By Xiaomo, China

As far back as I can remember, I saw my mother taking care of her mother in her daily life. She often brought prepared meals to her, and from time to time would tell me about how she had also taken care of my father’s parents when they were sick and bedridden. She also taught me to be a filial person. At school, teachers also taught us to honor our parents, because only by conducting ourselves in this way would we have a conscience. If people around me talked about someone who was not filial to their parents, they would accuse such people of lacking a conscience, of being unfilial. The teachings of my mother in word and by example, my education in school, and the comments of people around me all made me feel that only those who honored their parents had a conscience. If you were unfilial to your parents, this was utterly disgraceful behavior, and you would be berated and reviled by others. When I grew up, although I married a man who lived hundreds of kilometers away, I would still take time to go and visit my mother, talking to her and doing some housework within my ability.

In 2012, I accepted Almighty God’s work of the last days. Later I left home to do my duty due to the needs of my duty. Because I was very busy with my duty at that time, I seldom had time to go and visit my mother. At the beginning of 2022, I learned that my mother had slipped while walking and broken her arm. I wanted to go back to visit her, but due to the pandemic, all the roads were closed. I was also quite busy with my duty at the time, and going back for a few days would have delayed the work, so I didn’t go back to visit her. My mother often nagged me on the phone for barely ever coming home, and my sister-in-law also berated me, saying, “All the other daughters come back to take care of their sick mothers. Can you really be that busy?” and said some unpleasant things. I felt very uncomfortable and self-reproachful, thinking, “My mother is sick and I can’t even be by her side to take care of her. She raised me in vain!” During that time, my state was not good, and I was quite passive in doing my duty. I even thought that if I were dismissed one day, I would go back and show proper filial piety to my mother, making up for my debt to her.

In November 2023, my mother had leg pain and needed hospitalization. At that time, the church was in urgent need of a set of good sermons for preaching the gospel. I was the team leader and very busy with the work, so I couldn’t visit home to take care of her. When I called my mother, my sister-in-law berated me again, saying, “How busy are you that you can’t even come back to take care of your mother! If her daughter was around to talk to her, she wouldn’t be so lonely. How could a daughter not come back when her aged mother is in the hospital?” Listening to my sister-in-law’s words, I felt distressed, as if stabbed in the heart. I thought of my mother lying alone in a hospital bed, while I was not able to be by her side to take care of her, or do what a daughter should do. I was so unfilial! The more I thought about it, the more upset I felt. I let my sister-in-law berate me, as the tears welled up in my eyes. I thought to myself, “It was not easy for my mother to raise me. She took the utmost care of me in every aspect of my life. But now she is sick and I can’t be with her. My mother raised me in vain!” Not long after that I received another letter, which said my mother had been in a serious car accident. I was a little shocked when I saw the letter. I didn’t know how my mother was doing. She was already over seventy years old. Could she bear it? Would I ever be able to see my mother again? I really wanted to go back and see her. However, during that time there happened to be a personnel transfer, and I was the only one in charge of the work of the team. The work would have been delayed if I left, but without going back, I couldn’t let go. My heart was in turmoil, and I couldn’t help but cry. When I thought of my mom lying in a hospital bed after the car accident, I felt that not going back would be too lacking in conscience. My whole family would berate me, and everyone in the village would say that I was unfilial and an ungrateful wretch. When I thought this, I couldn’t sit still any longer. After finishing my work for the day, I bought a train ticket to go back and visit my mother that very night. When I arrived at the hospital, I saw that my mother was not in danger of death, and I finally felt relieved. When the people in my village saw that I came back, they all smiled and said, “You’re here! It’s good that you’re back. Go take good care of your mother. We haven’t seen you for a long time. It’s definitely time you came back.” Hearing these words, I felt a little comforted. During those days, I was very busy running around every day, and the indebtedness I felt toward my mother also lessened. However, I then thought about how my duty was being delayed, and I felt some self-reproach. Seeing that my mother’s condition had improved somewhat, I quickly took the train back to do my duty.

