By Xiaoyun, China

I was born into an ordinary family, and unlike kids born with a silver spoon in their mouths, my starting point in life was lower than theirs. What was even more unfortunate was that my parents divorced when I was in elementary school, I was placed in a boarding family near my school by my father, and later, I moved in with my aunt and grandmother. When kids of my age found out about my family background, they distanced themselves from me, and I always felt inferior to others. At night, I often cried and felt that things were unfair, wondering, “Why have I been given such a bad fate?” I closed myself off and barely talked to anyone. I saw strong female CEOs on TV surrounded by flowers and splendor, and I envied them, thinking that they had gotten a truly good fate. I thought about how I was living under someone else’s roof and being looked down upon, and so I resolved to myself that: “When I grow up, I’ll make something of myself, just like the women on TV, and I’ll make those who look down on me see me in a new light.”

However, the divorce of my parents left a shadow over my childhood, and I often felt pain and sadness, and I became self-conscious and reclusive. Later, I followed my grandmother in believing in the Lord Jesus, and when I was 16, I accepted the work of Almighty God of the last days. I learned that the source of human suffering is Satan’s corruption, and that God’s work in this stage is to save people from sin and to bring people into a beautiful destination. I thought about how rare the opportunity of God’s salvation in the last days is, and how God’s work is about to end, and so I gave up my studies and trained to do my duties in the church. In the church, I saw that whenever the brothers and sisters had problems, they would ask the leaders, and the leaders would then fellowship solutions. The brothers and sisters all seemed to hold them in high regard, and I envied them, thinking, “I’ve got to pursue well, so that maybe in the future I can become a leader or a worker, then I won’t just be an ordinary follower, but a leading figure.” After that, no matter what duties the church assigned to me, I tried my best to do them, and the brothers and sisters praised me for being young and having good caliber, and they encouraged me to pursue well. I felt quite pleased, thinking, “It seems I’m a promising candidate for cultivation! I’ve got to keep pursuing well!” So I actively did my duties. I didn’t feel tired even when I had to travel far to water newcomers, and come rain or shine, I didn’t delay in my duties at all. I just hoped that my efforts and sacrifices would be noticed by the brothers and sisters, and that one day I would be selected as a leader or a worker. But every time there was a church election, I wasn’t selected, and after three years, I was still doing text-based duties. I didn’t understand, and I wondered, “Am I only meant to do text-based duties? Is this really my place in the church?”

In February 2019, I was supervising the church’s text-based work, and I felt quite pleased, and I thought this was a turning point, and that: “Maybe this is God training me in advance. It seems I still have a future in God’s house. To be a leader, one must be able to fellowship the truth to solve problems, so I too must practice fellowshipping God’s words to solve the problems of the brothers and sisters. I’ve just started supervising text-based work, and after training for a while, maybe I can become a leader.” Once, during a gathering, I happened to hear that a newcomer had been selected as a leader, and I felt bitter, thinking, “This newcomer, who’s only believed for a little over a year, is taking on such an important role. I’ve believed in God for several years, so why hasn’t such a good opportunity come to me? Why am I stuck in the same place? Text-based duties are important, but they aren’t as visible as being a leader or a worker. There’s a big difference between the two.” I couldn’t help but cry as I pushed my bike along. After that, I lost the heart to do my duties. In 2022, the textual personnel were reassigned, but I continued to do text-based duties. I felt really dejected and thought, “How come after all these years of believing in God, I’m still doing text-based duties? Am I only suited for text-based duties? Could it be that I’m not fated to become a leader? Don’t God’s words say that whatever duty we undertake and whenever we do it, it is all according to God’s predestination and sovereignty? Maybe I’m just destined to do text-based duties.” I thought of a brother who was a few years older than me. He became a leader in the church shortly after finding God, and later, he became a preacher. I felt that he was born to be a leader, but that no matter how hard I tried, I would never get the chance to become a leader or a worker, that I had no future for development, and that this was just how my life would be. After this, whenever the supervisor asked me to do something, I would do it, but I’d no longer actively strive to do better, and sometimes when I noticed problems in my duties, I felt no motivation to resolve them. The results of my work were declining more and more, and the supervisor pruned me for not making progress in my duties and for having a passive attitude. I knew deep down that I was being passive in my duties, but I didn’t have much understanding of my issues.

