By Zhang Yu, China

In July of 2008, my aunt preached God’s gospel of the last days to me. Through reading Almighty God’s words, I came to understand that man’s life comes from God, that everything I enjoy is given by Him, and that I should believe in God and worship Him. At that time, my family ran a pig farm. Every day after feeding the pigs, I would read God’s words, listen to hymns, and attend gatherings regularly. Sometimes I also went out to preach the gospel. One day, one of our neighbors said his pigs were coughing, and it seemed like they had a high fever. I was really worried that my pigs would catch this disease too, so I prayed and entrusted the matter to God. Miraculously, none of my pigs got infected, and a few months later, we sold them for tens of thousands of yuan. I was very happy. I had no experience in pig farming when I started out, yet neither the pigs nor the piglets had caught any diseases, and everything at home was going smoothly. Believing in God was really good! Moving forward, I had to believe in God properly and do my duties to repay God’s love.

Not long after, the leader assigned me to supervise two small gathering groups. I was very happy, and I thought, “The more gatherings I attend, the more truths I will understand, and the more I do my duties, the more God will protect my family.” After that, no matter how busy things got at home, I would always try to find time to do my duties. But at the end of 2008, something unexpected happened. One night, at around 12 a.m., my brother, sister-in-law, and husband were driving home from work in a hurry. It was dark, raining, and the mountain road was uneven, and they suddenly fell into a deep ditch at a bend. My husband’s head hit the car door, broken glass fell onto his face, his face got all cut up, and he was covered in blood. He passed out right then. He lost so much blood that he was in a coma in the hospital for about two hours before he woke up. After being discharged, my husband was left with a mild concussion, and sometimes, he would come out with gibberish; he’d lost a tooth; the cuts on his mouth hadn’t healed, and his speech was unclear. Seeing him in such a dazed state, my heart ached, and I just couldn’t sit still, and I thought, “He was fine when he left for work; how could he have come back like this? It’s all my brother’s fault for driving so recklessly.” But then I thought, “I believe in God, attend gatherings, and do my duties, so how could such a thing happen? Why didn’t God protect them? If my husband is left with aftereffects, what will our life be like? Our two sons are still young, and we’ve also got the pig farm. Who would worry about these things for me?” Over the next few days, I was so worried that I couldn’t eat or sleep properly, and my legs felt heavy as I walked. I didn’t have the mind to read God’s words or listen to hymns, and when I forced myself to go to the gathering, I just kept my head down and didn’t want to speak. Later, after knowing about my state, Sister Wang Fang played this hymn of God’s words: “You Must Bear Witness to God in All Things.” “In every step of work that God does on people, externally it appears to be interactions between people, as if born of human arrangements or from human disturbance. But behind the scenes, every step of work, and everything that happens, is a wager made by Satan before God, and requires people to stand firm in their testimony to God. Take when Job was tried, for example: Behind the scenes, Satan was making a wager with God, and what happened to Job was the deeds of men and the disturbance of men. Behind every step of work that God does in you is Satan’s wager with God—behind it all is a battle” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Only Loving God Is Truly Believing in God). Wang Fang fellowshipped with me: Sister, we all knew about Job’s experience. Though it seemed like Job’s vast flock of cattle and sheep was taken by thieves, in reality, this was a temptation from Satan. Satan thought that Job only feared God because God had blessed him. God allowed Satan to tempt Job, and so Satan began to attack Job, using thieves to steal his camels and livestock, and harming his children, and later, Satan afflicted Job with sores all over his body. Satan’s goal was to make Job complain about God and deny Him. But Job had genuine faith in God, and he believed that Jehovah had given, and that Jehovah had taken away, and he praised God’s name. He bore resounding testimony for God. As we follow God, Satan will accuse and attack us, and this is what tempts us. Just like the things happening in your family, Satan’s goal is to make you abandon God and lose His salvation. We must have faith in God and not fall for Satan’s schemes. After hearing Wang Fang’s fellowship, I realized that this event was actually a spiritual battle and Satan trying to disturb me. Satan didn’t want me to be saved by believing in God, so it was trying its utmost to destroy and disrupt my faith and salvation. By using my husband’s car accident to shake my resolve to follow God, it wanted to make me doubt and not believe in God, and ultimately perish with it. Satan is so malicious, and I couldn’t fall for its trap! Then I thought some more about the night of my husband’s accident. It was dark and rainy; the mountain road was already uneven, and it became slippery when it rained; my brother drove recklessly and accidentally drove the car into a ditch; and this would have happened whether I believed in God or not. But I complained about God when all these things went wrong. I was so lacking in reason! I shouldn’t have complained about God! After understanding this, I made up my mind to continue believing in and following God. I also prayed to God and entrusted my husband to Him, as I knew that whenever he recovered, it would be determined by God; I was willing to submit. After that, I continued to believe in God and attend gatherings. Half a year later, after taking medicine and recuperating, my husband’s mind slowly returned to normal. He became more energetic, and he didn’t have any lasting aftereffects. From this incident, I saw God’s protection and my faith in Him strengthened.

