By Lan Yu, China

The winter afternoon sunlight was gentle and soft, shining through the window onto the windowsill, filled with plants, and several pots of flowers and plants eagerly soaked up the nourishing sunlight. Lan Yu looked out the window, feeling a breath of freedom. She had been sentenced to three years and four months for believing in God, and she had just been released. Her older sister had also been arrested twice, and her father had been arrested and sentenced to three and a half years. After their release, they remained under close surveillance as key targets of the CCP government. They had each been separated for over ten years, unable to reunite. Later, with the help of her brothers and sisters, Lan Yu got in touch with her father, and the longing that had been sealed for over a decade became uncontrollable. At last, she would be able to see her father that she had missed for so long! Filled with excitement, Lan Yu rushed to the place where she would reunite with her father. As she was about to reach her destination, through the car window, Lan Yu saw an elderly man in the distance standing next to a taxi, a mask covering half of his face. Lan Yu carefully examined the elderly man, and suddenly, she furrowed her brows and stared wide-eyed at the old man—Wasn’t that her father, whom she hadn’t seen in fourteen years? Gray hair peeked out from under his hat, and the once strong man she remembered no longer stood as upright. The thin man stood by the roadside, looking around for something. As her car turned a corner and stopped, Lan Yu eagerly opened the car door and rushed toward her father. She fought to hold back the tears that were about to flow and gently called out, “Dad!” Her father responded with, “Hey!” His eyes were already moist as he responded, urging her, “Quick, get in the car. Let’s go home.”

The sun set in the west, and the evening glow painted every corner of the town red. The chill of winter was gradually setting in, and though the wind brushed against Lan Yu’s face, she didn’t feel cold. After entering the house, her father hurriedly tidied the bedding and asked Lan Yu what she wanted to eat, and she found herself enveloped in warmth and happiness. Turning her head, she suddenly saw a CT scan hanging on the wall, and as she opened the door to the inner room, she noticed bags of medicine on the table. Lan Yu guessed that her father must be unwell, and she couldn’t help but feel worried. After dinner, Lan Yu and her father talked about their experiences over the years, and she learned that her father had contracted tuberculosis twice in prison. His lungs were severely damaged, and he would wheeze and cough as soon as he caught a cold. In the past two years, he was also diagnosed with gallstones. He’d recently been taking medication to control it; if it worsened, he would need surgery. Because of the constant harassment by the CCP’s police forces, her father hadn’t dared to contact brothers and sisters for over nine years and hadn’t been able to live a church life, and brothers and sisters could only secretly send her father the latest words of God, experiential testimony videos, and so on. Listening to her father recount these things, Lan Yu felt very upset. Her father had suffered so much because of the CCP’s persecution, and as his daughter, she hadn’t done anything for him, feeling that she’d been quite unfilial. Later, when Lan Yu’s relatives found out that she’d been released from prison, they called her, repeatedly urging her, “Your father’s getting old, and his health isn’t good; he needs someone to take care of him. Now that you are back, you should get a job, earn money, and take care of him.” The words of her relatives echoed through her heart, and she thought, “My father raised me, and he also brought me before God, and taught me to choose the right path in life. Now that he’s old and sick, I should fulfill my responsibility as a daughter, and be by his side to talk with him and take care of him so that he can spend his days happy.” Lan Yu then consulted doctors online regarding her father’s condition, and she worked hard to earn money so her father wouldn’t have to worry about not having enough money for medicine and treatment. Lan Yu really wanted to spend more time with her father, and every time she saw a smile on her father’s face, she felt happy.

One day, Lan Yu came home from work, and her father told her that a letter from the leaders had come. The letter said that since the police could come and harass Lan Yu at any time while she was at home and she couldn’t do her duty there, and since the church urgently needed people for text-based duty, they hoped she could leave home to do her duty. After reading the letter, Lan Yu felt a mix of joy and worry. She hadn’t done duties for several years, and as a created being enjoying all that God had given her, her conscience felt uneasy. But Lan Yu couldn’t stop worrying about her father. Recently, her father’s illness had worsened, and his gallbladder hurt every day. If she left, who would take care of him if he needed surgery one day? If she left to do her duties, there would be no one around to bring him water or medicine. Lan Yu remembered hearing her father once say, “Because your sister is wanted and you were arrested and sentenced, our relatives criticized and complained about me, and the villagers avoided me.” Her father had had no one to share his pain with, and he’d become so negative and weak that he’d even considered ending his life. But later, by remembering God’s words, he came out of his negativity. Lan Yu was very worried, thinking, “What if I leave home to do my duty, and my father does something foolish in his suffering? He’s getting old and needs someone to care for him; what will my relatives and friends think of me if I leave home? Won’t they say I’m unfilial and lacking in humanity? But I won’t be able to do my duty at home. Since being released from prison, the police have already called several times asking me to report to the station and sign a statement of repentance.” Just thinking about a future of endless police harassment in which she would be unable to attend gatherings or do her duty, Lan Yu ultimately decided to leave home to do her duty. But when she walked out of her bedroom and saw her father’s frail figure through the living room window, it was as if she was seeing her father alone at home after she left, with no one to be with him. She went back to her bedroom, crying as she prayed to God, “God, I want to do my duty, but I’m worried that there won’t be anyone to take care of my father. My father is getting old, but I won’t be around to be filial to him. I keep feeling that in doing this, I’m utterly lacking in humanity. God, this decision is so difficult. Please enlighten and guide me so that I can understand Your intentions.”

