By Yi Xin, China

I was born into an ordinary farming family, and my parents relied on growing crops to get by. There was a well-off household in our village, and they had a big and beautiful home. The children often had new clothes to wear and good food to eat. I was quite envious of them. I thought I had to study well, get into a good university in the future, and find a good job. That way, I would stand out from the crowd, and others would think highly of me and envy me. However, during my first year of high school, I was diagnosed with systemic lupus erythematosus. It’s an incurable rheumatic autoimmune disease. You have to take medication your whole life. At the time, I was very depressed, and I didn’t know why I had got this illness. I put all my energy into studying. My grades were often among the best in the class, and I had thought that if I could get into an ideal university, I’d be able to rewrite my fate. But unexpectedly, twenty-some days before the gaokao exam, I had a high fever that wouldn’t let up and I had to stay at the hospital for treatment, which affected my performance on the exam. In the end, I didn’t get into an ideal university and only went to an ordinary vocational college. But I wasn’t willing to give in to my fate, and after entering that college, I signed up for a prep class for the test to get into a university. However, after only half a year of classes, my illness got worse. I often ran a low fever, the joints in my hands and legs were swollen and ached, and even climbing the stairs was arduous. There were times when I couldn’t even carry my thermos around. In the end, I had no choice but to drop out of school and go home. My other friends my age were healthy and were working toward achieving their dreams. I couldn’t help but look to the heavens and sigh, thinking, “Why is fate so unfair to me? Why was I dealt such a tough hand?” I often blamed everyone and everything, and at times I even thought of death. But seeing my parents busying themselves for me, I didn’t have the heart to act on those thoughts. All I could do was helplessly count the days go by.

Later on, I accepted Almighty God’s work of the last days. My health had recovered quite well, and I could live a normal life. The leader arranged for me to produce videos. Back then, I was quite eager, and I actively studied video production. Later, I was promoted to the role of supervisor, and I was extremely happy. I became even more active when doing my duty. I would run a low fever at times, but I persisted in doing my duty. Later on, considering my health situation, the leader arranged for me to go back home and do whatever duties I could there. I felt a bit lost. It seemed that I would never have the chance to be groomed, and I thought, “Isn’t it all because of this awful disease? I really was dealt a bad fate.” After that, I performed text-based duties in the church. I often thought, “I’m just doing text-based duties; I can’t stand out or be in the spotlight.” I was very depressed. Seeing how leaders often went to various gathering locations to fellowship on God’s words and resolve problems, looking quite impressive and successful, I thought to myself, “If I could just understand a bit more of the truth and resolve issues with the brothers and sisters’ states, maybe everyone would select me as a leader too.” So, each time I went to gather, I paid attention to the brothers and sisters’ states. When I went home, I would find some of God’s words and then fellowship these words with the brothers and sisters at the next gathering. Seeing everyone listening closely to my fellowship, it goes without saying that I was very happy. Just when everything was headed in the right direction, I fell off my bike on my way to a gathering. I hurt my leg so badly that I couldn’t walk, and I had to stay home to recuperate. I was very confused, thinking, “I’ve been quite active in my duty lately; how could something like this suddenly happen to me? Why am I so unlucky?” What upset me even more was that the church was going to hold elections soon; I had thought I could be selected, but the leader said to me, “Leaders are in charge of all the church’s work. Considering that you’re in poor health, I’m afraid you would wear yourself out. It’s better for you to stick to text-based duties.” Listening to the leader, I felt like a tub of cold water had been poured on me, and my heart grew chilly. It seemed like being a leader just wasn’t in the cards for me. Afterward, when I went to gatherings, I lacked the vigor that I had before. I didn’t want to make an effort to ponder the brothers and sisters’ problems. The newly selected leader at the time, Chen Fang, was the same age as me, and I really envied her. She was in good health and was able to be chosen as a leader, while all I could do was a bit of text-based duties. I complained in my mind, thinking, “I want to expend myself diligently for God; why do I have such a weak body? I have the heart, but I don’t have the strength. I really was dealt a bad fate.” Feeling lost, I thought, “Although I can’t be a leader, if I make some achievements in my text-based duties, won’t the brothers and sisters still think highly of me?” With this in mind, I eagerly inspected manuscripts. But by the end of the year, my leg was hurting so much that I couldn’t walk. It turned out to be avascular necrosis. Soon after, there were arrests at the church, and I couldn’t go out to contact the brothers and sisters. I was extremely depressed, thinking, “How could I have been dealt such a bad fate? In the past, I wanted to rely on studying to change my fate, but that didn’t go according to plan. I thought that after believing in God, I’d be able to have a good fate, but things still didn’t go well for me. Right now, my illness is severe, and I can’t do my duty due to dangerous circumstances. The day that I shine will never come. My fate is to suffer!” My face was awash with tears all day, and I didn’t know how I was supposed to go on living. At the time, it also occurred to me that I could write articles, but as soon as I thought of my fate and how all my pursuing would be useless, I was no longer in the mood to write, and I’d spend the whole day in a state of depression.

