Read this passage again. (“Do not fret for solutions to what you do not understand; bring such matters before God more often, and offer to Him a sincere heart. Believe that God is your almighty. You must have a tremendous aspiration for God, ravenously seeking while refusing Satan’s excuses, intentions, and tricks. Do not despair. Do not be weak. Seek with all your heart; wait with all your heart. Actively cooperate with God, and rid yourself of your internal hindrances.”) Let Me draw your attention to the important points and explain to you the principles for reading God’s words and how to find a path of practice in them. Read the passage again, line by line. (“Do not fret for solutions to what you do not understand.”) This line contains a principle that people must understand. It is this: Don’t hurry, don’t panic, don’t rush to see results. This is an attitude. This first line contains the correct attitude that people should adopt toward things. This correct attitude lies within the scope of the reason of normal humanity; it falls within the scope of the reason and abilities of people who possess normal humanity. Now, read the second line. (“Bring such matters before God more often, and offer to Him a sincere heart.”) What does this mean? (This is the path of practice God gives to man.) Right, it’s that simple. This is the path of practice. Here, “more often” means that this should not be done whenever you feel like it, and certainly not only once in a blue moon; it means that as soon as these matters cross your mind, you should bring them before God to pray and seek. If you bear a burden in these matters, if you have a heart that hungers and thirsts for righteousness, if you are eager to understand God’s intentions and God’s requirements in these matters, as well as the essence of the problems that you want to see through to, then you should come before God often, which means at a very high frequency. Depending on the environment that you are in, when you are busy, find a moment of free time to consider these matters, as if you were thinking about them, or praying to God and seeking on them. Is this mode of practice not very clear? (It is.) For example, when you take a break after finishing a meal, ponder and pray, saying, “God, I have experienced such-and-such an environment. I don’t understand Your intention, and I can’t see through to why this has happened to me. What exactly is this person’s intent? How should I solve this sort of problem? What do You want me to understand from this matter?” In these few simple words, you pray to and seek from God about the matters you wish to seek on and the problems whose essence you want to understand. What is the purpose of praying like this? You are not simply laying the problem before God, you are seeking the truth from God, you are trying to get God to open up a way out for you and to tell you what to do about this matter, and you are asking God to enlighten and guide you. What are the necessary conditions for you to be able to do this? (I must not fret for solutions.) Not fretting over solutions is just an attitude—it is not that you are not fretting over solutions, but that under the great precondition of you not fretting for solutions, you have a heart that hungers and thirsts for righteousness, and you bear a burden in this matter. To put it another way, this matter acts as a kind of pressure on you, and that pressure places a burden on your shoulders, so that you have a problem that you want to understand and solve. This is your path of practice. In your spare time, during regular devotional time, or when you are chatting with your brothers and sisters, you can bring up your practical difficulties and problems, and fellowship and seek with your brothers and sisters. If you still can’t solve the problems, then bring them before God to pray and seek the truth. When you do this, say, “God, I still don’t know how I should experience the environment that You have arranged for me. I still have no understanding of it, and I do not know where to start or how to practice. I am small in stature and I do not understand many truths. Please enlighten me and guide me. I don’t know what You want me to gain or understand from this environment, or what You want to reveal about me through this environment. Please enlighten me and allow me to understand Your intention.” This is the path of practice found in the line: “bring such matters before God more often.” Practice like this, sometimes thinking in your heart, sometimes praying to God silently and sometimes out loud, and sometimes fellowshipping with your brothers and sisters. If you have these manifestations it proves that you are already living before God. If you often communicate with God like this in your heart, then you have a normal relationship with God. After several years of such experience, you will naturally enter into the truth reality. Are there any difficulties regarding this practice? (No.) That is good. For example, sometimes when you read God’s words, the more you read, the brighter your heart will feel—this means that you’ve read words that you have experience of, and your previous notions and imaginings will unravel all at once. At this time, you should pray to God and say, “God, reading this passage has brightened my heart. The problems I had before are now suddenly clear to me. I know that this is Your enlightenment, and I thank You for allowing me to understand this passage of Your words.” Is this not praying and coming before God again? (Yes.) Is this difficult to do? Can you make time for this? (Yes.) From the start of your seeking to this prayer, will you not have been constantly practicing the principle of God’s words: “bring such matters before God more often”? When you constantly live in the practice of these words, and always cling to the principle of practice that they contain, and always live in this sort of reality, this is called abiding by a principle of practice. Is this difficult? (It is not difficult.) It only requires you to use your heart, move your mouth, spare some time and a little thought, occasionally finding a moment to chat with God and to confide and share the words that are in your heart. This is coming before God more often. It is as simple, effortless, and easy as that. There’s nothing hard about it. You carry something that you regard as very significant in your heart, and you treat it as a burden, and never forget it or let go of