I

When sickness comes calling, what path should people follow?

God’s purpose is not to make you sink into the emotions

of distress, anxiety, and worry,

and it’s not so that you can test God, it’s not so that you can test God

to see if He will cure you when sickness befalls,

thereby sounding out the truth of the matter;

it’s so that you can learn the practical lessons

in such situations and conditions,

attain deeper entry into the truth and into submission to God,

and so that you know more clearly and accurately

how God orchestrates all people, events, and things,

so that you know more clearly and accurately

how God orchestrates all people, events, and things.

II

The fates of man are in God’s hands, the fates of man are in God’s hands

and, whether people can sense it or not, they should submit.

You may die in any case, you may die in any case,

and if you resist, reject, and test God,

then it goes without saying what your outcome will be,

what your outcome will be.

Conversely, if in the same situations and in the same conditions

you are able to seek how a created being

ought to submit to the Creator’s orchestrations,

seek what lessons you should learn

and what corrupt dispositions you should know,

grasp God’s intentions in such situations,

and bear your testimony well to meet God’s demands,

then this is what you should do.

III

When God arranges for someone to get an illness,

His purpose in doing so

is not to make you appreciate the ins and outs of being sick,

the harm the illness does to you,

and all the myriad feelings the illness causes you to feel—

His purpose is not for you to appreciate sickness through being sick.

Rather, His purpose is for you to learn the lessons from sickness,

to learn how to feel for God’s intentions,

to know the corrupt dispositions you reveal

and the wrong attitudes you adopt toward God when you are sick,

and to learn how to submit to God’s sovereignty and arrangements,

so that you can achieve true submission to God

and be able to stand firm in your testimony—this is absolutely key.

IV

God does not ask you to make plans, He does not ask you to judge,

and He does not allow you to have any extravagant desires toward Him;

He requires only that you submit to Him

and, in your practice and experience of submitting,

to know your own attitude toward sickness,

to know your own attitude toward sickness,

and to know your attitude toward these bodily conditions He gives to you,

as well as your own personal wishes.

When you come to know these things,

you can then appreciate how beneficial it’s for you

that God has arranged the illness for you;

and you can appreciate just how helpful they are

to changing your disposition, to you attaining salvation,

and to your life entry.

from The Word, Vol. 6. On the Pursuit of the Truth I. How to Pursue the Truth (3)