By Xiao Yuxin, China

In mid-July 2023, I was doing text-based duty in the church, working with two other sisters: One was a new member, Wang Xue, and the other was Lin Xi. At the end of August, the leaders asked Lin Xi to do another task temporarily, and so only Wang Xue and I were left in the team. Usually, after the supervisor discussed the work with us, she would ask me to implement and handle the more difficult tasks, and arrange for Wang Xue to do the simpler tasks. At first I could treat this correctly, but as time went on, I needed to worry about a lot of the work in the team, and the supervisor always assigned me the more difficult tasks, which took a lot of time and effort to do well. I had very little free time as a result, and I felt somewhat unbalanced in my heart, and started to complain, “Why are all the difficult tasks assigned to me? Although Wang Xue has not been training for a long time and still doesn’t have a solid grasp of the principles, she has done text-based duty before and has a basic grounding in it. Couldn’t she also train to do some slightly more difficult tasks? With everything assigned to me, my head is just bulging with stress all day long, and it’s too tiring to do my duty like this!” The more I thought about it, the more upset I felt.

One day, the leaders asked me to write some letters to implement a text-based task, which was quite urgent. I set to and wrote two letters in quick succession, which took quite a lot of thought. I breathed a sigh of relief after I finished writing the letters, and thought to myself, “There’s still a communication letter to write, and whatever way you look at it, it is Wang Xue’s turn to write it. This way, things are also more relaxed for me.” But I didn’t expect that the supervisor would nominate me again to write the communication letter, and I felt very resistant in my heart, “Why me again? Why don’t you get Wang Xue to train in writing communication letters? That’s the only way to be fair and reasonable! Although Wang Xue is a bit deficient in her professional skills, couldn’t I just add to what she writes and improve it? That way I’d save a bit of energy.” However, the supervisor had already made the arrangements, so I couldn’t really decline. In those days, whenever I thought about how the supervisor was always assigning me to do something or other, and how most of the time it was work that took a lot of brainpower, I felt repressed and irritable, and wished for Lin Xi to come back soon so things would be a bit more relaxed for me. After that, I was not as positive in doing my duties as before. I felt like since there were only two people in the team, then as long as I was not idle and managed to do a bit of work each day, that would be good enough. That way I wouldn’t be so tired either. Because I relaxed my requirements of myself and did not plan things tightly, things that could have been completed on the same day were delayed until the next day, and the idea that I didn’t want to do this duty even came into my mind frequently. Although I realized that my attitude toward my duty was incorrect, and I also read some of God’s words about performing one’s duty, I never seriously reflected on my own problems, and these states did not get resolved. When we were discussing the work together, I didn’t even want to say anything, afraid that the supervisor would see that I had some ideas and assign me to do it. Later, I reflected on my attitude toward my duty. Although I did do what the supervisor had arranged for me, I still had a lot of complaints in my heart. God does not approve of us always doing our duties so unwillingly. I prayed to God about my state, that He may enlighten and guide me to be able to reflect on and understand myself.

When reflecting on myself during my devotionals, I read these words of God: “Duties cover a very broad scope, and involve many areas, but no matter what duty you perform, to put it simply, it is your obligation and something you should be doing. As long as you strive to perform it well with your heart, God will approve of you, and acknowledge you as someone who truly believes in God. No matter who you are, if you are always trying to avoid or hide from your duty, then there is a problem. To put it mildly, you are too lazy, too slippery, you are idle, and you love leisure and loathe labor. To put it more seriously, you are unwilling to perform your duty, and you have no loyalty or submission. If you can’t even exert yourself physically to shoulder this little bit of work, what can you do? What are you capable of doing properly? If a person truly has loyalty and a sense of responsibility toward their duty, then as long as it is required by God, and as long as it is needed by the house of God, they will do anything they are asked, without making their own choices. Is it not one of the principles of performing a duty to undertake and do well that which one is able and ought to do? (Yes.) … Everything is easier said than done. When people really undertake a task, what’s crucial, in one regard, is their character, and in another regard, is whether they love the truth or not. Let us first speak about character. If a person is of good character, they see the positive side of everything, and are able to accept and comprehend things from a positive perspective and on the basis of the truth; that is, their heart, character, and spirit are upright—this is from the perspective of character. Next, let us talk about another aspect—whether or not one loves the truth. Loving the truth refers to being able to accept the truth, which is to say, regardless of whether or not you comprehend God’s words, and whether or not you understand God’s intention, regardless of whether your view, opinion, and perspective on the job, on the duty you are supposed to perform, are in line with the truth, you are still able to accept it from God; if you are submissive and sincere, then this is enough, this qualifies you to perform your duty, and it is the