it—you have such a thing in your heart, and you come before God from time to time to pray to Him, and to speak and chat with Him about it. What sort of heart should you have when you speak with God? (A sincere heart.) That’s right, you should have a sincere heart. If you bear a burden, then your heart will be true. When others engage in chit-chat, you will pray and fellowship with God in your heart. Sometimes, when you are tired from work and taking a break, you will remember the matter, and say, “This is no good, I still don’t understand this matter. I still have to chat about it with God.” Why will you remember this matter whenever you have time? Because you take it very seriously in your heart, you regard it as your own burden and a kind of responsibility, and you want to understand it and solve it. When you come before God and talk to and chat with Him intimately, your heart will naturally become sincere. When you fellowship with God in this context and with this mentality, you will feel that your relationship with God is no longer as cold and distant as it was before, and you will feel instead that you are drawing closer to Him. This is how effective the paths of practice that God gives to man are on people. What do you think, is it difficult to engage with God like this? You take a matter to heart, speak to God about it occasionally, you come before God and greet Him from time to time, you talk to God about what is in your heart and about your difficulties, you talk about the things you want to understand, the things you think about, your doubts, your difficulties, and your responsibilities—if you talk to God about all of these things, are you not living before God by practicing in this way? This is practicing according to God’s requirements. If you practice like this for a period of time, will you not be able to see results and reap rewards very quickly? (Yes.) But it’s not that simple, it’s a process. If you practice in this way for some time, your relationship with God will become closer and closer, your mentality will improve, your state will become increasingly normal, and your interest in God’s words and the truth will grow greater and greater. This is having a normal relationship with God. If you can understand some truths and put them into practice, you will have begun to enter into the reality of God’s words. However, this cannot be achieved in a short period of time. It may take six months, a year, or even two or three years before you see clear results. Will people be free from corruption and rebelliousness during this period? No. Even if you have prayed to God countless times, and practiced in this way, does that mean you will definitely get results? Must God show you a result? Must He give you an answer? Not necessarily. Some people say: “If it is uncertain whether I will get results and if results are not guaranteed, why does God still act like this? Why does He make people practice in this way?” Don’t worry, practicing in this way will definitely not be fruitless. Even if you practice in this way for a year or two and do not think that you have gotten any results in the immediate or short term, it may be that, five or ten years later, when God arranges a similar environment for you again, you will quickly realize an aspect of the truth that you were not able to realize before. However, this truth that you come to realize and understand after five or ten years requires the foundation built by your current experiences, knowledge, and understanding. This later realization must be based on this foundation. Do you think it is easy for people to understand an aspect of the truth? (It is not easy.) This is the significance and value of paying a price in order to practice the truth. This is the principle of practice contained in the second line. “Bring such matters before God more often, and offer to Him a sincere heart”—this line is written in plain and accessible language, and it is very easy to understand. It means that you must pray more and possess a sincere heart, as a sincere heart brings things to fruition. It is as simple as that. However, these words truly are a truth reality that every person must enter into and the only path by which they can come before God and ultimately attain salvation. Although this line is said in plain and simple words, everyone has to experience and enter in this way. It is the same as constructing a building. No matter whether it has 30 stories, 50 stories, or even about a hundred stories, it must have a foundation. If the building’s foundation is not firm, then no matter how tall the building is, it will not stand for very long, it will collapse within a few years. This means that while living in this world, people must have the truth as their foundation. This is the only way for them to stand firm and earn the approval of God. If people want to come to an understanding of deeper and higher truths, they must have the most basic things—that is, the things that make up a foundation. Having a shaky foundation is the most dangerous thing. Don’t look down on these most basic truths, these most basic principles and paths of practice. As long as they are truths, they are things that people should possess and practice. Whether they are great or small, high or low, it doesn’t matter. You must start from the basics. This is the only way to lay a solid foundation.

Now, read the third line. (“Believe that God is your almighty.”) What does “Believe that God is your almighty” refer to? It refers to faith and vision. When you are supported and guided by this vision, you will have a path before you. Will practicing in this way have an effect? Some people say, “I’ve become bored with all this practicing, and God still hasn’t enlightened me or told me anything. I can’t feel the presence of God. Is there really a God?” You can’t think this way. God is almighty whether or not He speaks to you. When God wants to speak to you, and He speaks to you, He is almighty. When God doesn’t want to speak to you, and does not speak to you, He is still almighty. God is almighty whether or not He allows you to understand things. The essence and identity of God are immutable. This is the vision that people must understand. This is the third line, it’s very simple. Although it is simple, people must actually experience it. When people do so, it will confirm to them that these words are actually the truth and they will no longer dare to doubt them in any way.

