By Lin Hui, China

In June 2023, I was elected to be a text-based work supervisor. Through interacting with my brothers and sisters, I found out that their professional skills and work capability were relatively weak, so I would patiently guide and help them, and I’d fellowship with them to resolve any difficulties they encountered. But when things got busy, I lost my patience and I began to look down on them. In July, the church faced frenzied arrests by the CCP. I couldn’t contact many of the text-based workers, and the results of our work began to decline. The brothers and sisters from one team wanted me to discuss how to proceed with the upcoming work. At the time, I was handling another task, so I briefly corresponded with them about the general direction of how to do the work, thinking they should know how to implement it. However, the team leader still wrote back, saying they were facing some difficulties. I thought to myself, “When the church first faced the arrests, I didn’t know what to do either, but I was able to find some paths through praying and seeking. Why can’t you find a path for yourself? All you know is how to complain about difficulties. You’re just not being mindful in your duty; you’re just waiting for a ready-made solution. You’re the team leader; when you complain about difficulties, it will have a negative impact on others.” During a gathering, I said in an accusatory tone, “Have you discussed any solutions for these difficulties? What are you even doing every day? Why don’t you try to find a path for yourselves?” I saw the sister looked upset, and I realized my tone was not right. But then I thought that what I said was true, and that I was trying to guide her to rely on God more when facing difficulties instead of just complaining about them. I told myself it was for her own good. Sometimes, when I asked Sister Liu questions, because I speak quickly, she wouldn’t react straight away and her answers would be a bit roundabout. I’d look down on her and think, “You’re not even answering my question. Can’t you just answer directly and to the point? Why do you have to beat around the bush?” Then I would say in a reproachful tone, “Don’t beat around the bush. Just answer the question you’re asked, otherwise no one can understand you!” After I said this, she would feel somewhat constrained. On one occasion, Sister Zhang shared her state, saying that sometimes when I asked her something, she didn’t immediately grasp what I meant. When her answers weren’t on point, I would tell her off, and then she wouldn’t dare to say anything more, fearing she’d be pruned for not answering on point. When I heard Sister Zhang say this, I still didn’t reflect on myself. Instead, I thought she was too concerned about saving face. I thought, “Isn’t it for your own good that I’m pointing out your issues? Why do you even feel constrained? You’re just too fragile!” After a while, the sisters grew somewhat distant from me. Sometimes, I’d hear them chatting and laughing in the office, but they would go quiet the moment I walked in. I realized that if this continued, they would all avoid me—how could we possibly cooperate to do our duties then? So, I found some of God’s words that dissected an arrogant disposition and tried to see how they applied to me. I also restrained myself outwardly, and tried to generally speak to them in a gentler tone, or tell jokes to ease the atmosphere.

Later, a coworker, Brother Wang, found out that several team members felt constrained by me, and pointed out my problem. He read many of God’s words to me, and one passage in particular left a deep impression. Almighty God says: “Can you help people understand the truth and enter into reality if you only preach words and doctrines to lecture and prune them? If what you fellowship about is not practical, and if it is nothing but words and doctrines, then no matter how much you prune and lecture them, it will be to no avail. Do you think that people being somewhat afraid of you, doing what you tell them to, and not daring to object, is the same as them understanding the truth and being submissive? This is utterly wrong. Life entry is not so simple. Some people who come to be leaders are like new managers trying to make a strong impression; they start by trying to impose their new-found authority on God’s chosen people and getting everyone to obey them. They think this will make their job easier. If you do not have the truth reality, then before long, your true stature will be revealed, your true colors will be exposed, and you could well be eliminated. In some administrative work, a little pruning and discipline is acceptable. But if you are incapable of fellowshipping on the truth, in the end, you will still be unable to solve problems, and it will affect the results of the work. If, no matter what issues appear in the church, you always lecture people and cast blame, and if all you ever do is give people attitude, then this is your corrupt disposition revealing itself, and you have shown the ugly face of your corruption. If you always put yourself on a pedestal and lecture people like this, then as time goes on, people will be unable to receive the provision of life from you, they will not gain anything practical, and they will instead detest you and be disgusted by you. In addition, there will be some people who, having been influenced by you due to a lack of discernment, will learn to lecture others and prune them; they, too, will get angry and lose their tempers. Not only will you be unable to solve people’s problems—you will also be fostering their corrupt dispositions. And is that not leading people onto the path toward perdition? Is that not an act of evil? A leader should lead primarily by fellowshipping on the truth and supplying life. If you always put yourself on a pedestal and lecture others, will they be able to understand the truth? If you work in this way for a while, and people come to see you clearly for what you truly are, they will reject you. Can you bring people before God by working in this way? Absolutely not. You will just make a mess of the work of the church and make God’s chosen people detest and reject you” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Part Three). As I pondered God’s words, they really pierced me to the heart. What God exposed was precisely my state. I was a supervisor, but when I saw the brothers and sisters encountering difficulties and problems in their duties, not only did I fail to fellowship with them and help them, I kept standing on a pedestal to lecture and criticize them instead. This caused everyone to avoid and fear me. Their states became poor, and their ability to do their duties was affected. Treating people based on my corrupt dispositions was truly loathsome to God and repulsive to others. A while back, the church had faced mass arrests, many text-based workers couldn’t be contacted, and the progress of the text-based work slowed. The brothers and sisters were living in difficulty, not knowing how to experience it. This was a time when they needed me to provide fellowship and help, to find a path forward with them and resolve the various difficulties and problems they were facing. But instead of offering practical fellowship and help, I looked down on and lectured the sisters. As a result, they received no help, yet were being constrained by me at every turn. This wasn’t doing my duty at all! Was I not just doing evil? I especially felt this when I saw these words of God: “If you always put yourself on a pedestal and lecture people like this, then as time goes on, people will be unable to receive the provision of life from you, they will not gain anything practical, and they will instead detest you and be disgusted by you.” As a supervisor, by standing on a pedestal and lecturing and constraining others, not only would I mess up the work, but if the brothers and sisters couldn’t get any help from me, they would reject me. Now the results of our work had declined, the brothers’ and sisters’ states were poor, and I was being pruned and exposed in this way. Wasn’t this God chastening me? Realizing this, I felt deeply distressed and guilty. I just wanted to quiet my heart and seek the truth to resolve my problems.