minimum requirement. If you are submissive and sincere, then when you carry out a task, you will not be perfunctory, and you will not slack off deceitfully, instead you will put all of your heart and strength into it. If a person’s inner state is wrong, and negativity arises in them, they lose their drive and want to be perfunctory; they know full well in their heart that their state is not right, and yet they still do not try to fix this by seeking the truth. People like this have no love for the truth, and are only slightly willing to perform their duty; they are disinclined to make any effort or suffer hardship, and they are always trying to slack off deceitfully. In fact, God has already scrutinized all of this—so why does He pay no heed to these people? God is just waiting for His chosen people to wake up, discern and expose those people, and eliminate them. However, such people still think to themselves, ‘Look how clever I am. We eat the same food, but after working you are completely exhausted, and I’m not tired at all. I’m the smart one. I don’t work that hard; anyone who works hard is an idiot.’ Is it right for them to view honest people in this way? No. In fact, people who work hard when they perform their duty are practicing the truth and satisfying God, so they are the smartest people of all. What makes them smart? They say, ‘I don’t do anything that God doesn’t ask me to do, and I do everything that He does ask me to. I do whatever He asks, I put my heart and all my energy into it, and I don’t go through the motions at all. I’m not doing this for any person, I’m doing it for God. God loves me so much; I should do this to satisfy God.’ This is the right state of mind. As a result, when the church cleanses people away, those who are slippery in performing their duty are all eliminated, while those honest people who accept God’s scrutiny remain. The states of those honest people keep improving, and they are protected by God in all that befalls them. And what earns them this protection? It’s because, in their hearts, they are honest. They don’t fear hardship or exhaustion when they perform their duty, and they are not picky about anything that’s handed over to them; they do not ask why, they just do as they are told, they obey, without conducting any investigations or analysis, or taking anything else into consideration. They have no calculations, and are capable of obedience in all things. Their inner state is always very normal. When faced with danger, God protects them, when illness or pestilence befalls them, God also protects them, and in the future they will only enjoy blessings. Some people just can’t see through this matter. When they see honest people willingly enduring hardship and exhaustion in performing their duty, they think these honest people are foolish. Tell Me, is this foolishness? This is sincerity, this is true faith. Without true faith, there are many things that one can never really understand or explain. Only those who understand the truth, those who always live before God and have normal associations with Him, and those who truly submit to and genuinely fear God, know clearest in their hearts what’s really going on” (The Word, Vol. 4. Exposing Antichrists. Item Ten: They Despise the Truth, Brazenly Flout Principles, and Ignore the Arrangements of God’s House (Part Four)). God exposes that those who do their duty but do not want to suffer or pay a price and always try to escape are people who are lazy, and who love leisure and loathe labor. Such people have no humanity and are not loyal in doing their duties. I reflected on my own state and behavior in comparison with God’s words. After Lin Xi was transferred away, only Wang Xue and I were left in the team. While at first I was willing to shoulder my duty, as time went on, I needed to worry about a lot of tasks, and the supervisor constantly arranged for me to do the more difficult tasks which required me to make an effort and pay a price, leaving my head bulging with stress every day. I started to think that doing my duty in this way involved too much suffering, and so I complained and grumbled. In order to save my flesh from suffering and exhaustion, I constantly thought about pushing the work onto Wang Xue so I would be more relaxed, but the supervisor arranged for me to do all of the difficult tasks. When the interests of my own flesh could not be met, I felt resistant and dissatisfied. Even though I was doing the work, I was just doing it out of a lack of choice, and my heart was anxiously looking forward to the time when Lin Xi came back so we could share the workload and I would have to suffer less. When we all discussed the work together, I was slippery and didn’t voice my opinions, afraid that the supervisor would ask me to do more work. I even didn’t want to do this duty. I saw that I was precisely the kind of lazy person who loves leisure and loathes labor that God exposed. Those who do their duty loyally regard their duty as part of their basic responsibilities. No matter how much they must suffer or how much of a price they have to pay, they will take the initiative to shoulder the burden of anything that they ought to do and put their heart and mind into working at it. They are not lazy or slippery, and are conscientious in taking responsibility for doing their duty well. This is reassuring to man and satisfying to God. But I, on the other hand, always showed consideration for the flesh in doing my duty. I was lazy and slippery, and was incapable of putting my whole heart and mind into my duty. I saw that I was a person with bad character, who used the pretext of doing my duty to indulge in comfort and eat off the house of God. I was too despicable and sordid! God gave me the opportunity to do my duty and obtain the truth, but I showed consideration for the flesh and didn’t cherish it. Once this opportunity was lost, it would be too late for regrets. I couldn’t treat my duty like this anymore. I had to turn things around quickly.