Later, I read God’s words exposing the issue of despondency, and only then did I begin to understand my state. Almighty God says: “You see someone who is always despondent and passive when they do things, unable to muster up any energy, their emotions and attitude are not very positive or optimistic, and they always express such a negative, blaming and despairing attitude. You give them advice but they never listen to it and, although they admit that the way you’ve pointed out to them is the right way and your reasoning is great, yet when they do things they cannot muster up any energy and are still negative and passive. In serious cases, from their body movements, figure, the way they walk, their tone of speech, and the words they say, you can see that this person’s emotions are particularly despondent, that they lack energy in everything they do and they are like a squashed fruit, and whoever spends a lot of time with that person will be affected by them. What is this all about? The various behaviors, facial expressions, tones of speech, and even the thoughts and viewpoints expressed by people living in despondency have negative qualities. So, what is the reason behind these negative phenomena? Where does the root lie? Of course, the root cause for the arising of the negative emotion of despondency is different for everyone. One kind of person’s emotion of despondency may arise from their constant belief in their own terrible fate. Is this not one cause? (It is.) … Once they have begun to believe in God, they set their resolve to perform their duty well in God’s house, they become able to endure hardship and work hard, able to endure more than anyone else in any matter, and they strive to win the approval and esteem of most people. They think they may even be chosen to be a church leader, someone in charge, or a team leader, and won’t they then be honoring their ancestors and their family? Won’t they then have changed their destiny? However, reality does not quite live up to their wishes and they become dejected, and think, ‘I’ve believed in God for years and I get on very well with my brothers and sisters, but how come whenever it’s time to choose a leader, someone in charge, or a team leader, it’s never my turn? Is it because I look so plain, or because I haven’t performed well enough, and no one has noticed me? Every time there is a vote, I may have a slight hope, and I’d be happy even to be selected as a team leader. I’m so filled with enthusiasm to repay God, but I just end up disappointed every time there is a vote and I’m left out of it all. What’s up with that? Could it be that I’m truly only able to be a mediocre person, an ordinary person, someone unremarkable my whole life? When I look back at my childhood, my youth, and my middle-aged years, this path I’ve trodden has always been so mediocre and I haven’t done anything noteworthy. It’s not that I don’t have any ambition, or that my caliber is too lacking, and it’s not that I don’t exert enough effort or that I can’t endure hardship. I have resolves and goals, and I can even be said to have ambition. So why is it that I can never stand out from the crowd? In the final analysis, I just have a bad fate and am destined for suffering, and this is how God has arranged things for me.’ The more they dwell on it, the worse they think their fate is” (The Word, Vol. 6. On the Pursuit of the Truth. How to Pursue the Truth (2)). After reading God’s words, I finally understood that my increasing passiveness and negativity in my duties were due to fallacious perspectives on things. I thought that not being able to become a leader or a worker and stand out meant I had a bad fate, and that only becoming a leader or a worker would give me a future and show I had a good fate. In order to be chosen as a leader or a worker, I worked hard to equip myself with God’s words, and whenever I noticed issues with the brothers’ and sisters’ states, I proactively sought out God’s words to fellowship and help. When my fellowship achieved results, I thought I had caliber and could solve actual issues, and thought that one day, if everyone saw my abilities, they might choose me as a leader. But no matter how hard I tried, I remained stuck doing text-based duties. In particular, when I saw brothers and sisters who had believed in God for less time than me, already becoming leaders and workers, I thought they had a good fate, and that they had been born to be leaders and workers. But after several years of doing text-based duties, I felt like I was stuck in place, unnoticed in the church, and just an ordinary person. So I blamed this problem on my bad fate, thinking that God wasn’t favoring me and that the duty He had predestined and arranged for me was poor, and so I became increasingly unmotivated in my duties. When the results of my work were poor, I didn’t reflect on myself, and when I discovered problems, I didn’t want to put in the mental effort to solve them. I clearly knew that I lacked practical experience and that I needed to practice more and equip myself with more truths, but I was unwilling to put in the effort, and I gave up on myself. It was as if I were stuck in a swamp, slowly being consumed by it and powerless to escape. The impact of my despondency was truly massive!