After returning to the place where I was doing my duty, I started to wonder, “Every time there is a conflict between doing my duty and being filial to my parents, my heart feels torn and painful. Surely I cannot put my duty aside and delay the work every time? So what aspect of truth should I seek and enter into?” Later, I read the words of God: “The parental relationship is the most difficult relationship for someone to handle emotionally, but in fact, it’s not entirely unmanageable. Only on the basis of understanding the truth can people treat this matter correctly and rationally. Do not start from the perspective of feelings, and do not start from the insights or the perspectives of worldly people. Instead, treat your parents in the proper manner according to God’s words. What role do parents actually play, what do children actually mean to their parents, what attitude should children have toward their parents, and how should people handle and resolve the relationship between parents and children? People should not view these things based on feelings, nor should they be influenced by any wrong ideas or prevailing sentiments; they should be approached correctly based on God’s words. … most people choose to leave home to perform their duties in part because of the overarching objective circumstances, which necessitate them leaving their parents; they cannot stay by their parents’ side to take care of them and accompany them. It’s not that they willingly choose to leave their parents; this is the objective reason. For another thing, subjectively speaking, you go out to perform your duties not because you wanted to leave your parents and escape your responsibilities, but because of God’s calling. In order to cooperate with God’s work, accept His calling, and perform the duties of a created being, you had no choice but to leave your parents; you could not stay by their side to accompany them and take care of them. You didn’t leave them to avoid responsibilities, right? Leaving them to avoid your responsibilities and having to leave them to answer God’s calling and perform your duties—aren’t these of two different natures? (Yes.) In your heart, you do have emotional attachments and thoughts for your parents; your feelings are not empty. If objective circumstances allow, and you are able to stay by their side while also performing your duties, then you would be willing to stay by their side, regularly taking care of them and fulfilling your responsibilities. But because of objective circumstances, you must leave them; you cannot remain at their side. It’s not that you don’t want to fulfill your responsibilities as their child, but that you can’t. Isn’t this different in nature? (Yes.) If you left home to avoid being filial and fulfilling your responsibilities, that is unfilial and lacks humanity. Your parents raised you, but you can’t wait to spread your wings and quickly go off on your own. You don’t want to see your parents, and you don’t pay any regard when you hear about some difficulty they’ve encountered. Even if you have the means to help, you don’t; you just pretend not to hear and let others say whatever they want about you—you simply don’t want to fulfill your responsibilities. This is being unfilial. But is this the case now? (No.) Many people have left their counties, cities, provinces, or even their countries to perform their duties; they are already far away from their hometowns. Furthermore, it’s not convenient for them to stay in touch with their families for various reasons. Occasionally, they inquire about their parents’ current situation from people who came from the same hometown and feel relieved when they hear that their parents are still healthy and getting by okay. In fact, you are not unfilial; you haven’t reached the point of lacking humanity, where you don’t even want to care about your parents or fulfill your responsibilities toward them. It’s because of various objective reasons that you have to make this choice, so you’re not unfilial” (The Word, Vol. 6. On the Pursuit of the Truth. How to Pursue the Truth (16)). God’s words made me understand that when my mother was ill and in hospital, the main reason I felt unfilial when I couldn’t take care of her at her bedside was that I didn’t have a pure understanding of what was being filial and what was being unfilial. I had always thought that if I couldn’t be by my parents’ side to take care of them when they were sick, this was being unfilial and lacking conscience. When my family members berated me, I felt even more strongly that I was too unfilial. Therefore, I lived with a sense of indebtedness and self-blame. After reading the words of God, I finally understood that my outlook was mistaken. Whether someone is filial or not is not defined based on whether they can be by their parents’ side to accompany and take care of them. For example, some brothers and sisters want to be with their parents and be filial to them, but were forced to leave home to do their duties because of the CCP’s persecution, otherwise they would be at risk of being arrested and imprisoned. Although they have left their hometowns, their hearts still worry about their parents and they want to fulfill their responsibilities to them, but the objective circumstances do not allow it. They cannot be defined as being unfilial. Another example is the disciples and apostles in the Age of Grace. They resolutely chose to leave home in order to propagate the gospel of the Lord Jesus. They crossed oceans to preach the gospel everywhere, and were even less able to stay with their parents and take care of them. However, they were following God’s will, in order to enable more people to receive God’s salvation, and what they did was the most just and meaningful thing. They cannot be described as unfilial. I couldn’t go back to visit my mother and be with her very often, not because I didn’t want to fulfill my responsibilities as her daughter, but because I was busy with my duties. It is so I can evaluate and select good sermons as fast as possible to help preach the gospel and bring more people before God. This is a valuable and meaningful thing, and cannot be described as being unfilial. Some children have the ability and energy to take care of their parents, but come to disdain them when they see them get old and useless, and ignore them. This is a genuine lack of conscience. This is utterly disgraceful behavior. I was busy with my duty and didn’t have time to take care of my mother. This is of a completely different nature from not caring about my parents even when the conditions allow it, and cannot be mentioned in the same breath. I didn’t look at things according to God’s words, and I thought that I was unfilial because I didn’t stay by my mother’s side to take care of her, and often felt indebted and self-reproachful. I was so muddled!