Later, I read another passage of God’s words, which struck me really deeply. Almighty God says: “I have found that many leaders are only capable of lecturing people and preaching to others from on high, and that they cannot communicate with others as equals. They are not able to interact with people normally. When some people speak, it’s as if they are always giving a speech or making a report. Their words are only ever directed at other people’s states, but they never open up about themselves. They never dissect their own corrupt dispositions, instead, they only dissect other people’s issues, using them as examples by which to grant everyone knowledge. Why do they do this? Why do they preach such sermons and say such things? This is proof that they have no knowledge of themselves whatsoever, that they are too lacking in reason, and that they are too arrogant and self-righteous. They think that their ability to recognize other people’s corrupt dispositions proves they are above others, better than others at discerning people and things, and that they are less corrupt than other people. They are able to dissect and lecture others, but they do not lay themselves bare, expose or dissect their own corrupt dispositions, show their true face, or say anything about their own motivations. They only lecture other people for behaving inappropriately. This is self-magnification and self-exaltation. How can you be a leader and yet be so unreasonably troublesome? Why, after being made leader of a church, do you casually scold others, behave arbitrarily, and act as you please? Why do you never consider the consequences of your words, never consider your own identity? Why do you act like this? This is because even though you are a leader, you don’t know your own status or identity. Arranging for you to be a leader is merely elevating you and giving you a chance to practice. It’s not because you possess more reality than others or because you are better than others. In fact, you are the same as everyone else. None of you possess reality, and in some ways, you may even be more corrupt than others. So why would you unreasonably cause trouble, and arbitrarily lecture, berate and constrain others? Why force others to listen to you, even when you are wrong? What does this prove? This proves you are in the wrong position. You aren’t working from the position of a human, you are doing your work from God’s position, from a position above others” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. On God’s Administrative Decrees in the Age of Kingdom). Reading God’s words pierced me to the heart. Wasn’t I the kind of person God was talking about? The sisters’ professional skills and work capability were relatively weak, and when their work was hindered by the environment of mass arrests, they needed me to help them find a path to a solution. But not only did I not put my heart into helping them, I also lectured them from a pedestal. Because I speak quickly, if a sister didn’t understand what I meant, she’d get a telling off from me. All I brought to others was pain and harm, and I also affected the work. Where was even a shred of humanity in that? I thought about the antichrist, Ye, who was expelled a while back. When she spotted some deviations or problems in the brothers’ and sisters’ duties, she would lecture, prune, and torment them without considering the context or understanding their actual difficulties. This caused the brothers and sisters to be afraid when they saw her and to live in a state of guardedness, which affected their duties. Then I looked at myself. Although I didn’t lecture and torment people as severely as Ye, my sisters were all living with their guard up because I looked down on and lectured the team members. They were only thinking about how to satisfy me to avoid getting a telling off, which affected both their states and the work. I realized that the nature and consequences of my constraining others were very serious, and if I didn’t turn things around, I would end up on the path of an antichrist and be eliminated, just like Ye. I felt both afraid and guilty, so I prayed to God to repent, asking Him to guide me to further reflect on and know myself.