Later, I saw the exposure of God’s words, and I began to understand my fallacious perspectives. Almighty God says: “God long ago predestined people’s fates, and they are immutable. This ‘good fate’ and ‘bad fate’ differ from person to person, and they depend on the environment, on how people feel and what they pursue. That is why one’s fate is neither good nor bad. You may live a very hard life, but you might think, ‘I’m not looking to live a high-end life. I’m just happy with having enough to eat and enough clothes to wear. Everyone suffers during their lifetime. Worldly people say, ‘You can’t see a rainbow unless it’s raining,’ so there’s value in suffering. This isn’t so bad, and my fate isn’t bad. Heaven above has given me some pain, some trials, and tribulations. That’s because He thinks highly of me. This is a good fate!’ Some people think that suffering is a bad thing, that it means they have a bad fate, and only a life of no suffering, of comfort and ease, means they have a good fate. Nonbelievers call this ‘a matter of opinion.’ How do believers in God regard this matter of ‘fate’? Do we talk about having a ‘good fate’ or a ‘bad fate’? (No.) We don’t say things like this. Say you have a good fate because you believe in God, then if you don’t follow the right path in your belief, if you are punished, exposed and eliminated, then does that mean you have a good fate or a bad fate? If you don’t believe in God, you cannot possibly be exposed or eliminated. Nonbelievers and religious people don’t talk about exposing people or discerning people, and they don’t talk about people being cleared out or eliminated. It should mean people have a good fate when they are able to believe in God, but if they are punished in the end, does that mean then that they have a bad fate? One minute their fate is good, the next their fate is bad—so which is it? Whether someone has a good fate or not is not something that can be judged, people cannot judge this matter. It is all done by God and everything God arranges is good. It is only that the trajectory of every individual’s fate, or their environment, and the people, events, and things they encounter, and the life path they experience during their lives are all different; these things differ from person to person. Every individual’s living environment and the environment in which they grow, both of which are arranged for them by God, are all different. The things every individual experiences during their lives are all different. There is no so-called good fate or bad fate—God arranges it all, and it is all done by God. If we regard the matter from the perspective that it is all done by God, everything God does is good and right; it’s just that from the perspective of people’s predilections, feelings and choices, some people choose to live a comfortable life, choosing fame, gain, and a good reputation, and choosing to have prosperity in the world and come into their own. They believe that this means they have a good fate, and that a lifetime of mediocrity and being unsuccessful, always living at the bottom of society, is a bad fate. This is how things look from the perspective of nonbelievers and worldly people pursuing worldly things and seeking to live in the world, and this is how the idea of good fate and bad fate arises. The idea of good fate and bad fate only arises from human beings’ narrow understanding and superficial perception of fate, and from people’s judgments on how much physical suffering they endure, how much enjoyment they have, and how much fame and gain they acquire, and so on. In fact, if we look at it from the perspective of God’s arrangement of and sovereignty over the fate of man, there are no such interpretations of good fate or bad fate. Isn’t this accurate? (It is.) If you regard the fate of man from the perspective of God’s sovereignty, then everything God does is good, and it is what every individual needs. This is because cause and effect play a part in past and present lives, they are predestined by God, God holds sovereignty over them, and God plans and arranges them—mankind has no choice. If we look at it from this standpoint, people shouldn’t judge their own fate to be good or bad, right? If people casually make judgments about this matter, aren’t they then making a terrible mistake? Aren’t they making the mistake of judging God’s plans, arrangements, and sovereignty? (They are.) And isn’t that mistake a serious one? Won’t it affect the path they walk in life? (It will.) Then that mistake will lead them to destruction” (The Word, Vol. 6. On the Pursuit of the Truth. How to Pursue the Truth (2)). God exposes that some people think being able to stand out and attain fame and gain means they have a good fate, and that living a lifetime of mediocrity and being unsuccessful means having a bad fate, and that suffering means a person has a bad fate. They think that living a comfortable, smooth, and peaceful life means having a good fate. All these ideas about good or bad fate are based on people’s subjective pursuits and desires. Because everyone’s life trajectory is in accordance with God’s sovereignty and arrangements, God arranges things based on people’s needs, and everything is beneficial to their lives, and there is no such thing as good or bad fate. To say that you have a bad fate based on personal preferences, is not submitting to the situations that God has arranged and not believing in His sovereignty. In truth, everything that God arranges is good. Just like when I experienced family misfortune and was neglected and was snubbed and looked down upon in my youth, if I hadn’t gone through these setbacks and pains, I might not have come before God. My being able to have the opportunity to read God’s words and train in my duties, is all God’s love and salvation. But I thought that becoming a person of renown, standing out, and being looked up to by others, meant having a good fate, and that living an ordinary, mediocre life, and being looked down upon, meant having a bad fate. These were the perspectives of a disbeliever. After finding God, when I saw leaders and workers being respected and admired by brothers and sisters because of their ability to solve problems, I thought that I’d only have a future for development if I were a leader or a worker, and that they had a better fate than ordinary brothers and sisters. Since I was still only doing text-based duties after believing in God for all these years, I felt I wasn’t valued, and that I had no future for development, and I lost my motivation for my duties. But on consideration, does being promoted to a leader or a worker really indicate good fate? In reality, if a person doesn’t pursue the truth and their corrupt disposition cannot be purified or changed, then even if they gain human admiration and worship, they cannot be saved or perfected. Just like some leaders and workers who don’t pursue the truth, and who use their many years of work experience as capital to constantly constrain others, work as they wish, hinder and disturb the work of the church, and eventually, they are revealed and dismissed. On the other hand, some people have never been leaders, but they do their duties according to their place. They focus on pursuing the truth and on reflecting on their intentions, perspectives, and corrupt disposition, and they still receive God’s enlightenment and guidance, get results in their duties, and grow in their lives. No matter what duty we do, the key is to pursue the truth. There is no such thing as good or bad fate. Upon realizing this, my heart felt a little brighter. I saw that I had been too focused on fame, gain, and status, and that I’d been unwilling to do my duty in a grounded way as a created being, and that I always wanted to use my chance to do my duty as a means to pursue renown. But if my desires were to have been satisfied, my craving for fame, gain, and status would have only grown more intense, and I would have become more arrogant and conceited and thought I was better than anyone else. This likely wouldn’t have been a good thing for me. I truly realized that everything God arranges is good, and behind it all are God’s painstaking intentions.