One day, a sister who lived nearby brought over some of God’s words. I was very grateful to God, and I prayed to Him, “God, thank You for Your mercy. During this time, I’ve been living in a state of depression. I’ve been thinking my fate is bad, so I haven’t sought the truth or learned lessons. God, I am so rebellious!” Later, I read two passages of God’s words and gained some understanding of my state. Almighty God says: “The root cause for the arising of the negative emotion of depression is different for everyone. One kind of person’s emotion of depression may arise from their constant belief in their own terrible fate. Is this not one cause? (It is.) When they were young, they lived in the countryside or in a poor region, their family was not prosperous and, apart from some simple furnishings, they had nothing of much value. They had perhaps one or two sets of clothing that they had to wear even though they had some holes in them, and they could never ordinarily eat good quality food, but instead had to wait for New Year or holidays to eat meat. Sometimes they went hungry and hadn’t enough to wear to stay warm and having a big bowl full of meat to eat was a pipedream, and even finding a piece of fruit to eat was difficult. Living in such an environment, they felt different from other people who lived in the big city, whose parents were of means, who could eat anything they wanted and wear anything they wanted, who got everything they wanted right then and there, and who were knowledgeable about things. They’d think, ‘They have such a good fate. Why is my fate so bad?’ They always want to stand out from the crowd and change their destiny. However, it is not so easy to change one’s destiny. When one is born into such a situation, though they may try, how much can they change their fate, and how much better can they make it? After they become an adult, they are stopped by obstacles everywhere they go in society, they are bullied everywhere they go, and so they always feel so unfortunate. They think, ‘Why am I so unlucky? Why do I always meet mean people? Life was hard when I was a kid, and that’s just how it was. Now that I’m grown, it’s still so bad. I always want to show what I can do but I never get a chance. If I never get a chance, then so be it. I just want to work hard and earn enough money to live a good life. Why can’t I even do that? How can living a good life be so difficult? I don’t have to live a life superior to everyone else. I want at least to live the life of a city-dweller and not be looked down on by people, and not be a second- or third-rate citizen. At least when people would call out to me, they wouldn’t shout, “Hey you, come here!” At least they would call me by my name and address me respectfully. But I can’t even enjoy being addressed respectfully. Why is my fate so cruel? When will it end?’ When such a person didn’t believe in God, they considered it cruel. After they have begun to believe in God and to see that this is the true way, they then think, ‘All that suffering before was worth it. It was all orchestrated and done by God, and God did well. If I hadn’t suffered like that, I wouldn’t have come to believe in God. Now that I believe in God, if I can accept the truth then my destiny should change for the better. I can now live an equal life in the church with my brothers and sisters, and people call me “Brother” or “Sister,” and I am addressed respectfully. I now enjoy the feeling of having the respect of others.’ It seems as though their destiny has changed, and it seems that they no longer suffer and they no longer have a bad fate. Once they have begun to believe in God, they set their resolve to perform their duty well in God’s house, they become able to endure hardship and work hard, able to endure more than anyone else in any matter, and they strive to win the approval and esteem of most people. They think they may even be chosen to be a church leader, someone in charge, or a team leader, and won’t they then be honoring their ancestors and their family? Won’t they then have changed their destiny? However, reality does not quite live up to their wishes and they become dejected, and think, ‘I’ve believed in God for years and I get on very well with my brothers and sisters, but how come whenever it’s time to choose a leader, someone in charge, or a team leader, it’s never my turn? Is it because I look so plain, or because I haven’t performed well enough, and no one has noticed me? Every time there is a vote, I may have a slight hope, and I’d be happy even to be selected as a team leader. I’m so filled with enthusiasm to repay God, but I just end up disappointed every time there is a vote and I’m left out of it all. What’s up with that? Could it be that I’m truly only able to be a mediocre person, an ordinary person, someone unremarkable my whole life? When I look back at my childhood, my youth, and my middle-aged years, this path I’ve trodden has always been so mediocre and I haven’t done anything noteworthy. It’s not that I don’t have any ambition, or that my caliber is too lacking, and it’s not that I don’t exert enough effort or that I can’t endure hardship. I have aspirations and goals, and I can even be said to have ambition. So why is it that I can never stand out from the crowd? In the final analysis, I just have a bad fate and am destined for suffering, and this is how God has arranged things for me.’ The more they dwell on it, the worse they think their fate is. … No matter what happens to them, they always attribute it to them having a bad fate; they constantly put effort into this idea of having a bad fate, they strive to have a deeper understanding and appreciation of it and, as they turn it over in their minds, their emotions become ever more depressed. When they make a minor mistake in the performance of their duty, they think, ‘Oh, how can I do my duty well when I have such a bad fate?’ In gatherings, their brothers and sisters give fellowship and they think things over and over, but they don’t understand, and they think, ‘Oh, how can I understand things when I have such a bad fate?’ Whenever they see someone who speaks better than they do, who discusses their understanding in a clearer and more illuminated way than them, they feel even more depressed. When they see someone who can endure hardships and pay the price, who sees results in the performance of their duty, who receives the approval of their brothers and sisters and gets promoted, they feel unhappy in their heart. When they see someone become a leader or a worker, they feel even more depressed, and even when they see someone who sings and dances better than they do, and they feel inferior to that person, they get depressed. No matter what people, events, or things they encounter, or whatever situations they come across, they always respond to them with this emotion of depression. Even when they see someone wearing clothes that are a little nicer than theirs or whose hairstyle is a little better, they always feel sad, and jealousy and envy arise in their heart until, finally, they go back to that depressed emotion” (The Word, Vol. 6. On the Pursuit of the Truth I. How to Pursue the Truth (2)). “In the end, because they always believe themselves to have a bad fate, they fall into despair, live without any real purpose and just eat and sleep, waiting for death; thereby they become increasingly disinterested in pursuing the truth, performing their duty well, attaining salvation, and other such requirements of God, and even repel and reject these things more and more. They take their bad fate as their reason and basis for not pursuing the truth and not being able to attain salvation as a matter of course. They don’t dissect their own corrupt dispositions or negative emotions in the situations they encounter and thereby come to know and resolve their corrupt dispositions, but rather they use their view on having a bad fate in how they respond to every person, event, and thing they encounter and experience, resulting in them falling even deeper into their emotion of depression” (The Word, Vol. 6. On the Pursuit of the Truth I. How to Pursue the Truth (2)). What God exposed was my exact state. I’d always thought that I had a bad and cruel fate, and because of this, I’d often lived in an emotion of depression. When I was young, I saw that I had been born into an ordinary family and wanted to rely on studying to change my fate, but unfortunately, in my first year of high school I was diagnosed with lupus erythematosus. When my illness relapsed right before the gaokao exam, I wasn’t able to get into an ideal university. Later on, I had to drop out of school and go home due to my severe health condition. Seeing that I had no way of relying on knowledge to change my fate, my heart was in extreme pain, and I often complained that fate was unfair to me. After believing in God, I was always reluctantly performing text-based duties behind the scenes, and I wanted to be chosen as a leader by actively resolving the brothers and sisters’ states. However, considering my health situation, the brothers and sisters didn’t choose me. I felt even more like I’d been dealt a bad fate, and I was no longer as active as before at gatherings. Based on my situation, the church arranged for me to stay at my host family’s home and inspect manuscripts. I still wanted to make some achievements and get people to think highly of me, but my health condition unexpectedly got worse, and avascular necrosis kept me from going out to do my duty. I became even more depressed. I thought that nothing I did went well, and that it was my fate to suffer. I lived in an emotion of depression and gave up on myself, no longer wanting to pursue the truth and not even wanting to write articles anymore. I believed I had been handed a bad fate and that there would be no point in continuing to pursue. My view on things was the same as that of those people who don’t believe in God: When faced with adversity, I concluded that my fate was bad and wanted to fight against fate in everything I did. When I lost the fight, I complained that I’d been dealt a bad fate. I’d believed in God for years but had no true submission to Him. I didn’t know to seek the truth to resolve my own problems, only living in a state of depression and blaming God. How could I call myself a believer in God?