Afterward, I read some of God’s words, and gained some understanding of my problem. Almighty God says: “If, in your heart, you truly understand the truth, then you will know how to practice the truth and submit to God, and will naturally embark on the path of pursuing the truth. If the path you walk is the right one, and in line with God’s intentions, then the work of the Holy Spirit will not leave you—in which case there will be less and less chance of you betraying God. Without the truth, it is easy to do evil, and you will do it despite yourself. For example, if you have an arrogant and conceited disposition, then being told not to oppose God makes no difference, you can’t help yourself, it is beyond your control. You would not do it on purpose; you would do it under the domination of your arrogant and conceited nature. Your arrogance and conceit would make you look down on God and see Him as being of no account; they would cause you to exalt yourself, constantly put yourself on display; they would make you scorn others, they would leave no one in your heart but yourself; they would rob you of God’s place in your heart, and ultimately cause you to sit in the place of God and demand that people submit to you, and make you venerate your own thoughts, ideas, and notions as the truth. So much evil is done by people under the dominance of their arrogant and conceited nature!” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Only by Pursuing the Truth Can One Achieve a Change in Disposition). From God’s words, I understood that the main reason I looked down on and constrained people was that my nature was too arrogant. When the sisters had difficulties and didn’t know how to resolve them, they needed my practical help. But I thought they should be able to find some paths forward by praying and seeking on their own, and that if I just explained things simply, they ought to be able to grasp my meaning. When they still had difficulties, I’d start to look down on them, and would just prune them without actually asking where exactly they were stuck. In fact, when I had faced difficulties in the past, I was often lost and didn’t know how to resolve them, and sometimes I would even cry in secret. Yet, I considered myself better than the team members, elevating myself and belittling them in my heart. I was so arrogant and devoid of any reason! By treating the sisters according to my arrogant disposition, I constrained them and brought disruption and disturbance to our duty. Wasn’t this resisting God? The more I thought about it, the more I felt that if my arrogant disposition wasn’t resolved, I really could involuntarily do evil. I wanted to turn things around and transform, and treat the sisters according to God’s words.

One day, I read the words of God, which moved me a lot and gave me the resolve to practice the truth. Almighty God says: “It is because I see all of you numb and without love for the truth, and not pursuing the truth, along with your poor calibers, that I must speak in detail. I must spell everything out, and break things down and fragment them in My speech, and speak of things from every angle, in every which way. Only then do you understand a bit. If I were perfunctory with you, and spoke a bit on whatever topic, whenever I felt like it, neither putting thought into it nor taking pains, without My heart in it, not speaking when I did not feel like it, what could you gain? With calibers like yours, you would not understand the truth or gain anything, much less attain salvation. But I cannot do that, instead I must speak in detail. I must go into detail and give examples regarding the states of each sort of person, the attitudes people have toward the truth, and each sort of corrupt disposition; only then will you comprehend what I’m saying, and understand what you hear. No matter what aspect of the truth is fellowshipped, I speak through various means, with styles of fellowship for adults and for children, and also in the form of rationales and stories, using theory and practice, and talking of experiences, in order that people may understand the truth and enter the reality. In this way, those who have caliber and possess hearts will have a chance to understand and accept the truth and be saved” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. To Perform One’s Duty Well, One Must at Least Be Possessed of a Conscience and Reason). I thought about how our corrupt natures are deeply rooted in all of us. Because we lack understanding of God’s work, we often develop notions and misunderstandings about Him, and all kinds of corrupt dispositions emerge one after another. Most of the time, even when we understand a little of the truth, we can’t put it into practice. But God has never given up on us. He continually expresses words to supply and help us. Some are words of comfort and exhortation, while others are of judgment and exposure. Sometimes, to help us understand better, He also uses examples, parables, and stories. God does everything He can to make us understand the truth, so that we can reflect on and recognize our own problems and find a path of practice. I saw that God’s heart is so beautiful and good, and all that He brings us is beneficial. But then I thought about how I treated the brothers and sisters with no patience or love at all. When the sisters encountered difficulties, I would help them once or twice and then start to look down on them. Not only did I fail to bring them any benefit, but I brought them constraint and harm instead. I was so devoid of humanity! Afterward, I opened up to the team members, exposed my own corruption, and apologized to them.