Afterward, I thought again, “What attitude should I have toward the situations God has ruled over and arranged?” I read a passage of God’s words: “With regard to how people feel about fate, they can have good feelings and bad feelings, there can be fates where everything goes smoothly, fates filled with obstacles, difficult fates, and unhappy fates—there are no good or bad fates. What attitude should people have toward fate? You should comply with the Creator’s arrangements, actively and strenuously seek the Creator’s purpose and meaning in His arrangement of all these things and achieve understanding of the truth, bring into play your greatest functions in this life God has arranged for you, fulfill the duties, responsibilities, and obligations of a created being, and make your life more meaningful and more of value, until finally the Creator is pleased with you and remembers you. Of course, what would be even better would be to attain salvation through your seeking and strenuous effort—this would be the best outcome. In any case, with regard to fate, the most appropriate attitude created mankind should have is not one of wanton judgment and circumscription, or using extreme methods to deal with it. Of course, much less should people try to resist, choose, or change their fate, but rather they should use their heart to appreciate it, and seek, explore, and comply with it, before facing it positively. Finally, in the living environment and on the journey set for you in life by God, you should seek the way of conduct God teaches you, seek the path God requires you to take, and experience the fate God has arranged for you in this way, and in the end, you will be blessed. When you experience the fate the Creator has arranged for you in this way, what you come to appreciate is not only sorrow, sadness, tears, pain, frustration, and failure but, more importantly, you will experience joy, peace, and comfort, as well as the enlightenment and illumination of the truth which God bestows on you. What’s more, when you become lost along your path through life, when you are faced with frustration and failure, and you have a choice to make, you will experience the Creator’s guidance, and in the end you will attain the understanding, experience and appreciation of how to live the most meaningful life. Then you won’t ever become lost in life again, you won’t ever be in a constant state of anxiety again and, of course, you won’t ever again complain about having a bad fate, much less will you sink into the emotion of despondency because you feel your fate is bad. If you have this attitude and you use this method to face the fate the Creator has arranged for you, then not only will your humanity become more normal, you will come to have a normal humanity, and the thinking, views and principles on how to view the things of normal humanity, but you will, of course, also come to have the views and understanding on the meaning of life which nonbelievers will never have” (The Word, Vol. 6. On the Pursuit of the Truth. How to Pursue the Truth (2)). After reading God’s words, I understood that regardless of whether a person feels their fate is good or bad, they should submit to God’s orchestrations and arrangements, seek what God’s intention is in a situation, and fulfill their duties and responsibilities. This is what aligns with God’s intention. So I pondered to myself, “I’ve always been doing text-based duties; what is God’s intention in this?” I thought about how when things happened, I didn’t know how to seek the truth and rarely put effort into pondering God’s words. Through doing text-based duties, I had been able to make up for these deficiencies, allowing me to learn to diligently ponder God’s words and reflect on my corrupt disposition. This was beneficial to my life entry. At the same time, this situation revealed that I valued status too much, and that when my desire for status wasn’t satisfied, I wanted to give up. I realized that what I pursued in my faith was status, not the truth. After encountering repeated setbacks, I began to become aware of the wrong path of pursuing status, and I became able to let go of my ambition to become a leader and do my duties in an earnest and upright way. I also reflected on why I hadn’t been chosen as a leader. Primarily because I lacked a sense of responsibility in my duties, and because my work capability was insufficient, I didn’t have the caliber or meet the criteria to be a leader. This had nothing to do with whether I had a good or bad fate. Realizing this, I became able to treat my shortcomings and insufficiencies correctly, submit to the situations God orchestrated, and act properly according to principles in my current duties. Later, the brothers and sisters chose me to be a watering deacon, and after training for only a few weeks, due to a shortage of textual personnel, the leaders reassigned me to do text-based duties again. This time, I didn’t complain or feel despondent. Instead, I thought about how the church had cultivated me to do text-based duties for many years, and about how I had some strengths in this area. Compared to being a deacon, text-based duties were more suitable for me, and I submitted to this from the bottom of my heart, thinking, “In the past, I left some regrets in my wake when doing text-based duties, but this time, I must do it with all my heart.” After a while, my duties yielded some results, and I felt a great sense of ease.

After going through this whole experience, I came to see that the situations God arranges as part of His sovereignty are always good and exactly what my life needs. The fact that I managed to gain this understanding and turn things around was a result of God’s words. Thank God!