Later on, I read two more passages of God’s words and learned that there’s no such thing as a good or bad fate. Almighty God says: “God’s arrangement of what a person’s fate shall be, whether it be good or bad, is not to be viewed or measured with the eyes of man or the eyes of a fortune teller, nor is it to be measured according to how much wealth and glory that person enjoys in their lifetime, or how much suffering they experience, or how successful they are in their pursuit of prospects, fame and fortune. Yet this is precisely the serious mistake made by those who say they have a bad fate, as well as a way of measuring one’s fate used by the majority of people. How do most people measure their own fate? How do worldly people measure whether a person’s fate is good or bad? Primarily, they base it on whether that person’s life goes smoothly or not, whether they can enjoy wealth and glory or not, whether they can live a lifestyle superior to others, how much they suffer and how much they have to enjoy during their lifetime, how long they live for, what career they have, whether their life is full of toil or comfortable and easy—these things and more they use to measure whether a person’s fate is good or bad. Don’t you measure it like this, too? (Yes.) So, when most of you encounter something not to your liking, when times are hard, or you aren’t able to enjoy a superior lifestyle, you will think you have a bad fate too, and you will sink into depression” (The Word, Vol. 6. On the Pursuit of the Truth I. How to Pursue the Truth (2)). “God long ago predestined people’s fates, and they are immutable. This ‘good fate’ and ‘bad fate’ differ from person to person, and they depend on the environment, on how people feel and what they pursue. That is why one’s fate is neither good nor bad. You may live a very hard life, but you might think, ‘I’m not looking to live a high-end life. I’m just happy with having enough to eat and enough clothes to wear. Everyone suffers during their lifetime. Worldly people say, “You can’t see a rainbow unless it’s raining,” so there’s value in suffering. This isn’t so bad, and my fate isn’t bad. Heaven above has given me some pain, some trials, and tribulations. That’s because He thinks highly of me. This is a good fate!’ Some people think that suffering is a bad thing, that it means they have a bad fate, and only a life of no suffering, of comfort and ease, means they have a good fate. Unbelievers call this ‘a matter of opinion.’ How do believers in God regard this matter of ‘fate’? Do we talk about having a ‘good fate’ or a ‘bad fate’? (No.) We don’t say things like this. Say you have a good fate because you believe in God, then if you don’t follow the right path in your belief, if you are punished, exposed and cast out, then does that mean you have a good fate or a bad fate? If you don’t believe in God, you cannot possibly be exposed or cast out. Unbelievers and religious people don’t talk about exposing people or discerning people, and they don’t talk about people being cleared out or cast out. It should mean people have a good fate when they are able to believe in God, but if they are punished in the end, does that mean then that they have a bad fate? One minute their fate is good, the next their fate is bad—so which is it? Whether someone has a good fate or not is not something that can be judged, people cannot judge this matter. It is all done by God and everything God arranges is good. It is only that the trajectory of every individual’s fate, or their environment, and the people, events, and things they encounter, and the life path they experience during their lives are all different; these things differ from person to person. Every individual’s living environment and the environment in which they grow, both of which are arranged for them by God, are all different. The things every individual experiences during their lives are all different. There is no so-called good fate or bad fate—God arranges it all, and it is all done by God. If we regard the matter from the perspective that it is all done by God, everything God does is good and right; it’s just that