Later the supervisor gathered with us and read some words of God. There was one passage that was very specific to my state. Almighty God says: “Until people have experienced God’s work and understood the truth, it is Satan’s nature that takes charge and dominates them from within. What, specifically, does that nature entail? For example, why are you selfish? Why do you protect your own position? Why do you have such strong feelings? Why do you enjoy those unrighteous things? Why do you like those evils? What is the basis for your fondness for such things? Where do these things come from? Why are you so happy to accept them? By now, you have all come to understand that the main reason behind all these things is that Satan’s poison is within man. So what is Satan’s poison? How can it be expressed? For example, if you ask, ‘How should people live? What should people live for?’ people will answer, ‘Every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost.’ This single phrase expresses the very root of the problem. Satan’s philosophy and logic have become people’s lives. No matter what people pursue, they do so for themselves—and so they live only for themselves. ‘Every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost’—this is the life philosophy of man, and it also represents human nature. These words have already become the nature of corrupt mankind and they are the true portrait of corrupt mankind’s satanic nature. This satanic nature has already become the basis for corrupt mankind’s existence. For several thousand years, corrupt mankind has lived by this venom of Satan, right up to the present day” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. How to Walk the Path of Peter). After reading the words of God, I understood something about the root cause of my reluctance to take on burdens. I had always been living by satanic rules of survival such as “Every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost” and “Never take the short end of the stick.” These things were deeply implanted in my heart, and had become my nature. By living by these satanic poisons, I had become more and more selfish and despicable, and I considered the interests of my flesh in my self-conduct and everything I did. In the beginning, there were three of us working together, and everyone could share the workload. It was not too tiring for the flesh, and I could work normally. However, after Lin Xi left to do other duties, my selfish and despicable nature was revealed. When the supervisor arranged for me to do the more difficult work, I felt resistant and complained, and felt like I was getting the short end of the stick. I simply didn’t regard my duty as my responsibility at all. Actually, I had been doing text-based duty for a long time and had grasped some principles. It was right for me to shoulder more of the work: This was the duty that I should have done. However, I was selfish and despicable and didn’t want to suffer. I was unwilling to devote my full efforts and didn’t consider the results of the work. I truly had no sense of responsibility at all. I enjoyed the watering and provision of God’s words, but did not earnestly expend myself for God to repay His love. When duty conflicted with my fleshly interests, I didn’t consider the work of the church, and didn’t even want to fulfill my duty and responsibilities. I was just too selfish and despicable! I thought about how duty comes from God, and so your attitude to your duty is your attitude to God. Wanting to refuse my duty and evade my responsibilities is betraying God! When I thought this, I felt very upset and full of self-reproach. I was willing to repent to God and fulfill the duty I ought to fulfill, and be a person with a conscience and reason.