After praying, Lan Yu read God’s words. “If, based on your living environment and the context you find yourself in, honoring your parents does not conflict with you completing God’s commission and performing your duty—or, in other words, if honoring your parents does not impact your loyal performance of your duty—then you can practice them both at the same time. You do not need to outwardly separate from your parents, and you do not need to outwardly forsake or reject them. In what situation does this apply? (When honoring one’s parents does not conflict with the performance of one’s duty.) That is right. In other words, if your parents do not try to hinder your belief in God, and they are also believers, and they really support and encourage you to perform your duty loyally and complete God’s commission, then your relationship with your parents is not a fleshly relationship between relatives, in the regular sense of the word, and it is a relationship between brothers and sisters of the church. In that case, aside from interacting with them as fellow brothers and sisters of the church, you must also fulfill a few of your filial responsibilities to them. You must show them a bit of extra concern. As long as it does not affect the performance of your duty, that is, so long as your heart is not constrained by them, you can call your parents to ask them how they are doing and to show a bit of concern for them, you can help them to resolve a few difficulties and handle some of their life problems, and you can help them to resolve some of the difficulties they have in terms of their life entry—you can do all of these things. In other words, if your parents do not obstruct your belief in God, you should maintain this relationship with them, and you should fulfill your responsibilities to them. And why should you show concern for them, take care of them, and ask them how they are doing? Because you are their child. Since you have this relationship with them, you have another kind of responsibility, and you must ask after them a little more and provide them with more assistance. So long as it does not affect the performance of your duty, and so long as your parents do not hinder or disturb your faith in God and your performance of your duty, and they do not hold you back either, then it is natural and fitting for you to fulfill your responsibilities to them, and you must do this to the extent where your conscience does not reproach you—this is the lowest standard that you must meet. If you cannot honor your parents at home due to the impact and hindrance of your circumstances, then you do not have to hold to this regulation. You should put yourself at the mercy of God’s orchestrations and submit to His arrangements, and you do not need to insist on honoring your parents” (The Word, Vol. 6. On the Pursuit of the Truth. What It Means to Pursue the Truth (4)). “God demands different things of different people; He has distinct requirements for them. Those who serve as leaders and workers have been called by God, so they should accept God’s commission and forsake everything to follow Him; they are not able to stay with their parents and honor them. That is one kind of situation. Regular followers have not been called upon by God, so they can stay with their parents and honor them. There are no rewards for doing this, and they will not gain any blessings as a result of it, but if they do not show filial piety, then they lack humanity. In fact, honoring one’s parents is just a kind of responsibility, and it falls short of the practice of the truth. It is submitting to God that is the practice of the truth, it is accepting God’s commission that is a manifestation of submission to God, and it is those who forsake everything to do their duties who are followers of God. In sum, the most important task that lies before you is to perform your duty well. That is the practice of the truth, and it is a manifestation of submission to God” (The Word, Vol. 6. On the Pursuit of the Truth. What It Means to Pursue the Truth (4)). Lan Yu pondered God’s words, and she realized that being filial toward one’s parents is a responsibility that they should fulfill, and that, under circumstances where it doesn’t affect one’s duty and the situation allows, one can fulfill their filial responsibilities toward their parents. However, if conditions don’t permit, then one must choose based on the situation and the duty they are doing. Just like some brothers and sisters who haven’t been arrested by the CCP and who don’t shoulder important work in the church, these people can take care of their parents while doing their duties. But some people face pursuit and persecution from the CCP, and they can’t do their duties if they don’t leave home, so in such situations, they can’t just think about taking care of their parents—they must prioritize their duties. Lan Yu thought about how, although she could take care of her father at home, the CCP police would always harass and threaten her, and so she couldn’t do her duties at home. There was a shortage of people for the text-based duty, and she had to consider the church’s work. As created beings, apart from their responsibilities to their parents, people should moreover worship the Creator and fulfill their duties as created beings. Lan Yu remembered that the Lord Jesus said: “He that loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me” (Matthew 10:37). God requires people to forsake everything to satisfy Him, just like Peter and John did. They were able to make the decision to leave behind their parents and family affections to follow the Lord and preach the gospel, and in God’s eyes, they had humanity. Lan Yu used to think that those who weren’t filial to their parents had the worst humanity, but now she understood that God measures whether a person has humanity not by whether they are filial toward their parents, but by whether they can do their duties as a created being well to satisfy Him. Lan Yu thought about how she hesitated and overthought things when facing her duty, always worrying about her father, and unable to do her duty. But even if she became a highly praised filial child, she wouldn’t be loyal to God, and God wouldn’t approve. She realized that what was most important at this point was doing the duty of a created being, and that only this was the value of her life. With this in mind, Lan Yu felt a sense of liberation and was willing to leave home to do her duty.