from the perspective of people’s predilections, feelings and choices, some people choose to live a comfortable life, choosing to have fame and fortune, a good reputation, to have prosperity in the world and come into their own. They believe that this means they have a good fate, and that a lifetime of mediocrity and being unsuccessful, always living at the bottom of society, is a bad fate. This is how things look from the perspective of unbelievers and worldly people pursuing worldly things and seeking to live in the world, and this is how the idea of good fate and bad fate arise. The idea of good fate and bad fate only arises from human beings’ narrow understanding and superficial perception of fate, and from people’s judgments on how much physical suffering they endure, and how much enjoyment, and fame and fortune they gain, and so on. In fact, if we look at it from the perspective of God’s arrangement of and sovereignty over the fate of man, there are no such interpretations of good fate or bad fate. Isn’t this accurate? (It is.) If you regard the fate of man from the perspective of God’s sovereignty, then everything God does is good, and it is what every individual needs. This is because cause and effect play a part in past and present lives, they are predestined by God, God holds sovereignty over them, and God plans and arranges them—mankind has no choice. If we look at it from this standpoint, people shouldn’t judge their own fate to be good or bad, right?” (The Word, Vol. 6. On the Pursuit of the Truth I. How to Pursue the Truth (2)). After reading God’s words, I finally realized that from God’s perspective, there is no such thing as a good or bad fate. All that God does is good. God holds sovereignty over and arranges each person’s fate. People’s standard for judging whether their fate is good or bad is based on how much they suffer in their lifetime, how much glory and wealth they enjoy, and how successful they are in their pursuit of fame, gain, and future prospects. This is from the perspective of man’s fleshly preferences and does not conform to God’s will at all. This was what I had believed; I thought that those in good health, who could achieve fame and gain and enjoy glory and wealth were people with good fates, while those who had illnesses, lived in poverty, and spent their whole lives being mediocre with no one thinking highly of them were people with bad fates. So, since I was always plagued by illness, and since I wanted to pursue fame, gain, and future prospects but was never successful, I thought I had a bad fate. My view on things was the same as unbelievers’; it was the view of nonbelievers. Some people are in good health and spend their whole lives persistently struggling for money, fame, gain, and status. Even if their wishes are fulfilled, they don’t know the value or meaning of living. Some people spend their days feeling hollow, while others seek all kinds of stimulation. Some sink into self-indulgence, while others even choose to end their life by suicide. Do these people have great fates? Are they really happy and joyous? I thought that although some brothers and sisters came from ordinary families and had not been promoted to be leaders or supervisors in God’s house, they still did their own duties and understood some truths. Some of them even wrote articles testifying to God; their fates were not bad. Although I was tormented by illness, I often prayed to God because of this, and my heart didn’t dare shun Him. Additionally, during these years, I had come to understand some truths through my text-based duties. All of this was beneficial to my life entry. Also, my nature was very arrogant and my desire for reputation and status was quite strong, so not being promoted to do those high-profile duties was God’s way of protecting me. What was more important was that if I didn’t have this illness, I would definitely put my whole heart into pursuing money, fame, and gain in the world, I would live under Satan’s power, suffering its harm and trickery and being totally captured by it, and I would not receive God’s salvation of the last days. In fact, there was much I had gained from this illness, but I’d always complained that I was dealt a bad fate. Blessing had been all around me this whole time, and I’d had no idea! I thought of God’s words that said: “Some people begin to believe in God because of illness. This illness is God’s grace for you; without it, you would not believe in God, and if you did not believe in God then you would not have come this far—and thus even this grace is the love of God” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Only by Experiencing Painful Trials Can You Know the Loveliness of God). Now, I had experienced these words of God firsthand. I would no longer complain that I had a bad fate because of my illness.