One day in February 2011, a neighbor told me that a few of his pigs had contracted foot-and-mouth disease, and he asked how my pigs were doing. My husband told him that our pigs were fine. But a few days later, a few of our sows who had just given birth to piglets also got foot-and-mouth disease. The piglets who drank the sows’ milk also got infected, and in just over a month, more than 60 of our piglets died. All this made me feel like I was being stabbed in the heart. I was really worried that if the other pigs in our family got infected too, we’d lose everything, both our principal investment and our potential returns. My father-in-law complained about me, “Your faith in God hasn’t kept the family safe. Your husband had a car accident, and now the pigs are sick.” My husband didn’t even let me go to gatherings. My whole family surrounded and harshly criticized me one after another, and I felt so hurt. I unconsciously started to doubt God, “So many piglets have died—could it really be because of my faith in God?” I fell into negativity and weakness and didn’t attend any gatherings for two or three months. Later, thinking about my husband’s car accident before, I realized that this was Satan trying to disturb me again. But I was eating and drinking God’s words and doing my duty, so surely, I should have God’s protection. Why wasn’t God blessing me? There was really no difference between believing and not believing in God! The more I thought like this, the more unsure I became about how to experience this situation. So I knelt down and prayed to God, “God! My family’s dozens of piglets have died. My family keeps attacking me because of this, and I don’t think I can take it much more. Please enlighten and guide me to understand Your intention.” After praying, I remembered the fellowship Sister Wang Fang had previously shared with me about Job’s experience. When Satan tried to tempt Job, Job’s vast wealth was taken by thieves, and his children were crushed to death, and he was covered in sores. But Job knew the sovereignty of God. He knew that God had given, and that God had taken away. Job had no doubts about God, and he continued to praise God’s name, standing firm in his testimony to God, humiliating Satan. I thought about how my piglets had gotten sick and died, and that this too was Satan trying to tempt and disturb me, and that I too had to stand firm in my testimony for God. Job lost so much livestock and his vast wealth, yet he did not complain against God. But as for me, I complained against God just because a few dozen of my piglets died. I was truly far from Job when I compared myself to him! Realizing this, I prayed to God, vowing that no matter how Satan tried to disturb me again, I would still believe in God and worship Him.

Later, I searched for God’s words that were relevant to my state to read. I saw these words of God: “What you pursue is to be able to gain peace after believing in God, for your children to be free from illness, for your husband to have a good job, for your son to find a good wife, for your daughter to find a decent husband, for your oxen and horses to plow the land well, for a year of good weather for your crops. This is what you seek. Your pursuit is only to live in comfort, for no accidents to befall your family, for the winds to pass you by, for your face to be untouched by grit, for your family’s crops to not be flooded, for you to be unaffected by any disaster, to live in God’s embrace, to live in a cozy nest. A coward such as you, who always pursues the flesh—do you have a heart, do you have a spirit? Are you not a beast? I give you the true way without asking for anything in return, yet you do not pursue. Are you one of those who believe in God? I bestow real human life upon you, yet you do not pursue. Are you no different from a pig or a dog?” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. The Experiences of Peter: His Knowledge of Chastisement and Judgment). From God’s words, I understood that God despises those who believe in Him with the intention of gaining blessings. But in my faith, I wanted Him to protect the peace and health of my family, and for my livestock to have many offspring, and for us to be able to make a fortune from them. When everything in the family was going smoothly without disaster or misfortune, I actively did my duties, and after my husband recovered from his car accident, I thanked God in my heart. But when the piglets kept dying one after another, I complained about God for not protecting my family. I became so negative that I couldn’t focus on reading God’s words, and I didn’t attend gatherings for two or three months. I worried every day about the pigs’ health and about our financial losses. I realized that I was believing in God just to receive His grace and blessings, and I was trying to bargain with God. I’d been truly selfish and despicable! Think of a dog: When its owner feeds it, it watches over the house for its owner, but when the owner doesn’t feed it, the dog still guards the house for the owner. I was even worse than a dog. When God blessed me, I thanked Him, but when God didn’t satisfy me even a little, I lost faith in Him, and even when my family attacked me, I started to subtly accept their views, developing doubts and complaints about God. How muddled I’d been! I lacked experience in raising pigs, so it was inevitable that the pigs would get foot-and-mouth disease and die. Moreover, some of the pigs raised by my neighbors had also died, and this is a very common thing in the farming industry. But I couldn’t view this matter correctly and instead complained about God for not protecting my family; wasn’t this unreasonable of me? After understanding God’s intention, I felt a great sense of liberation in my heart. I became willing to let go of my desire for blessings and no longer ask God for blessings or for peace, and to submit to God’s orchestrations and arrangements and learn lessons in the situations He arranged for me. After that, I continued attending gatherings, and slowly my relationship with God grew closer.

