In order to do anything well, it is necessary to seek out the truth principle. One should think single-mindedly of how to do something well while doing it, and it is necessary to quiet oneself to pray and seek before God. Before doing something, it is necessary to fellowship with others, and if there is no one to fellowship with, one must contemplate and pray on one’s own, and seek for the way to do this thing well. This is what it is to quiet oneself before God. You do not need to think of nothing to be quiet before God; you must act and contemplate at the same time, seeking the appropriate way to handle this matter with an attitude of seeking and waiting in your heart. If you have not the slightest idea about the matter, find someone to ask and inquire with. What attitude should you have during this period of inquiry? You should, in fact, be seeking and waiting, watching for how God works. The Holy Spirit does not enlighten and guide you as if He were turning on a light that illuminates your heart all at once. God invariably uses a person or an event to prompt you, and make you understand. There are many ways of seeking beyond kneeling gravely down to pray and staying there for hours; doing that delays all other matters. At times, one might ponder a matter while walking along; at times, when a matter arises, one might hurry to fellowship about it as a group; at times, one might seek from the Above; at times, one might read God’s words by oneself; if the matter is urgent, one might rush to understand the reality of the situation, then seek the truth, handling the matter according to the principles, while praying and seeking in one’s heart. This is the way you must do things—the mature way! If you grow nervous, panic, and become overwhelmed whenever something comes up, then your stature is too small, you have not experienced anything before, and you need to experience things and train yourself in order for your stature to grow. You must learn several ways of seeking: When you are busy with duty, seek according to how busy you are; when you have time, seek and wait according to the circumstances of having time. There are different ways. If there is time enough to wait, then wait a while. You cannot be hasty in big matters; the consequences of making a mistake in haste would be unthinkable. To achieve the best results, you must wait, watching what happens next, or to see whether you will be prompted by someone with knowledge of the situation. These are all ways to seek. God does not use a single method to enlighten people; neither in His words alone does He enlighten you, nor does He always have those around you give you guidance. How does God enlighten you about matters outside your expertise, things which you have never come across before? He sometimes enlightens you through various people, events, and things, in which case you must seek out an expert or someone who understands the field to advise you. You should hurry to find whoever understands the field, get a few pointers from them, then do the thing according to principles, and God will guide you while you do it. Yet you must understand a bit about the professional skills or specialty at hand, and have some concept of it; it is upon this foundation that God will enlighten you as to what you should do.

Whatever one does, one can think, design, plan, consult, and inquire about it from several sources to determine a possible path, but success is still dependent on God. The saying, “Man proposes, God disposes,” is true. It is incredible that unbelievers have summarized this saying through experience, and if a believer of God cannot see this clearly, they have been too ignorant and have not understood any of the truth. People must believe firmly in their hearts that God holds sovereignty over all things, and that what man wants to do will be blessed if it is in accordance with God’s will. You must possess this rule in your heart, know that God is sovereign over all, and that it is not man who has the final say. Therefore, no matter what one does, one must first pray to God to see if one’s heart is moved, then seek the truth to see if that course of action is in accordance with the truth and if it is possible. If this cannot be determined right away, you must wait. Do not be in a hurry to act. Wait until you have understood the matter thoroughly, until you feel that the time is ripe, that there is no need to wait any longer and you should do it, and that there is enough certainty in your heart to do it—then you can act. If you have not been able to gain a thorough understanding of the matter, are not interested in it after waiting for a few days, and you are not certain that it will succeed, this proves that this matter stemmed from man’s will, and that God has not allowed it, so you should give up on it quickly. When something comes from God, you will always feel faith in it, and that faith will not diminish no matter what situations arise. Ultimately, your heart will gain more and more clarity, as if you have seen the matter clearly. This is how it is when something has come from God. God makes people wait, and this means waiting for revelation from God, after which the matter becomes clear to you, so this waiting is necessary. However, with regard to the ways in which you should cooperate, you must act and inquire, and in the process of inquiry, God may tell you the facts through a person or an event. If you do not inquire, and you are confused and uncertain in your heart, you will not know what the facts are. But if you inquire, you will discover the facts, and it will be God who makes them known to you. Aren’t God’s actions practical? God guides and enlightens you through people, events, and things, and He directs you to understand and gain insight into matters in the process of your experience, pointing out to you how to act. God doesn’t give you a statement, a thought, or an idea out of thin air, God does not do that. When you have inquired and all of the facts about the situation have been revealed, you will know why you had such thoughts and feelings before, you will understand this in your heart. Doesn’t this outcome arise as soon as you’ve finished inquiring? When it comes to how you should act, God will not get involved in this; you will already know how to act. This is how God works and guides people, in a way that is both wonderful and practical, that is not in the least bit supernatural. Lazy people always want this to happen through supernatural means, they want God to directly tell them what to do, they want to take a shortcut and get God to do it for them, and they do not proactively search or seek, and they do not cooperate at all, so their wishes come to nothing. Devout people, truth-loving people, live before God in all things and quiet their hearts before God. When something befalls them, and they don’t know what to do, they are able to pray to God and seek from God and see what God wishes. They have a seeking heart, and so God guides them in this matter. And when the result is revealed at the end, they can then see the orchestrations of God’s hand. It is not an empty phrase to say that God holds sovereignty over all things. Therefore, by experiencing more of such matters, you will come to know that God is not a fiction, that He is not a myth, and that He is not hollow. God will be right there beside you; you will be able to feel His existence, feel His guidance, and feel the orchestrations and arrangements of His hand. In this way, you will perceive more and more God’s realness and practicality. However, if you are unable to experience in this way, you will never be able to feel these things. You will think, “Is there a God or not? Where is He? I’ve believed in God for so many years and everyone says that He exists, so how come I haven’t seen Him? They all say He saves man, so how come I haven’t felt how God works on people?” You will never feel these things, so you will never feel at ease in your heart. Only by feeling them for yourself will you be able to verify that what others say and experience is accomplished by God. God’s work is wondrous and hard to fathom, yet it is also practical; you must grasp these two aspects. That it is wondrous and hard to fathom means that everything God does is wise, and is unreachable by man; it is determined by God’s identity and His essence. Yet there is another aspect, which is that God’s actions are incredibly practical. What does this “practical” mean? It means that man can grasp God’s actions, that man’s thinking, mind, thoughts, intelligence, as well as the instincts and caliber man possesses can grasp God’s actions—God’s actions are not supernatural or hollow. When you do something correctly, God will let you know it is correct, and you will have it confirmed; when you do something wrong, God will gradually make you understand, He will enlighten you, and make you know you have done this wrong, and know that it is an expression of your corrupt disposition, and you will then feel indebted to God. This is what “practical” means.