Read on to the fourth line. (“You must have a tremendous aspiration for God.”) “You must have a tremendous aspiration for God,” this is what God requires of man. People need to understand what is meant by “tremendous.” Is swaggering around and showing off, having a heart full of ambition, being arrogant and self-righteous, domineering and dictatorial, and not obeying anyone “tremendous”? How should the line “a tremendous aspiration for God” be understood? How do you have an “aspiration for God”? It is as the previous line stated, you must “bring such matters before God more often, and offer to Him a sincere heart”—you must have a desire and an aspiration to pursue an understanding of the truth, and to pursue salvation, and you must also have a desire to accept God’s sovereignty and God’s orchestrations, to attain an understanding of God’s intentions and submission to God’s sovereignty. This is called a tremendous aspiration for God. Although God uses human language to vividly describe this matter, people should comprehend its meaning in a pure way, and not interpret it in an extreme manner. The word “tremendous” here does not refer to artificially using an excessive amount of brute force to do things in a foolhardy way. It does not involve violence, let alone ignorance or recklessness. “Tremendous” mainly refers to one’s aspiration. It is like when a person treasures something to such an extent that they simply must have it, and when they are determined to possess it and will not give up until they do so. This “tremendous aspiration for God” is a completely positive thing and can only achieve positive results. So, what is the precise meaning of “tremendous aspiration for God”? (It means to come before God more often and have the desire and resolve to understand the truth and to understand God’s intentions in the things that one encounters.) That’s right, it’s as simple as that. It just means to abandon the interests and pleasures of your flesh, and to also give up your private leisure time, and to use this time for positive things, such as to seek from God, to pray to God, to come before God, and to seek to understand God’s sovereignty. It is about rationally praying for something, and seeking, expending your time and energy, and paying a certain price in order to understand an aspect of the truth. This is called a tremendous aspiration for God. Is this an accurate way to describe it? Is this in line with the reason of normal humanity? Are these words easy to understand? (Yes.) So, do these manifestations involve baring one’s teeth and claws and violently seizing what one wants? Does it manifest itself in rudeness, recklessness, and a lack of wisdom? (No.) Then what is meant by “tremendous”? Repeat what I just said to you. (It means being able to come before God more often, having the aspiration to understand the truth, being able to give up some of the pleasures of the flesh, spending more time and energy on seeking the truth, and being able to expend energy and pay a price for this.) So how is this concretely put into practice? I’ll give an example. Sometimes you will suddenly realize that it has been a long time since you saw your favorite actor and wonder what movies he is in. You will want to go search for news about him on the computer, but then you will ponder and think, “That’s not right, what do the movies he stars in have to do with me? Watching movies all the time is called neglecting one’s proper work. I have to come before God and pray.” Then, you will calm down and remember the problem you were previously seeking an answer to in the presence of God. You still lack any conception of that matter and you do not understand it at all, so you will just quiet your heart before God, and pray to Him. “God, I am willing to lay my heart before You. The environment that I have been experiencing recently has greatly affected me. Even so, I still cannot submit, and I still cannot see clearly that this is Your sovereignty. Please enlighten me, guide me, and reveal my corruption and rebelliousness in the environment that You arrange for me, so that I can understand Your intention and submit.” After praying, you will ponder and think, “No, my problem still hasn’t been solved. I need to read more of God’s words to find a solution.” Then, you will immediately go on to read God’s words for a while. Looking at the time, you will say, “Oh, half an hour has passed already! God’s words are truly good, but the passage I read is not related to my problem at all, so my issue has still not been resolved. I don’t know what God wants me to understand by arranging this environment for me and I don’t know His intention. I must quickly get to work performing my duty and I must not put off important matters. Maybe one day I will read the appropriate words of God and solve my problem.” Is this expending time and energy? (Yes.) It is just as simple as that. While rebelling against your own preferences and giving up your entertainment and leisure time, you will gain a small drop of sincerity and practice a little bit of tremendous aspiration for God. In your heart, you will feel incredibly at ease and peaceful. For the first time in your life, you will personally experience the great peace and nourishment of rebelling against the flesh and abandoning the enjoyment of your own flesh. You will also personally taste how quieting yourself before God, reading His words, opening your heart to God, and speaking the words in your heart to Him brings you peace and contentment—which caring about trends and social affairs cannot—and that you can also gain something from it, and come to understand the truth and see through to many things. As a result, you will feel that God’s words really are good, that God truly is good, and that attaining the truth is indeed gaining a treasure. Not only will you be able to see through to many things without confusion, you will also be able to live before God and to live by God’s words. These are the effects that a tremendous aspiration for God can achieve. Practicing in this way, devoting your time and energy, and giving up the enjoyment of your flesh—this is one of the manifestations of a tremendous aspiration for God. So, what do you say? Is this manifestation empty? (It is not empty.) Is it easy to achieve? (Yes.) It is very easy to achieve. It is something that people with normal humanity can achieve.