Later, I read more of God’s words: “Due to the conditioning of Chinese traditional culture, in Chinese people’s traditional notions they believe that one must observe filial piety toward their parents. Whoever does not observe filial piety is an unfilial child. These ideas have been instilled in people since childhood, and they are taught in practically every household, as well as in every school and in society at large. When a person’s head has been filled with such stuff, they think, ‘Filial piety is more important than anything. If I weren’t to observe it, I wouldn’t be a good person—I’d be an unfilial child and I’d be denounced by society. I’d be a person who lacks conscience.’ Is this view correct? People have seen so many truths expressed by God—has God demanded that one show filial piety toward their parents? Is this one of the truths that believers in God must understand? No, it is not. God has only fellowshipped on some principles. By what principle do God’s words ask that people treat others? Love what God loves, and hate what God hates: This is the principle that should be adhered to. God loves those who pursue the truth and are able to follow His will; these are also the people that we should love. Those who are not able to follow God’s will, who hate and rebel against God—these people are detested by God, and we should detest them, too. This is what God asks of man. … Satan uses this kind of traditional culture and notions of morality to bind your thoughts, your mind, and your heart, leaving you unable to accept God’s words; you have been possessed by these things of Satan, and rendered incapable of accepting God’s words. When you want to practice God’s words, these things cause disturbance within you, cause you to oppose the truth and God’s requirements, and make you powerless to rid yourself of the yoke of traditional culture. After struggling for a while, you compromise: You prefer to believe traditional notions of morality are correct and in line with the truth, and so you reject or forsake God’s words. You do not accept God’s words as the truth and you think nothing of being saved, feeling that you still live in this world, and can only survive by relying on these things. Unable to endure society’s recrimination, you would rather choose to give up the truth and God’s words, abandoning yourself to traditional notions of morality and the influence of Satan, preferring to offend God and not practice the truth. Tell Me, is man not pitiful? Do they not have need of God’s salvation? Some people have believed in God for many years, but still have no insight into the matter of filial piety. They really do not understand the truth. They can never break through this barrier of worldly relationships; they do not have the courage, nor the faith, let alone the determination, so they cannot love and obey God” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Only by Recognizing One’s Own Misguided Views Can One Truly Transform). What God’s words exposed was exactly my state. From childhood, traditional cultural ideas such as “Filial piety is a virtue to be held above all else,” “An unfilial person is lower than a beast,” and “You raised me when I was young, and I will take care of you when you are old” had been instilled in me. I believed that as my parents had raised me with great hardship, if I couldn’t be there for my parents when they needed me to repay them for their kindness in raising me, I would have no conscience and would be berated and reviled by the people around me. I had been deeply poisoned and bound by these traditional cultural ideas. When my mother broke her arm, I felt indebted to her because I couldn’t be by her side to take care of her due to the pandemic and being busy with my duty. With my sister-in-law berating me on top of that, I believed even more strongly that I was unfilial, and even looked forward to my duty being reassigned one day so that I could go back and be filial to her. When my mother was hospitalized due to leg pain, I was too busy with my duty to be by her side and take care of her. No matter how my sister-in-law berated me, I didn’t utter a word of protest, believing that it was my fault that my mother was lonely, and that I had no conscience. Although on the surface I didn’t go back to take care of her, my heart was disturbed, so I couldn’t dedicate my heart to my duty, and the sermon work was also affected. Later, when my mother had the car accident, even though I knew that my brother and sister-in-law were there to take care of her, and that going back to look after her would hinder my duty, I worried that if I didn’t go back I would be even more indebted to her, and was also afraid that people would call me an ungrateful wretch and an unfilial daughter. I couldn’t stand up to the pressure of this gossip, and in order to prevent people around me from criticizing me behind my back and condemning me, I put aside my duties and went home to visit my mother, which caused the work to be delayed. Although I received praise from others, I cast my duty aside. My behavior was giving up. It was a betrayal of God. I was an untrustworthy person who incurred God’s loathing! When I understood this, I felt very uncomfortable. I had been