God allows you to experience all kinds of adversity, frustrations, and tribulations, as well as many failures and setbacks. In the end, through the process of allowing you to experience these things, God makes you realize that all He has said is correct and the truth. At the same time, He makes you realize that what you think and imagine, as well as your notions, knowledge, philosophical theories, philosophies, and the things you learned in the world and which were taught to you by your parents are all wrong, and that these things cannot guide you onto the right path in life, and cannot lead you to understand the truth or come before God. If you still live by these things, then you are walking the path of failure, as well as the path of resisting and betraying God. In the end, God will make you see this clearly. This process is something you must experience, and it is only in this way that results can be achieved, but it is also a painful thing for God to see. People are rebellious and have corrupt dispositions, so they must suffer a bit, and experience these setbacks. Without this suffering, they would have no way of being purified. If a person truly has a heart which loves the truth, and is truly willing to accept God’s various methods of salvation and to pay the price, then there is no need for them to suffer so much. God does not actually want to make people suffer so much, and does not want to make them experience so many setbacks and failures. However, people are too rebellious; they are unwilling to do as they are told, unwilling to submit, and unable to walk the right path or take shortcuts; they only go their own way, rebel against God and resist Him. People are corrupt things. All God can do is hand them over to Satan and put them in various situations to constantly temper them, thereby allowing them to gain all kinds of experiences and learn all kinds of lessons, and to come to understand the essence of all kinds of wicked things. After that, when people return and take another look, they will realize that God’s words are the truth, admit that God’s words are the truth, and admit that God is the reality of all positive things, and the One who truly loves, worries about, and can save people. God does not want people to suffer so much, but humans are too rebellious, want to take the wrong path, and want to go through this suffering. God has no choice but to put people in various situations to constantly temper them. To what extent are people ultimately tempered? To the extent that you say, “I have experienced every kind of situation, and now I finally understand that apart from God, there is no person, event or thing that can make me understand the truth, that can make me enjoy the truth, or that can make me enter the truth realities. If I obediently practice according to God’s words, obediently stay in man’s place, uphold my status and duty as a created being, obediently accept God’s sovereignty and arrangements, have no further complaints nor desire extravagant things from God, and can truly submit before the Creator, only then will I be someone who truly submits to God.” When people reach this level, they truly bow down before God, and God need not set out any more situations for them to experience. So, which path do you wish to take? No one, in their subjective desires, wants to suffer, and no one wants to experience setbacks, failure, difficulties, frustrations, or adversity, but there is no other way. People have satanic natures; they are too rebellious, and their thoughts and views are too complicated. Every day, your heart is in constant contradiction, strife, and turmoil. You understand few truths, your life entry is shallow, and you lack the power to overcome the notions, imaginings, and corrupt dispositions of the flesh. All you can do is take man’s usual approach: constantly experiencing failure and frustration, constantly falling down, being buffeted by hardship, and rolling around in the muck, until a day comes when you say, “I’m tired. I’m fed up. I don’t want to live like this. I don’t want to experience these failures. I am willing to come before the Creator in obedience; I shall listen to what God says, and do what He says. Only this is the right path in life.” Only on the day you are fully convinced and admit defeat will you be able to come before God. Have you come to understand something of God’s disposition from this? What is God’s attitude toward people? No matter what God does, He wants the best for people. No matter what situations He sets out or what He asks you to do, He always wishes to see the best outcome. Say you go through something and encounter setbacks and failure. God does not wish to see you discouraged when you fail, think you are finished and have been snatched by Satan, then give up on yourself, never find your feet again, and plunge into dejection—God does not wish to see this outcome. What does God wish to see? That while you may have failed in this matter, you are able to seek the truth and reflect on yourself, find the reason for your failure, accept the lesson this failure has taught you, remember it in the future, know that it is wrong to act this way and that only practicing according to God’s words is right, and realize, “I am a bad person. I have a corrupt satanic disposition. There is rebelliousness in me. I am far from the righteous people of whom God speaks, and I do not have a God-fearing heart.” You have seen this fact clearly; you have come to recognize the truth of the matter, and through this setback, this failure, you have gained some sense and matured. This is what God wants to see. What does maturing mean? It means that God can gain you, that you can be saved, that you can enter into the truth realities, and that you have embarked on the path of fearing God and shunning evil. God hopes to see people take the right path. God does things with earnest intentions, and all of this is His hidden love, but people often can’t sense this. People are narrow-minded and extremely petty. The moment they can’t enjoy God’s grace and blessings, they complain about God, become negative, and act out in anger, but God doesn’t hold it against them. He just treats them like ignorant children and does not nitpick them. He lays out circumstances for people that let them know how grace and blessings are obtained, let them understand what grace means to man, and what man can draw from it. Say you like to eat something that God says is bad for your health when eaten in excess. You do not listen, and insist on eating it, and God allows you to make that choice freely. As a result, you get sick. After experiencing this several times, you realize that the words God speaks are actually right, that what He says is true, that you must practice according to His words, and that this is the correct path. So, what comes from the setbacks, failures and suffering that you experience? For one thing, you can sense God’s earnest intentions. For another, it makes you believe and feel sure that God’s words are right and that they are all practical, and your faith in God grows. On top of that, by experiencing this period of failure, you come to recognize the veracity and accuracy of God’s words, you see that God’s words are the truth, and you understand the principle of practicing the truth. And so, it is good for you to experience failure—though it is also something which makes you suffer, and which tempers you. But if being tempered thus ultimately makes you return before God, makes you understand His words and accept them into your heart as the truth, and makes you come to know God, then the tempering, setbacks and failures you experienced will not have been in vain. This is the result that God wishes to see.

—The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. How to Identify the Nature Essence of Paul