Afterward, the supervisor opened up and fellowshipped with me about how arranging the work in this way was done primarily out of consideration for the fact that Wang Xue had just started to train, and required time to familiarize herself with the work, while I had been doing this duty for a long time and was more familiar with all aspects of it, including professional skills. That’s why she arranged for me to do more. The supervisor also read me the words of God: “If you pursue the truth, you should change the way that you do things. You should abandon your own interests and your personal intentions and desires. You should first fellowship together on the truth when you do things, and understand God’s intentions and requirements before you divide the labor among you, with an eye on who is good and bad at what. You should take on what you are able to do and hold fast to your duty. Do not struggle or snatch at things. You must learn to compromise and to be tolerant. If someone has just begun performing a duty or only just learned the skills for a field, but is not up to some tasks, you must not force them. You must assign them tasks that are slightly easier. This makes it easier for them to achieve results in performing their duty. That is what it is to be tolerant, patient, and principled. It is a part of what normal humanity ought to have; it is what God requires of people and what people should practice. If you are fairly skilled in some field and have been working in that field longer than most, then you should be assigned the more difficult work. You should accept this from God and submit. Don’t be picky and complain, saying, ‘Why am I being picked on? They give the easy tasks to other people and give me the hard ones. Are they trying to make life difficult for me?’ ‘Trying to make life difficult for you’? What do you mean by that? Work arrangements are tailored to each person; those who are abler do more. If you have learned much and been given much by God, you should be given a heavier burden—not to make life difficult for you, but because it is an exact fit for you. It is your duty, so don’t try to pick and choose, or say no, or try to get out of it. Why do you think it is hard? The fact is that if you put some heart into it, you would be entirely up to the task. Your thinking that it is hard, that it is biased treatment, that you are being deliberately picked on—that is the revelation of a corrupt disposition. It is refusal to do your duty, not accepting from God. That is not practicing the truth. When you pick and choose in performing your duty, doing whatever is light and easy, only doing what makes you look good, this is a corrupt satanic disposition. That you cannot accept your duty or submit proves that you are still rebellious toward God, that you are opposing, refusing, and avoiding Him. This is a corrupt disposition. When you come to know that this is a corrupt disposition, what should you do? If you feel that the tasks given to others can be completed easily while those given to you keep you busy for a long time and require you to put effort into research, and this makes you unhappy, is it right of you to feel unhappy? Certainly not. So, what should you do when you sense that this is not right? If you are resistant and say, ‘Every time they mete out jobs, they give me the ones that are hard, dirty, and demanding, and give others the ones that are light, simple, and high-profile. Do they think I’m just someone they can push around? This isn’t a fair way to distribute jobs!’—if that is your thinking, it’s wrong. Irrespective of whether there are any deviations in the distribution of jobs, or whether they are distributed reasonably or not, what is it that God scrutinizes? What He scrutinizes is a person’s heart. He looks at whether someone has submission in their hearts, if they can take on some burdens for God, and if they are a lover of God. As measured by God’s requirements, your excuses are invalid, your performance of your duty is not up to standard, and you lack the truth reality. You have no submission at all, and you complain when you do a few demanding or dirty tasks. What is the problem here? First of all, your mentality is wrong. What does that mean? It means that your attitude toward your duty is wrong. If you are always thinking of your own pride and interests, and are inconsiderate of God’s intentions, and have no submission at all, then that is not the correct attitude you should have toward your duty. If you expended sincerely for God and had a God-loving heart, how would you treat tasks that are dirty, demanding, or hard? Your mentality would be different: You would choose to do whatever is difficult and seek out heavy burdens to shoulder. You would take up what other people are unwilling to do, and you would do it solely for the love of God and to satisfy Him. You would be filled with joy to do so, without any hint of complaints. The dirty, the demanding, and the difficult show people for who they are. How are you different from people who take on only light and high-profile tasks? You aren’t much better than they. Is that not how it is? This is how you must see these things. So then, what most reveals people for who they are is their performance of their duty. Some people say great things most of the time, claiming that they are willing to love and submit to God, but when they come across a difficulty in performing their duty, they let loose all kinds of complaints and negative words. It is obvious that they are hypocrites. If someone is a lover of the truth, then when faced with a difficulty in performing their duty, they will pray to God and seek the truth while treating their duty in earnest even if it isn’t suitably arranged. They will not complain, even if faced with heavy, dirty, or difficult tasks, and they can do their tasks well and perform their duty well with a heart of submission to God. They find great enjoyment in doing so, and God is comforted to see it. This is the kind of person that meets with God’s approval. If someone becomes prickly and irritable as soon as they encounter dirty, hard, or demanding tasks, and won’t let anyone criticize them, such a person is not someone who sincerely expends of themselves for God. They can only be revealed and eliminated” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Part Three). God’s words put me to shame. I thought about how the church had cultivated me to do text-based duty for many years, and how I understood more principles than Wang Xue. It was my responsibility to shoulder the burden of being assigned the more difficult tasks, and I should not have tried to argue back and evade it. The supervisor arranged things in this way out of consideration for the needs of the work of the church, and the arrangements were reasonable. Wang Xue had just started training and was still in the process of getting familiar with the principles. If she had been assigned difficult and complicated work, this would have delayed the progress of the work and caused her stress. So she should first be assigned some easier tasks to allow her to train, and once she grasped more of the various principles, she would be able to handle harder tasks when assigned. However, I didn’t consider this in the slightest, and even got disgruntled. I was truly too lacking in humanity and reason! Now I understood that we must protect the interests of the church in doing our duty, learn to be tolerant and understanding of each other and all do our part in our duties. By working together in this way, the work can be completed well. I used to think it was unfair that the supervisor always arranged for me to do difficult tasks. Now I realized that this way of looking at things was wrong. In doing duty, there is no such thing as doing more or doing less, or being fair or unfair. God knows the stature and caliber of each of us, and knows how much we can do. A burden is a blessing from God and also an opportunity given to people by God so they can train. Although doing more of the harder tasks requires careful thought and consideration, it can also push you to think more about principles, and improve the level of your professional skills. In addition, if you take on more pressure in your duty, you can also train yourself to have a heart that is willing to take on responsibility. These are all good things. However, I lived by my selfish and despicable satanic disposition, could not see God’s painstaking intentions, and even constantly wanted to escape my duty. I truly didn’t know what was good for me, and let down God’s intentions. With the guidance of God’s words, I turned my state around somewhat, and thought to myself that what I needed to do now was to submit and keep to my duty.