bound too tightly by satanic traditional culture and notions of morality, so that I became unable to distinguish right from wrong. The reason I didn’t go back to take care of my mom was that I was busy with my duty and didn’t want to delay the work. This was a positive thing. It was being loyal to my duty, not being unfilial. However, when my sister-in-law berated me, I had nothing to say in response, and felt self-reproachful and indebted. I believed that I was unfilial and that it was my fault. I was clearly aware that God requires people to hold to their duty, but I still cast my duty aside to go back and take care of my mother, delaying the work. This was a real manifestation of a lack of conscience. However, when the villagers approved of me, I still felt comforted. I didn’t feel indebted to God for delaying the work, but, on the contrary, I felt that I had fulfilled my filial duty and was a person with a conscience. I really didn’t know right from wrong! I did not cherish my duty at all, and had no loyalty at all to God. Instead, I put “Filial piety is a virtue to be held above all else” first, and when there was a conflict between doing my duty and being filial to my parents, I chose to delay the work in order to satisfy my fleshly feelings. I was truly too selfish! I had the profound realization that Satan uses these traditional cultural ideas to corrupt and bind people, making me put my parents at the center of everything, regard them as the most important, and even betray God in order to take care of and be filial to my parents. If I continued to live by satanic traditional cultural ideas, I would certainly be eliminated by God in the end.

I continued to ponder. I had always thought that it was not easy for my mother to raise me, and that if she couldn’t get anything in return from me, then she would have raised me in vain. Therefore, I always wanted to repay her for her kindness in raising me. Was my point of view correct? I read the words of God: “There is a saying in the world of nonbelievers: ‘Crows repay their mothers by feeding them, and lambs kneel to receive milk from their mothers.’ There’s also this saying: ‘An unfilial person is lower than a beast.’ How grandiose these sayings sound! Actually, the phenomena that the first saying mentions, crows repaying their mothers by feeding them, and lambs kneeling to receive milk from their mothers, really do exist, these are facts. However, they are simply phenomena within the animal world. They are merely a kind of law that God has established for various living creatures, and by which all kinds of living creatures, including humans, abide. The fact that all kinds of living creatures abide by this law further demonstrates that all living creatures are created by God. No living creature can break this law, and no living creature can transcend it. Even relatively ferocious carnivores like lions and tigers nurture their offspring and do not bite them before they reach adulthood. This is an animal instinct. No matter which species they are, whether they are ferocious or kind and gentle, all animals possess this instinct. All kinds of creatures, including humans, can only continue to multiply and survive by abiding by this instinct and this law. If they didn’t abide by this law, or didn’t have this law and this instinct, they wouldn’t be able to multiply and survive. The biological chain wouldn’t exist, and neither would this world. Isn’t that true? (Yes.) Crows repaying their mothers by feeding them, and lambs kneeling to receive milk from their mothers demonstrates precisely that the animal world abides by this kind of law. All kinds of living creatures have this instinct. Once offspring are born, they are cared for and nurtured by the females or males of the species until they become adults. All kinds of living creatures are able to fulfill their responsibilities and obligations to their offspring, conscientiously and dutifully raising the next generation. This should be even more the case for humans. Humans are called higher animals by mankind—if they cannot abide by this law, and lack this instinct, then humans are lower than animals, aren’t they? Therefore, no matter how much your parents nurtured you while they were raising you, and how much they fulfilled their responsibility to you, they were only doing what they ought to within the scope of the abilities of a created human—it was their instinct. … All kinds of living creatures and animals possess these instincts and laws, and they abide by them very well, carrying them out to perfection. This is something that no person can destroy. There are also some special animals, like tigers and lions. When these animals reach adulthood, they leave their parents, and some males even become rivals, biting, contending, and fighting as necessary. This is normal, it is a law. They are not governed by their feelings, and they do not live amid their feelings like people do, saying: ‘I have to repay their kindness, I have to recompense them—I have to obey my parents. If I don’t show filial piety to them, other people will condemn me, berate me, and criticize me behind my back. I couldn’t bear that!’ Such things are not said in the animal world. Why do people say such things? Because in society and within groups of people, there are various incorrect ideas and consensuses. After people have been influenced, corroded, and rotted by these things, different ways of interpreting and dealing with the parent-child relationship arise within them, and they ultimately treat their parents as their creditors—creditors that they will never be able to repay their whole lives. There are even some people who feel guilty for their whole lives after their parents die, and think themselves unworthy of their parents’ kindness, because of one thing they did that didn’t make their parents happy or didn’t go the way their parents wanted it to. Tell Me, is this not excessive? People live amid their feelings, so they can only be encroached upon and disturbed by various ideas stemming from these feelings” (The Word, Vol. 6. On the Pursuit of the Truth. How to Pursue the Truth (17)). “Outwardly, it appears that your parents gave birth to your fleshly life, and that it was your parents who gave you life. But, from God’s perspective, and from the root of this matter, your fleshly life was not given to you by your parents, because people cannot create life. In simple terms, no person can create man’s breath. The reason why the flesh of each person is able to become a person is because they have that breath. Man’s life lies in this breath, and it is the sign of a living person. People have this breath and life, and the source and origin of these things are not their parents. It is just that people were produced by means of their parents giving birth to them—at the root, it is God who gives people these things. Therefore, your parents are not the masters of your life, the Master of your life is God. God created mankind, He created the lives of mankind, and He gave mankind the breath of life, which is the origin of man’s life. Therefore, isn’t the line ‘Your parents are not the masters of your life’ easy to understand? Your breath was not given to you by your parents, and much less is its continuation given to you by your parents. God looks after and rules over every day of your life. Your parents cannot decide how every day of your life goes, whether each day is happy and goes smoothly, who you meet every day, or what environment you live in each day. It is merely that God looks after you through your parents—your parents are simply the people that God sent to look after you. When you were born, it was not your parents who gave you life, so was it your parents who gave you the life that allowed you to live until now? It still wasn’t. The origin of your life is still God, and not your parents” (The Word, Vol. 6. On the Pursuit of the Truth. How to Pursue the Truth (17)). From God’s words I understood that my mother’s ability to take care of me and raise me was entirely down to God’s sovereignty and ordination. Although my flesh was born from my mother, and it was my parents who raised me, so that on the surface it appeared that the credit belonged to my parents, all this only happened because of God’s sovereignty and arrangements. The breath in my lungs is given by God; if God had not given me this breath, then however carefully my parents tried to raise me it would have been to no avail. Moreover, raising the next generation is a law that God has set for all living things. All living things can only multiply and survive when they exist according to the laws set by God. There is no concept of repaying kindness in this at all. It is just like how an adult bird carries insects in its beak to feed its chicks until its chicks are able to fly the nest and survive on their own. The adult bird does not need any repayment from its chicks. Likewise, God has also given humans this instinct. When my mother raised me to adulthood, she was just fulfilling her responsibility. It was not kindness and there is no such thing as repayment of it. However, I had been conditioned and indoctrinated by satanic traditional culture, and regarded my mother as my benefactor. I believed that she had raised me with great hardship, and now that she was ill and hospitalized after the car accident, I should repay her kindness in raising me and be filial by her side, not caring even if my duty was delayed. God, however, provided me with my life, arranged for my parents to take care of me, and graced me by allowing me to come before Him to enjoy the watering of His words, understand some truths, have the opportunity to do a duty, and be able to pursue a change in my disposition through doing my duty to obtain God’s salvation. I should repay God’s kindness earnestly. However, I hindered my duty in order to repay kindness from a person. This was a true lack of conscience, and truly being an ungrateful wretch! Now I understood that even if I am too busy with my duty to take care of my mother and am criticized and condemned by those around me, it doesn’t matter. Their condemnation is not in line with the truth, nor can it determine anything. Still less can it determine a person’s outcome or destination. Only a person who listens to God’s words, acts according to God’s words, and holds to the duties entrusted to them by God is a person who truly has conscience; only this kind of person can obtain God’s approval.