One morning in August, when I went to feed the pigs, I noticed that two of the adult pigs were coughing and had red patches on their bodies. I quickly called my neighbor to ask what disease this might be. My neighbor said, “The pigs are prone to high fevers at this time of year. A few of the pigs from the family next door have contracted this disease. This disease is contagious, so you should hurry and buy some preventive medicine for it.” Hearing that this disease was contagious, I became very worried. My family had over forty adult pigs that were nearly ready for market. If they all got fevers and died, wouldn’t my last six months of investment go down the drain together with my potential returns? So I prayed to God and entrusted this to Him. Later, I remembered God’s words: “Man’s heart and spirit are within God’s grasp, and everything of their lives is beheld in the eyes of God. Regardless of whether or not you believe all this, any and all things, whether living or dead, will shift, change, renew, and disappear in accordance with God’s thoughts. This is how God holds sovereignty over all things” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. God Is the Source of Man’s Life). God’s words made me understand that both the living and the non-living are in God’s hands, and whether these pigs got infected or not was also in God’s hands. All I could do was feed them some medicine as a precaution, and their life or death was to be determined by God. I became willing to submit to God’s sovereignty and arrangements and no longer complained about God. Later, when feeding the pigs, I mixed the preventive medicine into their feed, and after a couple of days, the two sick pigs recovered, and the others were also fine. Two months later, though many of the pigs from other households died, all of my forty or so pigs were healthy and sold for a high price. This time, I didn’t complain about God for the pigs getting sick, and I was very glad and thankful to God for His protection.

Later, I read another passage of God’s words, and found a path to practice. Almighty God says: “There is no correlation between the duty of man and whether he receives blessings or suffers misfortune. Duty is what man ought to fulfill; it is his heaven-sent vocation, and should not depend on recompense, conditions, or reasons. Only then is he doing his duty. Receiving blessings refers to when someone is made perfect and enjoys God’s blessings after experiencing judgment. Suffering misfortune refers to when someone’s disposition does not change after they have experienced chastisement and judgment; they do not experience being made perfect but are punished. But regardless of whether they receive blessings or suffer misfortune, created beings should fulfill their duty, doing what they ought to do, and doing what they are able to do; this is the least that a person, a person who pursues God, should do. You should not do your duty only to receive blessings, and you should not refuse to act for fear of suffering misfortune” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. The Difference Between the Ministry of God Incarnate and the Duty of Man). From God’s words, I understood that the performance of duties in faith is man’s heaven-sent vocation; it is what we should do, and it shouldn’t depend on recompense. This is the sense of reason that a person should have. I shouldn’t try to bargain with God in my faith. When God blessed and protected my family, I thanked Him, but if things went wrong at home and misfortune struck, I started to complain about God. Such faith is not approved by God. I am a created being, and my destiny and wealth are in God’s hands. Whether God gives or takes away, I should submit to God’s orchestrations and arrangements and fulfill my duties. Through these experiences, I gained some discernment of Satan’s schemes, and I gained some understanding of my intention to seek blessings through my faith. My mistaken view about faith in God was also corrected a little, and I came to know that in believing in God, we should submit to God, pursue the truth, and seek dispositional change. I am so thankful to God for the understanding and gains I have received!