Later, Wang Xue was temporarily assigned to do another task and I had to take care of many things. I had to plan my daily tasks and ideally finish them all on the same day. My head was bulging with stress every single day, and I was desperately looking forward to Lin Xi coming back soon so that things would be more relaxed for me. When I thought about this, I remembered some words of God that I had read before: “Every adult must shoulder an adult’s responsibilities, regardless of how much pressure they face, such as hardships, illnesses, and even various difficulties—these are things that everyone should experience and bear. They are a part of a normal person’s life. If you cannot bear pressure or endure suffering, it means that you are too fragile and useless. Whoever lives must bear this suffering, and no one can avoid it. Whether in society or in God’s house, it is the same for everyone. This is the responsibility you should bear, the heavy burden that an adult should carry, the thing that they should shoulder, and you should not evade it. If you always try to escape or cast off all of this, then your repressive emotions will come out, and you will always be entangled by them. However, if you can properly comprehend and accept all of this, and view it as a necessary part of your life and existence, then these issues should not be a reason for you to develop negative emotions. In one respect, you must learn to shoulder the responsibilities and obligations that adults ought to have and undertake. In another respect, you should learn to coexist harmoniously with others in your living and working environment with normal humanity. Do not simply do what you please. What is the purpose of harmonious coexistence? It is to better complete the work and to better fulfill the obligations and responsibilities that you, as an adult, ought to complete and fulfill, to minimize the losses caused by the problems you face in your work, and to maximize the results and efficiency of your work. This is what you ought to achieve. If you possess normal humanity, you should accomplish this when working among people. As for work pressure, whether it comes from the Above or from God’s house, or if it is pressure put upon you by your brothers and sisters, it is something that you should bear. You cannot say, ‘This is too much pressure, so I won’t do it. I am just seeking leisure, ease, happiness, and comfort in doing my duty and working in God’s house.’ This will not work; it is not a thought that a normal adult should possess, and God’s house is not a place for you to indulge in comfort. Every person takes on a certain amount of pressure and risk in their life and work. In any job, especially performing your duty in God’s house, you should strive for optimal results. On a greater level, this is the teaching and demand of God. On a smaller level, it is the attitude, viewpoint, standard, and principle that every person should adopt in their comportment and actions. When you perform a duty in God’s house, you must learn to abide by the regulations and systems of God’s house, you must learn to comply, learn the rules, and comport yourself in a well-behaved manner. This is an essential part of one’s comportment” (The Word, Vol. 6. On the Pursuit of the Truth. How to Pursue the Truth (5)). From God’s words I understood that God hopes that we will conduct ourselves according to His requirements, and that, as adults, we should shoulder the responsibilities that adults should shoulder, fill our hearts with proper matters, and do our proper work. We should have a sense of responsibility when we take on a task, and no matter what problems or difficulties we encounter, we should pray and rely on God and seek the truth to resolve them, completing all the things that we can do well. This is what people with conscience and reason should do. I thought about how God had set up this environment for me over the last two months. On the one hand, it revealed my selfish and despicable corrupt disposition, and also taught me how to shoulder a burden, take on responsibility and be a person possessed of conscience and reason. I couldn’t let God’s intention down. I had to rely on God and rebel against the flesh to do my duty well. Afterward, I set my mindset straight and planned out what I would do every day. Although I have a lot of work to do and time is tight, I am able to calm my heart in doing my duty. Sometimes it takes a lot of thought and pondering to do some difficult tasks, but I regard these as opportunities to obtain the truth and enter into principles, so at the end of each day I feel like I have gained something. I experienced that when you practice according to God’s words, your heart is peaceful and at ease. The environment that came upon me in those two months was a revelation to me, and was also God’s salvation. In my heart, I silently give thanks and praise to God.