When people have thoughts, they have choices. If something happens to them and they make the wrong choice, they should turn themselves around and make the right choice; they absolutely must not stick by their mistake. People like this are smart. But if they know they made the wrong choice and don’t turn themselves around, then they are someone who does not love the truth, and such a person does not truly want God. Say, for example, you want to be perfunctory when you perform your duty. You try to slack off, and try to avoid God’s scrutiny. At such times, hurry before God to pray, and reflect on whether this was the right way to act. Then think about it: “Why do I believe in God? Such perfunctoriness might get past people, but will it get past God? What’s more, my belief in God is not to slack off—it is in order to be saved. My acting thus is not the expression of normal humanity, nor is it beloved by God. No, I could slack off and do as I pleased in the outside world, but now I am in the house of God, I am under the sovereignty of God, under the scrutiny of God’s eyes. I am a person, I must act according to my conscience, I cannot do as I please. I must act according to God’s words, I must not be perfunctory, I cannot slack off. So how should I act to not slack off, to not be perfunctory? I must put in some effort. Just now I felt it was too much trouble to do it like this, I wanted to avoid hardship, but now I understand: It may be a lot of trouble to do it like that, but it is effective, and so that is how it should be done.” When you are working and still feel afraid of hardship, at such times you must pray to God: “Oh God! I am a lazy and sly person, I beg You to discipline me, to reproach me, so that my conscience feels something, and I have a sense of shame. I don’t want to be perfunctory. I beg You to guide and enlighten me, to show me my rebelliousness and my ugliness.” When you pray thus, reflect and try to know yourself, this will give rise to a feeling of regret, and you will be able to hate your ugliness, and your wrong state will begin to change, and you will be capable of contemplating this and saying to yourself, “Why am I perfunctory? Why am I always trying to slack off? Acting like this is devoid of any conscience or reason—am I still someone who believes in God? Why don’t I take things seriously? Don’t I just need to put in a little more time and effort? It’s no great burden. This is what I ought to be doing; if I can’t even do this, am I fit to be called a human being?” As a result, you will make a resolution and swear an oath: “Oh God! I have let You down, I truly am too deeply corrupted, I am without conscience or reason, I have no humanity, I wish to repent. I beg You to forgive me, I will surely change. If I do not repent, I would that You punish me.” Afterward, your mentality will turn around, and you will begin to change. You will act and perform your duties with conscientiousness, with less perfunctoriness, and you will be able to suffer and pay a price. You will feel that doing your duty in this way is wonderful, and you will have peace and joy in your heart. When people can accept God’s scrutiny, when they can pray to Him and rely on Him, their states will soon be changed. When the negative state of your heart has been reversed, and you have rebelled against your own intentions and the selfish desires of the flesh, when you are able to let go of the comfort and enjoyment of the flesh, and act according to God’s requirements, and you are no longer arbitrary or reckless, you will have peace in your heart and your conscience will not reproach you. Is it easy to rebel against the flesh and act according to God’s requirements in this way? As long as people have a tremendous aspiration for God, they can rebel against the flesh and practice the truth. And so long as you are able to practice in this way, then before you know it, you will be entering into the truth reality. It will not be difficult at all. Of course, when practicing the truth, you must go through the process of a struggle and the process of changing your thinking, and these must be resolved by seeking the truth. If you are a person who does not love the truth, it will be difficult for you to solve your negative state, and you will not be able to understand and practice the truth. The amount of difficulty that a person faces in the process of changing their thinking depends on whether they can accept the truth. If they cannot accept the truth, then it will be too difficult for them to change their thinking. Those who can accept the truth, on the other hand, will not find it difficult at all. They will naturally be able to practice and submit to the truth. People who really love the truth can rely on God to overcome difficulties of any degree. In this way, they will have experiential testimony, and this is a heart that has a tremendous desire for God. Since your heart has a tremendous desire for God, does this mean that you are not permitted to have corruption and rebelliousness? No. It means that, as you have a heart with a tremendous desire for God, you can at least act according to your conscience and reason, and you can seek the truth. In this way, you can make the right choice in any situation, and practice and enter in the right direction. This is called a heart with a tremendous desire for God. Are these manifestations hollow? (They