Later, I reflected on myself again and realized there was another reason why I constrained people: I didn’t know how to treat people according to principles. I didn’t consider the sisters’ actual difficulties and circumstances; I just used a one-size-fits-all approach. In reality, they also wanted to do their duties well, but their caliber was just average and they lacked work capability. This required me to put in more effort and spend more time and energy to help them. I later read these words of God: “How should you treat the few leaders and workers who have poor caliber and lack work capability? … You need to specifically tell them how to do the work, and how to implement it. You should tell them who should be appointed to and made responsible for this task, and which people should be selected to cooperate on it together. Explain all these details to them and let them carry this out. Why should it be done this way? Because the members of the local church generally only have very shallow experience and lack work capability, making it impossible to select suitable leaders and workers. Only by working in this way can the work arrangements be implemented. If you do not work in this way and treat these people the same as other leaders and workers, only telling them about the specific principles and plans, and being indiscriminate, the work arrangements will not be implemented. If you don’t pay any attention to this, isn’t that a dereliction of responsibility? (Yes.) This is a responsibility of leaders and workers. Some leaders and workers say, ‘Others know how to implement the work arrangements and practice; why doesn’t this person? If they don’t know, I won’t bother with them. It’s not my responsibility. At any rate, I’ve done my part.’ Does this reasoning hold up? (No.) For example, say that a mother has three children, and one of them is weak, always gets sick, and does not want to eat. If the mother allows this child to not eat, that child might not survive long. What should she do? As a mother, she has to give special care to that weak child. Suppose the mother says, ‘It’s already good enough that I treat my children equally. I gave birth to this child and prepared food for him. I’ve fulfilled my responsibility. I don’t care whether he eats or not. If he doesn’t eat, let him be hungry, and when he’s really hungry enough, he’ll eat.’ What do you think of this kind of mother? (She’s irresponsible.) Are there mothers like this? Only a dim-witted woman or a stepmother would be like that. If she’s the biological mother and not dim-witted, she would never treat her own child like this, right? (Right.) If a child is weak, always gets sick, and doesn’t like to eat, their mother has to put in more care and effort. She has to find ways to get the child to eat, she has to cook whatever the child wants to eat, preparing special meals for them, and when the child doesn’t want to eat, she has to coax them. When they get to eighteen or nineteen years old and their body is healthy like a normal adult, the mother can relax and back off, and no longer needs to give this child special care. If a mother can treat a child with special circumstances like this and fulfill her responsibility, then what about a leader or worker? If you don’t even have the love of a mother for the brothers and sisters, then you are simply irresponsible. You must fulfill the responsibilities you should; you must consider the churches where those who are relatively weak and possessed of relatively poor work capability are in charge. Leaders and workers must pay special attention and provide special guidance in these matters. What does special guidance refer to? Besides fellowshipping on the truth, you must also provide more specific and detailed direction and assistance, which requires more effort in terms of communication. If you explain the work to them and they still do not understand, and do not know how to implement it, or even if they understand it in terms of doctrine and seem to know how to implement it, but you are still unsure and a bit worried about how the actual implementation will go, what should you do then? You need to personally go deep into the local church to guide them and to implement the task with them. Tell them the principles while making specific arrangements concerning the tasks that need to be done according to the requirements of the work arrangements, such as what to do first and what to do next, and how to properly allocate people—organize all of these things properly. This is practically guiding them in their work, as opposed to just shouting slogans or giving random orders, and lecturing them with some doctrines, and then considering your work done—that is not a manifestation of doing specific work, and shouting slogans and bossing people around are not the responsibilities of leaders and workers. Once the local church leaders or supervisors can shoulder the work, and the work has entered onto the right track, and there are basically no major issues, only then can the leader or worker leave” (The Word, Vol. 5. The Responsibilities of Leaders and Workers. The Responsibilities of Leaders and Workers (10)). “To resolve the many difficulties people experience, you must first comprehend the dynamics of the work of the Holy Spirit; you must understand how the Holy Spirit performs work on different people, you must have an understanding of the difficulties people face and of their shortcomings, and you must see through to the key issues of the problem and get to its source, without deviating or making any errors. Only this kind of person is up to standard in regard to cooperating in service to God” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. What a Shepherd That Is Fit for Use Should Possess). After reading God’s words, I understood that people with poor caliber need more guidance and help, and that you can’t use a one-size-fits-all approach. It’s like a mother who has several children, and one of them is weak and sickly. The mother has to give this child more care than the others so that he can grow up healthy. But an irresponsible mother, seeing her child is weak, doesn’t take care of him and instead blames the child for not being strong enough. How can a child grow up healthy that way? God doesn’t force people to do what’s beyond them; His requirements for people are based on their inherent caliber. I should also treat my brothers and sisters according to God’s words, offering them more guidance and help. After that, when I saw my sisters encounter difficulties in their work, I would patiently listen to them describe their problems and difficulties, and I would zero in on their problems and then fellowship to help them. By practicing this way, the sisters no longer felt constrained by me as they had before. When they encountered issues in their duties that they couldn’t see clearly, they also proactively asked me about them. We would then seek the truth together to resolve them, and the results of our work also improved.

Through this experience, I came to see clearly that treating people based on corrupt dispositions only brings them constraint and harm, and brings damage to the work. Treating your brothers and sisters according to the truth principles and God’s words and fulfilling your own responsibilities is beneficial for the work; it also edifies others.