge everything their parents have done for them. Wouldn’t this break the parents’ hearts? Wouldn’t this be truly ungrateful and an inversion of that which is and isn’t important? My life comes from God, and it is by God’s protection and care that I have survived to this day. My parents raising me was merely them fulfilling their responsibilities and obligations, and there is no concept of kindness in this. I shouldn’t see my parents as my creditors, but instead I should be grateful and repay God, who is sovereign over all. If I, because of filial piety, don’t do my duties before God, then I would truly be an ungrateful wretch with no conscience! Seeking to do the duties of a created being to satisfy God is what makes one worthy as a qualified created being and a person with conscience and reason. If I returned home to care for my parents, even if I were praised by others as a filial son, what would be the significance of this if I didn’t receive God’s approval?

Later, I came before God again to pray and seek His guidance, asking how I should treat my parents according to the truth principles. Then I read these words of God: “If, based on your living environment and the context you find yourself in, honoring your parents does not conflict with you completing God’s commission and performing your duty—or, in other words, if honoring your parents does not impact your loyal performance of your duty—then you can practice them both at the same time. You do not need to outwardly separate from your parents, and you do not need to outwardly renounce or reject them. In what situation does this apply? (When honoring one’s parents does not conflict with the performance of one’s duty.) That is right. In other words, if your parents do not try to hinder your belief in God, and they are also believers, and they really support and encourage you to perform your duty loyally and complete God’s commission, then your relationship with your parents is not a fleshly relationship between relatives, in the regular sense of the word, and it is a relationship between brothers and sisters of the church. In that case, aside from interacting with them as fellow brothers and sisters of the church, you must also fulfill a few of your filial responsibilities to them. You must show them a bit of extra concern. As long as it does not affect the performance of your duty, that is, so long as your heart is not constrained by them, you can call your parents to ask them how they are doing and to show a bit of concern for them, you can help them to resolve a few difficulties and handle some of their life problems, and you can even help them to resolve some of the difficulties they have in terms of their life entry—you can do all of these things. In other words, if your parents do not obstruct your belief in God, you should maintain this relationship with them, and you should fulfill your responsibilities to them. And why should you show concern for them, take care of them, and ask them how they are doing? Because you are their child and you have this relationship with them, you have another kind of responsibility, and because of this responsibility, you must ask after them a little more and provide them with more substantive assistance. So long as it does not affect the performance of your duty, and so long as your parents do not hinder or disturb your faith in God and your performance of your duty, and they do not hold you back either, then it is natural and fitting for you to fulfill your responsibilities to them, and you must do this to the extent where your conscience does not reproach you—this is the lowest standard that you must meet. If you cannot honor your parents at home due to the impact and hindrance of your circumstances, then you do not have to hold to this rule. You should put yourself at the mercy of God’s orchestrations and submit to His arrangements, and you do not need to insist on honoring your parents. Does God condemn this? God does not condemn this; He does not force people to do this. What are we fellowshipping on now? We are fellowshipping about how people should practice when honoring their parents conflicts with the performance of their duty; we are fellowshipping on principles of practice and the truth. You have a responsibility to honor your parents, and if circumstances allow, you can fulfill this responsibility, but you should not be constrained by your feelings. For example, if one of your parents falls ill and has to go to the hospital, and there is no one to take care of them, and you are too busy with your duty to return home, what should you do? At times like these, you cannot be constrained by your feelings. You should give the matter over to prayer, entrust it to God, and put it at the mercy of God’s orchestrations. That is the kind of attitude that you should have. If God wants to take the life of your parent, and take them away from you, you should still submit. Some people say: ‘Although I have submitted, I still feel miserable and I’ve been crying about it for days—is this not a fleshly feeling?’ This is not a fleshly feeling, it is human kindness, it is possessing humanity, and God does not condemn it. … If you get trapped by your feelings, and this holds up the performance of your duty, then that completely contravenes God’s intentions. God never required you to do that, God only demands that you fulfill your responsibilities to your parents, that is all. That is what it means to have filial piety. When God speaks of ‘honoring one’s parents’ there is a context to it. You just need to fulfill a few responsibilities that can be achieved under all kinds of conditions, that is all. As for whether your parents fall gravely ill or die, are these things up to you to decide? How their lives are, when they die, what disease kills them, or how they die—do these things have anything to do with you? (No.) They have nothing to do with you” (The Word, Vol. 6. On the Pursuit of the Truth I. What It Means to Pursue the Truth (4)). After reading God’s words, I gained principles and a path of practice. If I can do my duties at home under suitable conditions, I could show filial piety and take care of my parents, but if conditions don’t allow me to care for them, God won’t condemn me for this. Thinking about it, this wasn’t a case of me not wanting to care for my parents, but because I had been arrested by the CCP and was under their close surveillance, if I continued to believe in God and do my duties at home, I would be arrested again and face even more brutal persecution. In the future, if suitable conditions present themselves and there is a chance to return home, I will be filial toward my parents and fellowship God’s words with them. But without those conditions, I will still submit to God’s orchestrations and arrangements and do my duties well. I should pray to God regarding my parents’ health and their care in their old age and entrust these things to Him. God created humanity and arranged the laws of birth, aging, illness, and death, and throughout history, no one has been able to defy this law, nor can anyone escape God’s sovereignty and arrangements. It’s a normal law that parents develop some illnesses when they age, and this is unavoidable. Besides, even if I stayed by their side, what could I really do? Could I take their place in their suffering? Moreover, I have my younger brother to care for them. Everyone has their own path to walk and their experiences to go through in life, and these can’t be replaced or changed by others. My parents’ fate is in God’s hands, and what I can do is pray for them and submit to God’s sovereignty and arrangements. This is the reason I should possess.

Through this experience, I came to understand that ideas of traditional culture and ancestral heritage that people see as good and right, and which are seen as conforming with popular notions of ethics and morals, aren’t the truth, nor are they God’s requirements for humanity, and they aren’t standards for human conduct. Only God’s words are the truth and should be followed by people. Only by living according to God’s words and the truth can a person be truly considered to have conscience and reason. It is God’s words that have allowed me to understand how to treat my parents’ kindness and no longer be bound or constrained by traditional ideas. Thank God!