are not hollow.) They are not hollow or vague, they are very practical and concrete, and not abstract at all. Some people say: “Oh, I have believed in God for many years, but I always encounter difficulties whenever it comes time to practice the truth. I get so anxious that I’m dripping with sweat, but I still don’t have a path. I always want to practice the truth without facing any physical hardship or my interests suffering any losses, and, as a result, I can’t find a path. Only now do I realize that having a heart with a tremendous desire for God is so simple. If only I had known this before and put these words into practice earlier!” Who do you have to blame for not practicing God’s words? Who forced you not to treasure the words of God all these years, and to just blindly flounder around instead? Now, we can summarize a sentence: When you believe in God, you must practice and experience God’s words in order to understand the truth; only by reaching the point where you handle matters in accordance with the truth principles can you gain God’s approval. You absolutely must not do things according to your own will, or pursue fame and gain, and you must not form cliques or search for backers in the church. No good end will come to those who do. Those who don’t focus on doing their duties well, those who don’t pursue the truth, those who always look up to and rely on other people, and those who love to follow false leaders and antichrists in making senseless commotions, all bring themselves to ruin by floundering about, losing their chance at salvation. This will leave them dumbfounded. If you want to stop yourself from going your own way, you must come before God more, and pray to Him and seek the truth in all things. This is how you can attain the result of understanding the truth, embark on the path of practicing the truth, and enter into the reality of the truth. The key point here is that you must never follow or go along with other people, following this person one day because you think that they are great, and then following someone else the next day because you think that they are right, spending so much time floundering around without gaining the truth. No matter what problems you encounter, you should seek the truth and resolve them according to God’s words. If you blindly follow other people, following whoever speaks well and uses high-sounding words, it is likely that you will be deceived. People who believe in God should only believe that God’s words are the truth, they should listen only to God’s words, and practice according to God’s words. Doing so will prevent you from following other people and from going along with them down the wrong path.

Go on and read the next line. (“Ravenously seeking while refusing Satan’s excuses, intentions, and tricks.”) This is also about practice. “Ravenously seeking” refers to wanting to practice the truth but lacking a path, and wanting to satisfy God but not knowing how to practice—when you are ravenous like this, you will seek and pray. Constantly feeling that there is too much that you lack, in particular, finding yourself lacking a path when things happen to you, not knowing what to do to satisfy God, always rebelling and doing things the way you want to, with an uneasy heart, wanting to practice the truth, but not knowing how to do this—this is the feeling of being ravenous. If you are ravenous, you must seek. If you don’t seek, you will not have a path. If you don’t seek, you will fall into darkness. If you never seek, you will be finished. You will be a disbeliever. What does “refusing Satan’s excuses, intentions, and tricks” mean? It means that when people encounter situations, they always have their own will, they always think about the interests of their own flesh, and they always look for a way out for their flesh. At times like these, your conscience will reproach you, prompting you to practice the truth and submit to God. In such situations, there will be a struggle in your heart, and you should refuse Satan’s excuses and refuse the various reasons of the flesh. “Refusing” means being able to penetrate and see through the various excuses and reasons that people have for not practicing the truth, which are Satan’s intentions and tricks, and then rebelling against them. This is the process of refusal. Sometimes, certain corrupt ideas, intentions, and aims, as well as some human knowledge, philosophies, theories, and ways, means, tricks, and schemes for interacting with others, and so on, arise in people. When this happens, people should immediately be aware that these are corrupt things revealed by them, and they should grab hold of them, seek the truth, thoroughly dissect them, see the reality of them clearly, and thoroughly refuse and rebel against them, nipping them in the bud. No matter when this happens, so long as corrupt ideas, thoughts, intentions, or notions have arisen in a person, they should immediately grab hold of those things, penetrate and see through them, rebel against them, and then come to turn themselves around. The process is like that. This is how to practice refusing Satan and rebelling against the flesh. Isn’t it very simple? In fact, this process was already spoken about in the two examples that were given just now. This is a principle of practice for approaching the improper states that arise in people when things befall them.

