Today, what you have come to understand is higher than that of any person throughout history who was not made perfect. Be it your knowledge of trials or the belief in God, it is all higher than that of any believer in God. The things you understand are what you come to know before you undergo the trials of environments, but your real stature is completely incompatible with them. What you know is higher than what you put into practice. Though you say that people who believe in God should love God, and should strive not for blessings but only to meet God’s will, what is manifested in your lives is a far cry from this, and has been greatly tainted. Most people believe in God for the sake of peace and other benefits. Unless it is to your benefit, you do not believe in God, and if you cannot receive God’s graces, you fall into a sulk. How could what you have said be your true stature? When it comes to inevitable family incidents such as children falling ill, loved ones being hospitalized, poor crop yields, and persecution by family members, even these oft-occurring, quotidian matters are too much for you. When such things happen, you are thrown into a panic, you do not know what to do—and most of the time, you complain about God. You complain that God’s words tricked you, that God’s work made a mockery of you. Do you not have such thoughts? Do you think such things happen among you only rarely? You spend every day living amid such events. You do not give the slightest thought to the success of your faith in God, and how to meet God’s will. Your true stature is too small, even smaller than a little chick’s. When your family’s business loses money you complain about God, when you find yourself in an environment without God’s protection you still complain about God, and you complain even when one of your chicks dies or an old cow in the pen falls ill. You complain when it is time for your son to get married but your family does not have enough money; you want to perform the duty of hosting, but cannot afford it, and then you also complain. You are overflowing with complaints, and you sometimes do not attend gatherings or eat and drink the words of God because of this, sometimes becoming negative for a great length of time. Nothing that happens to you today bears any relation to your prospects or fate; these things would also happen even if you did not believe in God, yet today you pass responsibility for them to God, and insist on saying that God has eliminated you. What of your belief in God? Have you truly offered up your life? If you suffered the same trials as Job, none among you who follow God today would be able to stand firm, you would all fall down. And there is, quite simply, a world of difference between you and Job. Today, if half your assets were seized you would dare to deny the existence of God; if your son or daughter were taken from you, you would run the streets crying foul; if your only way to make a living reached a dead end, you would try and take it up with God; you would ask why I said so many words in the beginning to scare you. There is nothing you would not dare to do at such times. This shows that you have not gained any true insights, and have no true stature. Thus, the trials in you are too big, for you know too much, but what you truly understand is not even a thousandth of what you are aware of. Do not stop at mere understanding and knowledge; you had best see how much you can truly put into practice, how much of the enlightenment and illumination of the Holy Spirit was earned through the sweat of your own hard work, and in how many of your practices you have realized your own resolve. You should take your stature and practice seriously. In your belief in God, you should not try to merely go through the motions for anyone—whether or not you can ultimately gain the truth and life depends on your own pursuit.

—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Practice (3)