I read more of God’s words: “Have you understood whether the thoughts and views of those people who always say they have a bad fate are right or wrong? (They’re wrong.) Clearly, these people experience the emotion of depression due to becoming mired in extremism. … They regard issues and people from this extreme and incorrect standpoint, thereby repeatedly living, viewing people and things, and comporting themselves and acting under the effect and influence of this negative emotion. In the end, no matter how they live, they seem so tired that they aren’t able to muster up any enthusiasm for their belief in God and pursuit of the truth. Regardless of how they choose to live their life, they cannot positively or actively perform their duty, and despite having believed in God for many years, yet they never focus on performing their duty with all their heart and soul or performing their duty satisfactorily, much less do they pursue the truth, of course, or practice in accordance with the truth principles. Why is this? In the final analysis, it’s because they always think they have a bad fate, and this leads them to have a profoundly depressed emotion. They become totally dispirited, powerless, like a walking corpse, without any vitality, exhibiting no positive or optimistic behavior, much less any determination or stamina to devote the loyalty they should devote to their duty, their responsibilities, and their obligations. Rather, they struggle reluctantly from day to day with a slipshod attitude, aimlessly and muddleheadedly, even unconsciously getting through the days. They have no idea how long they will muddle along for. In the end, they have no recourse but to admonish themselves, saying, ‘Oh, I’ll just keep muddling along as long as I can! If one day I can’t go on anymore, and the church wants to expel me and cast me out, then they should just cast me out. It’s because I have a bad fate!’ You see, even what they say is so defeated. This emotion of depression isn’t just a simple mood but, more importantly, it has a devastating impact on people’s thoughts, hearts, and on their pursuit. If you cannot turn your emotion of depression around in a timely and speedy manner, it will not only affect your whole life, it will also destroy your life and carry you to your death. Even if you do believe in God, you won’t be able to gain the truth and attain salvation and, in the end, you will perish. That’s why those who believe their fate to be bad should wake up now; always looking into whether their fate is good or bad, always pursuing some kind of fate, always worrying about their fate—this is not a good thing. Always taking your fate very seriously, when you encounter a slight disturbance or disappointment, or when failure, setbacks, or embarrassments come along, you quickly come to believe that it is due to your own bad fate, and your own bad luck. So, you repeatedly remind yourself that you are someone with a bad fate, that you don’t have a good fate like other people, and you repeatedly immerse yourself in depression, surrounded, bound, and caught up by the negative emotion of depression, unable to escape it. This is a very frightening and dangerous thing to happen. Even though this emotion of depression may not cause you to become more arrogant or deceitful, or cause you to reveal wickedness or intransigence, or other such corrupt dispositions; though it may not get to the level whereby you reveal a corrupt disposition and defy God, or you reveal a corrupt disposition and violate the truth principles, or you cause disruptions and disturbances, or do evil acts, yet, in terms of essence, this emotion of depression is a most serious manifestation of people’s dissatisfaction with reality. In essence, this manifestation of dissatisfaction with reality is also a dissatisfaction with God’s sovereignty and arrangements. And what are the consequences of being dissatisfied with God’s sovereignty and arrangements? They are certainly very serious and will at the least cause you to rebel against and defy God, and lead you to be unable to accept God’s utterances and provision, and unable to understand and unwilling to hear God’s teachings, exhortations, reminders and warnings” (The Word, Vol. 6. On the Pursuit of the Truth I. How to Pursue the Truth (2)). God’s words made me realize that the consequences of always being stuck in this negative emotion of pessimism and depression are severe. Not only does it make people unable to correctly regard the things that happen to them, it also makes them uninterested in doing their duty and pursuing the truth, and they end up losing their chance to be saved. What’s even more serious is that this sort of depressed emotion is a dissatisfaction with reality and with God’s sovereignty and arrangements. Its essence