Later, I read some more of God’s words, and found a path of practice for when conflicts between doing my duty and being filial to my parents come upon me. God says: “Regardless of whether your parents call you an uncaring ingrate, at least you are doing the duty of a created being before the Creator. As long as you are not an uncaring ingrate in God’s eyes, that’s enough. It doesn’t matter what people say. What your parents say about you isn’t necessarily true, and what they say isn’t useful. You need to take God’s words as your basis. If God says that you are an adequate created being, then it doesn’t matter if people call you an uncaring ingrate, they cannot accomplish anything. It is just that people will be impacted by these insults due to the effect of their consciences, or when they do not understand the truth and their stature is small, and they’ll be in a bit of a bad mood, and feel a little depressed, but when they return before God, all of this will be resolved, and won’t pose a problem for them anymore. Has the matter of repaying the kindness of one’s parents not been resolved? Do you understand this matter? (Yes.) What is the fact that people need to understand here? Raising you is your parents’ responsibility. They chose to give birth to you, so they have a responsibility and an obligation to bring you up. By raising you into an adult, they are fulfilling their responsibility and their obligation. You do not owe them anything, so you do not need to recompense them. You don’t need to recompense them—this clearly shows that your parents are not your creditors, and that you do not need to do anything for them in return for their kindness. If your circumstances allow you to fulfill a bit of your responsibility to them, then do so. If your environment and your objective circumstances do not permit you to fulfill your obligation toward them, then you don’t need to give it too much thought, and you shouldn’t think that you are indebted to them, because your parents are not your creditors. No matter if you show filial piety to your parents, or fulfill your responsibility to them, you are just assuming the perspective of a child and fulfilling a bit of your responsibility to the people who once birthed and raised you. But you certainly cannot do this from the perspective of recompensing them, or from the perspective of ‘Your parents are your benefactors, and you must recompense them, you must repay their kindness’” (The Word, Vol. 6. On the Pursuit of the Truth. How to Pursue the Truth (17)). God’s words made my heart much clearer and brighter. I have to submit to God’s sovereignty and arrangements in the matter of being filial to my parents. If the conditions allow, then as a daughter I should fulfill my responsibilities and take care of them to the extent that I am able in their lives. If objective conditions do not allow it, then I should hold to my duty first, not worry too much about what others think, and not be constrained by these opinions or let the performance of my duty be affected. In this world, I do not only have my identity as a daughter. I am also a created being, and my whole being comes from God. Fulfilling the duty of a created being is my mission, and something that is perfectly natural and justified for me to complete. If I don’t have time to be filial to my parents because of doing my duty, God will not condemn me. The thing I should focus on most right now is doing my duty well, screening valuable sermons as quickly as possible to solve the problems of potential gospel recipients and enable more people to return to God.

Later, I was too busy with my duty to go back and take care of my mother, and sometimes I worried about how my mother’s health was recovering. However, I then thought that she was also in God’s hands, and that I should submit to God’s orchestration and arrangements. I no longer felt uncomfortable and didn’t feel indebted to my mother anymore. God’s words have given me a correct understanding of what being filial is and what being unfilial is, and I have also gained some discernment of how Satan uses traditional culture to bind people. I have also found the path to treating my parents correctly, which has liberated my heart a little bit. Thank God!