Lan Yu ended the three-month reunion with her father, and left home to do her duty elsewhere. But deep down, she still felt worried and concerned for her father, and she felt guilty, always thinking about when she could go back again to visit. Once, a sister cooperating with her went home to take care of something, and when she thought about how this sister would reunite with her family, she couldn’t keep her heart at peace any longer. With her eyes fixed on her computer, the image of her father sitting in a chair waiting for her to come home filled her mind. Had the police harassed him? How was his state? Had his illness gotten worse? What would her relatives and friends say about her leaving home when her father was still ill? Lan Yu’s mind was consumed with these thoughts, and she couldn’t focus on her work at hand. She realized her state was wrong, so she prayed to God. During her devotionals, she read 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. … 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 were very clear. When people leave their parents to do their duties because of their belief in God, this is not being unfilial, because their intention is not to evade responsibility, but to do the duty of a created being. Those Christians in the Age of Grace, for example, left their parents and children to spread God’s gospel throughout the world, which was the most just thing among humanity. Lan Yu also wanted to be filial before her father, and hoped to accompany his father and help him spend his later years in peace. She also wanted their whole family to gather, read God’s words, and share their experiential understanding. But as she lived in an atheistic country with no religious freedom, the CCP didn’t allow people to believe in God or walk the right path, and if she stayed by her father’s side, she’d be unable to do her duty. Moreover, God’s work is about to finish, the great catastrophes have already begun, and there are still many people who have not accepted God’s work of the last days. Propagating God’s gospel and bringing more people before Him was her duty, and she was different from those who avoided their responsibilities and didn’t want to be filial to their parents. Understanding these things, her heart was no longer so disturbed or constrained. Later on, in her spare time from doing her duties, Lan Yu wrote letters to her father to communicate her state. After a while, she received a letter from her father, which said that her cousin had found a prescription for treating his gallstones, and that he was now taking his second course of medication. The stones in his gallbladder were smaller than before; he wasn’t in as much pain as before, and his state had improved a lot. Upon reading this, Lan Yu was moved to tears, and she felt God’s mercy and blessing.

Once, Lan Yu was chatting with a host sister, and the sister said that her children would send her money every so often, and that when they visited her, they would buy her things. Lan Yu thought about how she had been away from home for almost a year but she dared not call her father or buy him clothes or supplements due to the CCP’s persecution. As a daughter, she had never done anything for her father despite having already grown up. She constantly felt indebted to her father, and she had a feeling of unease in her heart. Later, she sought, pondering why she always felt indebted to her father. She read 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?” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Only by Recognizing One’s Own Misguided Views Can One Truly Transform). She realized from God’s words that from childhood, she had been influenced by the traditional ideas of “Filial piety is a virtue to be held above all else” and “Parents raised me when I was young, so I must care for them in their old age.” She thought that since her parents had put so many years of effort into raising her, she should be filial to them, and when they grew old, she should care for them and see them off at the end, feeling that this was what it meant to have a conscience. So she was reluctant to leave home and do her duty, fearing that she would be accused of being an unfilial child and an ingrate. Seeing her partner return home to visit her parents, Lan Yu felt envious, and wallowing in her feelings of indebtedness toward her father, she couldn’t focus on her duties. She realized that Satan precisely uses these seemingly plausible thoughts and ideas to mislead and control people, causing people to only think about repaying their parents’ kindness and not to fulfill their duties as created beings. If she continued to hold on to these traditional ideas, she’d just end up being fooled and harmed by Satan, and in the end, she’d distance herself from God, betray God, and ultimately be abandoned by God. Satan is truly insidious and malicious!