is one of complaining to God and silently revolting against Him. The nature of this is very serious. My gaokao score suffered due to my illness relapsing, and I also dropped out of school and went home due to my illness. Because of this, I was in extreme pain, blaming everyone and everything. After believing in God, my illness kept me from being promoted and groomed, and I always thought that I’d been dealt a bad fate, blaming God for giving me this body. I also went through the motions when doing my duty, with no desire to actively cooperate. I was always stuck inside this mistaken view that I had a bad fate, and I became increasingly depressed, always complaining to and misunderstanding God. If I didn’t reverse course, in the end I would only lose my chance of being saved due to resisting God. This kind of mistaken thought and view is so poisonous. It causes people to face the matters that befall them without an attitude of submission, and in the end they can only be fooled and harmed by Satan. Realizing this, I prayed to God, “God, I’ve always complained that I was dealt a bad fate and lived inside this negative emotion of depression. This was a silent revolt against You; I was resisting You. God, I don’t want to go on like this; please guide me.”

After this, I read God’s words and learned how to correctly regard my fate. Almighty God says: “What attitude should people have toward fate? You should comply with the Creator’s arrangements, actively and strenuously seek the Creator’s purpose and meaning in His arrangement of all these things and achieve understanding of the truth, bring into play your greatest functions in this life God has arranged for you, fulfill the duties, responsibilities, and obligations of a created being, and make your life more meaningful and more of value, until finally the Creator is pleased with you and remembers you. Of course, what would be even better would be to attain salvation through your seeking and strenuous effort—this would be the best outcome. In any case, with regard to fate, the most appropriate attitude created mankind should have is not one of wanton judgment and circumscription, or using extreme methods to deal with it. Of course, much less should people try to resist, choose, or change their fate, but rather they should use their heart to appreciate it, and seek, explore, and comply with it, before facing it positively. Finally, in the living environment and on the journey set for you in life by God, you should seek the way of conduct God teaches you, seek the path God requires you to take, and experience the fate God has arranged for you in this way, and in the end, you will be blessed. When you experience the fate the Creator has arranged for you in this way, what you come to appreciate is not only sorrow, sadness, tears, pain, frustration, and failure but, more importantly, you will experience joy, peace, and comfort, as well as the enlightenment and illumination of the truth which God bestows on you. What’s more, when you become lost along your path through life, when you are faced with frustration and failure, and you have a choice to make, you will experience the Creator’s guidance, and in the end you will attain the understanding, experience and appreciation of how to live the most meaningful life. Then you won’t ever become lost in life again, you won’t ever be in a constant state of anxiety again and, of course, you won’t ever again complain about having a bad fate, much less will you sink into the emotion of depression because you feel your fate is bad. If you have this attitude and you use this method to face the fate the Creator has arranged for you, then not only will your humanity become more normal, you will come to have a normal humanity, and the thinking, views and principles on how to view the things of normal humanity, but you will, of course, also come to have the views and understanding on the meaning of life which unbelievers will never have” (The Word, Vol. 6. On the Pursuit of the Truth I. How to Pursue the Truth (2)). From God’s words, I understood that no matter what kind of fate God arranges for us, we should always submit to His orchestrations and arrangements. This is the reason that created beings should possess. Regardless of our fate, what’s most important is that we can pursue the truth, fulfill our duty as a created being, and live out a life of value and meaning. With Job, when God first blessed him with a whole mountain of livestock, a wealth of property, and beautiful children, people thought he had a good fate. But Job didn’t see these things as enjoyments and only focused on walking the path of fearing God and shunning evil. Later on, he faced trials. All of his property disappeared in one night, his children died, and his whole body was also covered