Continue reading. (“Do not despair. Do not be weak. Seek with all your heart; wait with all your heart.”) This means to seek and wait with all your heart and mind. These four simple phrases “Do not despair. Do not be weak. Seek with all your heart; wait with all your heart” have two meanings. What are these two meanings? (The first is do not despair and do not be weak. That is, do not lose heart or become discouraged when you encounter difficulties or cannot understand things momentarily in the process of your seeking. The second is that you should seek and wait with all your heart. That is, you must have perseverance in the process of your seeking, you must continue to seek and pray when you do not understand, and wait for God’s intentions to be revealed. This is the second meaning.) “Do not despair. Do not be weak” means that people must maintain true faith in God, believe that God is almighty, and that God can enlighten them and enable them to understand the truth. So why can’t you understand the truth now? Why doesn’t God enlighten you now? There must be some reason for this. What is one basic reason? It is just that God’s time has not arrived. God is testing your faith, and at the same time, He wants to use this method to strengthen your faith. This is the basic thing that people should understand and know. Suppose that you have acted in accordance with the principles required by God, you have prayed, you have sought, you have a heart with a tremendous desire for God, you have begun to treasure God’s words, you are interested in God’s words, and you often remind yourself to practice and experience God’s words, to come before God, to not stray from Him, and to seek when doing things. However, you think to yourself, “I don’t think I’ve clearly felt that God has given me any special enlightenment, illumination, or guidance, and I don’t even have an obvious feeling that God has given me any special gifts, talents, or special abilities for the duty that I perform. Instead, I feel that people who do not measure up to me understand more than I do, are better at doing their duties, and are more eloquent in spreading the gospel. Why am I not as good as other people? Why am I still standing in the same place and making little progress?” There are two reasons for this: One is that people themselves have many problems, such as their individual methods, intentions, and aims in seeking, as well as their intentions and motives in praying to God and making requests of God, and so on. In all of these things, you need to reflect, gain knowledge, discover the problems within, and promptly reverse your course. There is no need to go into detail about this. The second reason is that, when it comes to how much God gives different people, and how He bestows it upon them, God has His own method. God has spoken the words: “I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy” (Exodus 33:19). Maybe you are the object of God’s graciousness, maybe you are the object of His mercy, or perhaps you are neither of these two types of people that God has spoken of. Maybe God thinks you are stronger than other people, or that you require more time than others for your testing and tempering. There are many reasons, but no matter the reason, anything that God does is right. People should not make any extravagant demands of God. The only thing you ought to do is seek with all your heart and wait with all your heart. Before God allows you to understand and gives you answers, the only thing you should do is seek, while at the same time waiting for the time when God will give you something, the time when God will be gracious to you, and the time when God will enlighten and guide you. Contrary to human notions, God does not equally distribute things to people, so you cannot use the word “equal” to make demands of God. When God gives something to you, that is the time at which you should receive it. When God doesn’t give you something, obviously the time is not suitable or correct in God’s eyes, and so you should not receive it at that time. When God says that you should not receive something and God does not want to give it to you, what should you do? A person with reason would say, “If God doesn’t give it to me, then I will submit and wait. I am not currently worthy of receiving it, maybe because my stature cannot bear it, but my heart can submit to God without complaint or suspicion, and certainly without any doubts.” At this time, people should not lose their reason. No matter how God treats you, you should choose, with reason, to submit to God. There is only one attitude that created beings should have toward God—to listen and submit, there are no other choices. However, God can have different attitudes toward you. There is a basis for this. God has His own intentions. He makes His own choices and has His own methods when it comes to doing these things and the attitude He adopts toward each person. Of course, these choices and methods are underpinned by God’s purposes. Before people have an understanding of these purposes, the only thing they should and can do is seek and wait, while avoiding doing anything to rebel against God. The last thing people should do at these times—that is, when they don’t feel God’s enlightenment, guidance, graciousness, and mercy—is to stray from God and say that He is not righteous, or to yell at God, or to even deny God when they cannot feel His enlightenment and guidance. This is the thing that God least wishes to see. Of course, if you really reach the point of denying God, denying His righteousness, denying His identity and His essence, and of yelling at God, it will confirm that God was right to adopt an attitude of paying no heed to you in the first place. If you cannot even withstand this small trial and test, then you lack the slightest faith in God and your belief is very hollow. When a person does not feel God’s enlightenment and guidance, the most important thing for them to do is to seek and wait with their whole heart. Seeking and waiting are man’s responsibilities, and they are also the reason, attitude, and principle of practice that people should have toward God. When seeking and waiting, don’t harbor a mentality based on chance. Don’t always think, “Perhaps if I wait, God will bestow clear words upon me. I just need to be a bit more sincere and see if God enlightens me or not. Maybe He will enlighten me. If He doesn’t, I will think up some other way.” Don’t harbor a mentality like this that is based on chance. God