Lan Yu then read more of God’s words and gained ways of practice. Almighty God says: “In any case, by raising you your parents are fulfilling a responsibility and an obligation. Raising you into an adult is their obligation and responsibility, and this cannot be called kindness. If it cannot be called kindness, then is it not something that you ought to enjoy? (It is.) This is a kind of right that you should enjoy. You should be raised by your parents, because before you reach adulthood, the role that you play is that of a child being brought up. Therefore, your parents are just fulfilling a kind of responsibility toward you, and you are just receiving it, but you are certainly not receiving grace or kindness from them. For any living creature, bearing and looking after children, reproducing, and raising the next generation is a kind of responsibility. For example, birds, cows, sheep, and even tigers have to take care of their offspring after they reproduce. There are no living creatures that do not raise their offspring. It’s possible that there are some exceptions, but there are not many of them. It’s a natural phenomenon in the existence of living creatures, it’s an instinct for living creatures, and it cannot be attributed to kindness. They are just abiding by a law that the Creator set out for animals and for mankind. Therefore, your parents raising you isn’t a kind of kindness. Based on this, it can be said that your parents are not your creditors. They are fulfilling their responsibility to you. No matter how much of their heart’s blood they expend for you and how much money they spend on you, they should not ask you to recompense them, because this is their responsibility as parents. Since it is a responsibility and an obligation, it should be free, and they should not ask for compensation. By raising you, your parents were just fulfilling their responsibility and obligation, and this should be unpaid, and it should not be a transaction. So, you do not need to approach your parents or handle your relationship with them according to the idea of recompensing them. If you do treat your parents, pay them back, and handle your relationship with them according to this idea, that is inhumane. At the same time, it is likely to make you restrained and bound by your fleshly feelings, and it will be hard for you to emerge from these entanglements, to the extent that you might even lose your way” (The Word, Vol. 6. On the Pursuit of the Truth. How to Pursue the Truth (17)). After reading God’s words, she understood that raising children is part of a parent’s responsibility and it is a law and principle set by God for people. Her father had raised her and brought her before God, and this was the responsibility given to him by God. She shouldn’t treat her parents’ raising and educating her as a kindness, nor should she constantly think about trying to repay it, but instead, she should treat it correctly. She also realized that it was God who arranged her parents and family, and that it was God who was watching over and protecting her. She thought back to when she was 18 years old. One time, on her way home after work, she crashed her motorbike into a large pile of dirt on the roadside. She did a full flip in the air and landed on her back in the middle of the road just as a large truck was approaching. The driver slammed on the brakes, coming to a stop just a few feet before running over her. In that life-and-death moment, even if her parents had been by her side, they wouldn’t have been able to protect her. From behind the scenes, it was God who kept her safe, allowing her to survive. She also thought about the years she spent in prison. Her father could only worry about her, but he was powerless to do anything. Whenever she felt negative and weak, she would recall hymns of God’s words, and through the guidance of God’s words, she understood God’s intentions and gained faith. She experienced that God alone was her true reliance, and that the One she was most indebted to was God, and that she should submit to God and fulfill her duty to repay God’s love. If she only thought about being filial toward her parents without doing her duty, that would be the behavior of someone lacking humanity. After understanding these things, she gained a clear path for practice in her heart, and she became willing to do her duty well to comfort God’s heart.

Before she knew it, almost two years had passed since she last saw her father. She would occasionally receive letters from him, in which he’d tell her that the police were still harassing him, that he had been sick and was taking medicine, and that sometimes he felt negative, lost, and lonely. Upon reading these things, she would feel a bit worried and concerned about her father, but then she’d think of God’s words: “Your parents are in God’s hands, so what is there still to worry about? Any worries one might have are superfluous. Each person will smoothly live according to God’s sovereignty and arrangements until the end, reaching the end of their path, without any deviation. So, people don’t need to worry themselves about this matter anymore. Whether you are filial, whether you have fulfilled your responsibilities toward your parents, or whether you should repay your parents’ kindness—these are not things you should think about; they are things you should let go of” (The Word, Vol. 6. On the Pursuit of the Truth. How to Pursue the Truth (16)). She understood that her father was also in God’s hands, that whatever situations he was to experience had all been arranged by God, and that what God arranges is always suitable. Lan Yu thought of how, when she had been at home, her father had suffered severe gallbladder pain, but though she’d felt distressed, she’d been unable to do anything to help. All she’d been able to do was remind her father to take his medicine, but nothing else. She also thought about how her father had been negative and weak, even wanting to commit suicide, and without her by his side, it had been God who’d enlightened and guided him to understand God’s intentions. It was God’s words that led and guided him, giving him the faith to experience these situations. She saw that God is always watching over and protecting people behind the scenes, that her worries were unnecessary, and that she should entrust her father to God and simply focus on doing her duty well. When she thought this way, she was able to let go of her concerns and worries about her father. Whenever she had time, she would write letters to her father, talking about her state, sharing her recent insights and gains, and when her father’s state was bad, she fellowshipped God’s words with him. Lan Yu no longer wallowed in a state of feeling indebted to her father; she was able to settle her heart and focus on her duty. From the bottom of her heart, she thanked God for His guidance!