in sores. In people’s eyes, he had met great misfortune. But Job didn’t look at the things that happened to him from man’s point of view, nor did he revolt and resist. Rather, he accepted things from God, sought God’s intention, and extolled His holy name, ultimately standing firm in his witness. God revealed Himself to Job, and Job saw Him. His heart gained peace and joy, and in the end, he died full of days. However, when regarding my fate, I always wanted to change it and struggle free from it. I didn’t diligently seek or face it with positivity, and therefore, I lived in unbearable pain. I thought of God’s words that said: “What is the cause of this pain? Is it because of God’s sovereignty, or because a person was born unlucky? Obviously, neither is true. At bottom, it is caused by the paths people take, the ways they choose to live their lives” (The Word, Vol. 2. On Knowing God. God Himself, the Unique III). I recognized that I was in so much pain because there was a problem with my path of pursuit. Before I believed in God, I wanted to rely on knowledge to change my fate. I pursued standing out from the crowd and living a life of comfort and wealth. After believing in God, I still pursued reputation and status in my duty, wanting to be held in high esteem by others. When my illness kept my wishes from being fulfilled, I complained that I’d been dealt a bad fate and lived in an emotion of depression. My desire for reputation and status was so strong. I couldn’t help but ask myself, “Is one’s fate really good and does living really have value just because one has gained reputation and status?” I thought of how the church had revealed and cast out many people. Although some people were promoted to do leadership duties, some of them didn’t pursue the truth, stubbornly pursuing reputation and status and exalting and testifying to themselves around the brothers and sisters. They didn’t accept being pruned, and in the end they were revealed and cast out. I saw that if people didn’t pursue the truth and didn’t do their duty with their feet on the ground, then even if they were promoted and groomed, getting many people to think highly of them, they wouldn’t gain God’s approval and would ultimately be revealed and cast out. I thought of how, at the outset, I had started believing in God because of my illness. I enjoyed the provision of God’s words and came to understand some truths. Whenever I fell ill and lived inside my negativity, God used His words to enlighten and guide me and allow me to go on living. God had really given me so much. However, I didn’t think of repaying His love and sticking to my duty with my feet on the ground. All I longed for was my own reputation and status, and I was not sincere toward God. I was truly so rebellious! I couldn’t help but shed tears of remorse, and I prayed to God, “God, I’ve been so rebellious. I’ve always pursued reputation and status and haven’t walked the correct path; I’ve been truly unworthy of Your selection. God, all I want is to properly believe in You and submit to You, doing my duty with my feet on the ground.” Understanding this much, I no longer felt depressed.

During that time, I couldn’t get in touch with my brothers and sisters, and so I persisted in reading God’s words every day, praying to Him and getting closer to Him and practicing writing sermons. Sometimes, my health worsened a bit, and my joints hurt so much that I couldn’t move around or stand up. Unconsciously, I became a little distressed, especially when I saw videos of brothers and sisters singing, dancing, and praising God. I was very envious, thinking, “Those brothers and sisters are healthy, and they can sing, dance, and praise God. How nice that must be! I can’t even stand up.” I realized that my state was incorrect, and I silently prayed to God, asking Him to protect my heart. I thought of God’s words that said: “The functions are not the same. There is one body. Each does his duty, each in his place and doing his very best—for each spark there is one flash of light—and seeking maturity in life. Thus will I be satisfied” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Utterances of Christ in the Beginning, Chapter 21). God arranges a different duty for each person. Those brothers and sisters sang, danced, and praised God, and I did text-based duties and testified to Him. Each duty has its own function. As long as one does theirs to the best of their abilities, God will approve of them. After thinking this, my heart felt much freer. Now, I no longer believe that I was dealt a bad fate. I only want to submit to God’s sovereignty and arrangements, pursue the truth properly, and do my duty well. That I was able to get out of this mistaken view that I had a bad fate is all because of the guidance of God’s words.