loathes this sort of attitude in people. What kind of attitude is this? It is an attitude of chance that carries in it a test. This is what God loathes most. If you are going to wait, do so sincerely. Carry with you a mindset of hungering and thirsting for righteousness while you pray to God and seek the truth, while you resolve your practical problems, and while you beseech God for enlightenment and guidance. No matter how God treats you or whether He ultimately allows you to gain a full understanding, you should abide by the principle of submission without any deviation. In this way, you will be holding firm to the status and duty that a created being ought to have. Regardless of whether God ultimately hides His face from you, whether He shows you only His back, or whether He appears to you, as long as you hold firm to your duty and your original station as a created being, then you will have borne witness and you will be an overcomer. “Do not despair. Do not be weak. Seek with all your heart; wait with all your heart.” These four short statements are very important. They encompass the reason that man should possess, the original station upon which man should stand, and the path of practice that man should follow. Some people say, “We all seek and wait with all our hearts and minds, so why doesn’t God enlighten us? Why doesn’t He give me any inspiration?” God has His own intentions. Do not make demands of God. This is the reason of normal humanity; this is the reason that created beings ought most to possess. According to human minds, thoughts, and notions, there are too many things that people don’t understand, and God must tell people these things. However, God says, “It is not My responsibility or obligation to tell you those things. If I want you to know something, you will know a little, and this will be Me showing you favor. When I do not want you to know something, I will not say one word about it, and do not imagine that you will be able to understand it then!” Some people say: “Why are You setting Yourself against us in this?” God is not setting Himself against you. The Creator will always be the Creator, and He has His own ways and methods of doing things. Even though His ways and methods do not conform to man’s tastes, or ideas and notions, and certainly not to man’s traditional culture, regardless of what aspects of man they do not accord with, simply put, regardless of the fact that they do not accord with the requirements and standards of man—no matter what the Creator does, and no matter if people can understand it or not, the identity and essence of the Creator will never change. People should never use human language, human notions, or any human method to measure the Creator. This is the reason that people ought to possess. If you lack even this bit of reason, then I will be honest with you—you are not capable of acting like a created being. One day, sooner or later, something bad will happen to you. If you lack even this bit of reason, one day, sooner or later, your satanic disposition will burst forth. At that time, you will doubt God, verbally abuse God, deny God, and betray God. Then, you will be completely finished, and you should be eliminated. Therefore, the reason that created beings ought to possess is very important. “Do not despair. Do not be weak. Seek with all your heart; wait with all your heart.” These four statements are the reason and principles that created beings ought to have when approaching the various environments that people often face in their real lives, and for improving their relationship with God.

The first part of this passage says, “Do not fret for solutions to what you do not understand,” and the penultimate line says, “Seek with all your heart; wait with all your heart.” Some people say: “Is the unspoken meaning of the words ‘Do not fret for solutions’ that the final outcome is inevitable? If we seek and wait with all our hearts, have a heart with a tremendous desire for God, and long for God’s words, is God necessitated to give us the answer and allow us to understand the truth of the matter?” This is My answer to you: It is uncertain and not necessarily so. Every word in this passage is a requirement that God proposes for man, a principle of practice that created beings should abide by. God gives a path of practice to man, principles people should put into practice and observe in the situations in which they find themselves in daily life. However, God did not tell people, “No matter the extent to which you understand these words, as long as you abide by these principles, I must tell you the facts, I must give you the answer, and I must give you an explanation in the end.” God does not have this responsibility. He has no such “must.” People should not make such unreasonable demands of God. This is something each one of you must understand. This “not necessarily so” tells people one fact: God will never abide by the rules of the game set down by humans according to their human notions, human philosophies, and human experience and lessons, nor will He even abide by human law. Rather, human beings must abide by the principles of God’s requirements and enter into the reality of each truth that God has brought forth. Have you understood this? (Yes.) The principles for people to abide by are clearly explained in this passage. Start with the first line. (“Do not fret for solutions to what you do not understand.”) This is a principle that is easy to put into practice and understand. Putting it into practice does not create any burden or put any pressure on you. It is exceptionally easy. And the second line? (“Bring such matters before God more often, and offer to Him a sincere heart.”) You are a normal person living in the world. That’s all you need to achieve “bring such matters before God more often, and offer to Him a sincere heart.” As long as you are not without a heart, you can do it. You have twenty-four hours in a day. In addition to your normal work, rest time, meals, and personal spiritual devotions, is it an easy thing to “bring such matters before God more often, and offer to Him a sincere heart”? (It is easy to do.) It can be done while walking, chatting, or resting, it will not interfere with your normal business, with doing your duty, or with the work at hand. It’s really a simple thing! Regardless of a person’s caliber, as long as they offer a sincere heart and strive after the truth, they will gradually come to understand the truth and enter into this reality with ease.

What is the next line? (“Believe that God is your almighty.”) Now, I will turn it around and ask you all, do you believe that “God is your almighty”? When did you start to believe this? In what matters did you come to believe this? Have you borne witness to this? Have you had this experience? What if someone asks you, “Do you believe that God is your almighty?” Perhaps, theoretically, you would say without hesitation, “God is my almighty! How could God not be my almighty?” What if they asked you again, “Is God your almighty? In what matters have you relied on God and witnessed God’s deeds? To what extent has God’s almightiness been revealed in you personally? When did you discover that God is your almighty? In what matters do you feel that God is your almighty? If you admit that God is almighty and, with Him, nothing is impossible, why is it that you are so weak at times? Why are you still negative? Why can’t you rebel against the flesh and practice the truth when something happens to you? Why do you always live by satanic philosophy in your dealings with others? Why do you still often tell lies without feeling God’s rebuke? Is God really your almighty? What exactly do you think God’s almightiness refers to? Is it in line with the essence of God?” If you were asked these questions, would you still dare to answer with such certainty? When I ask in this way, people are left speechless. You have no such experience, you have not established a relationship with God at this level. In all the years you have believed in God, you have never experienced God’s sovereignty, never seen God’s hand, never seen the sovereignty over people, events, and things wielded by God’s almighty hand. This you have never seen, never heard of, much less experienced or personally felt. Therefore, on the question “Is God my almighty?” you don’t know and do not dare to speak. This proves you lack such faith. For you, this line should become your vision. It must be the most powerful evidence that you believe in God and follow Him. It is also one aspect of the vision that supports you as you continue on. Yet you dare not answer with certainty. Why? Because your faith in God is just a belief that God exists. As yet, you have not truly followed God, you have not truly established a relationship with God, you have not yet entered into the reality of God’s words, you have not yet partaken in the experience of submitting to God’s sovereignty, and you have not yet realized first-hand the fact of God’s sovereignty over all things. You have not seen or experienced these things, much less do you understand them. If you were simply asked, “Is God your almighty?” you would certainly answer “yes.” If you were then asked how you experienced this and how you came to this understanding, you would certainly hang your head speechless, not daring to answer. What is the reason for this fact? (We have no experience in this regard.) You are speaking from a theoretical standpoint. As a matter of fact, you verbally declare yourself to be a follower of God and a created being. However, since the day you started to follow God, you have never fulfilled the responsibility of a created being. Accepting God’s word as the foundation of your existence, taking God’s word as the principle and path of practice for doing your duty, and entering into the reality of God’s word: This is your responsibility. If you haven’t yet entered into these truth realities, what does this imply? It is that, even though you follow God, even though you have abandoned family, work, and career and have been able to follow God until today, your heart has not accepted the truth and life God bestows on mankind, but instead you pursue the things you yourself love and have never let them go. Does this count as following God and submitting to the work of God? If, in your heart, you don’t accept the life goals, directions, and criteria of life and living that God has set for man but only parrot the words you hear and mouth some doctrines, is this considered accepting the truth? Although you follow God and, outwardly, you can perform your duty, your heart has not accepted the truth. Although you have believed in God for many years, the principles you live by, your methods, and the path your life follows are still those of Satan. You are still the same old person you always were, you still live according to your satanic disposition and the way of corrupt man, and you have not accepted the requirements and principles that come from God. From this essential perspective, what you are doing is not truly following God. You are just admitting that you are a created being and that the Creator is your God. On this theoretical foundation, you do a bit for God and make Him some little offerings. Given this premise, with reluctance you admit that God is your God and you are His follower, but your heart has never truly accepted God as your life, your Lord, and your God. This brings us back to the question I just asked, “Is God your almighty?” For the above reasons, you do not dare answer with certainty. To all things and for the entire universe, God is almighty, but for you, you can admit that God is almighty as a matter of theory, but in fact you have not experienced or seen this. On the question of God’s almightiness, you have a question mark drawn in your heart. When will people be able to truly confirm the words “God is your almighty” and make this vision the foundation of their faith in Him? Only when people accept God’s identity, God’s essence, and God’s status in their hearts, enter into the reality of God’s words, and turn God’s words into the foundation of their existence, can they truly acknowledge that “God is your almighty.” These words are actually the most difficult to achieve, but God has brought them forth, showing the importance they hold for man. Someone who wants to experience and realize these words must spend an entire lifetime in doing so. In order to give a true and certain answer to the question posed by these words from the depths of their heart, they need to spend an entire lifetime working to establish a normal relationship between themselves and God, that is, the relationship of a created being to their Creator. All this can be achieved on the basis of putting the principle “bring such matters before God more often, and offer to Him a sincere heart” into practice. It is actually quite simple to put this into practice, but it is not easy to truly achieve the goal required by God. One must expend time and effort and pay a price for it.