By Xiaoran

Lele:

How are you these days? When I heard from you last night, my heart couldn’t calm down for a long time. Thinking back, as we first believed in the Lord, you told me that no matter how rough the path ahead would be, you would follow the Lord all your life. At that time, you had a particularly strong confidence and I always saw your face brimming with a happy smile in the church.

Time flies; now you are a mother of two children. You said in the letter that you feel much pressure: Neither your work nor your husband’s business goes smoothly, and your children disobey you. These things make you feel that all misfortunes come upon you.

You also told me that you are so miserable and depressed that you become a person who often complains, losing your previous obedience and love for the Lord. Besides, you seldom read the Bible or go to the church, which causes a deep gulf between you and the Lord and makes you doubt whether the Lord likes you. Facing unfortunate events, you feel no gratitude but are riddled with suffering and annoyance, and in no mood to sing the song “There Is True Peace in the Lord” anymore. You don’t know how to achieve obedience to God when encountering unfavorable things and adversities.

Lele, I can appreciate how you feel, and I know the pain that we want to obey God but can’t in difficult circumstances. After all, we all like comfort; who is willing to suffer? For us, submitting to miserable environments is like gulping down sand.

So, when unfortunate events and adversities come upon us, what exactly should we do to achieve obedience to God?

1. Correcting the Wrong Views on Belief in God

Lele, we should reflect on how we prayed to the Lord during our faith in Him these years. The most commonly said prayers are: “O Lord, I ask You to give me a good job, and I will worship You faithfully”; “O Lord, I ask You to bestow a happy marriage on me”; “O Lord, I beg You to bless me and my family so that we may have a good business, live a happy life, and my child can enter a good college.” … These are what we’ve pursued since we believed in God.

When God’s blessings come upon us, we feel happy, saying “Thank You, God” repeatedly; while when we face adversity, we complain against God in our hearts, and even become estranged from Him. Why is there such a drastic change in our attitude toward God? It is because of our wrong views of pursuit in belief in God.

Lele, I’d like to share a passage of God’s words with you: “So many believe in Me only that I might heal them. So many believe in Me only that I might use My powers to drive unclean spirits out from their bodies, and so many believe in Me simply that they might receive peace and joy from Me. So many believe in Me only to demand from Me greater material wealth. So many believe in Me just to spend this life in peace and to be safe and sound in the world to come. So many believe in Me to avoid the suffering of hell and to receive the blessings of heaven. So many believe in Me only for temporary comfort, yet do not seek to gain anything in the world to come. When I brought down My fury upon man and seized all the joy and peace he once possessed, man became doubtful. When I gave unto man the suffering of hell and reclaimed the blessings of heaven, man’s shame turned into anger. When man asked Me to heal him, I paid him no heed and felt abhorrence toward him; man departed from Me to instead seek the way of evil medicine and sorcery. When I took away all that man had demanded from Me, everyone disappeared without a trace.”

Our perspectives on faith in God are just as God’s words reveal: “When one believes in the Lord, fortune smiles upon one’s entire family” and “Living in the blossom of the Lord forever.” Our believing in God is to gain His grace and blessings; once we don’t get what we want from Him but encounter some adverse things and hardship, we will blame Him, becoming estranged from Him in our hearts, unwilling to pray or get closer to Him; all these show that our faith in God is impure and unable to withstand the tests and trials. As we know, our life is not always smooth sailing. During our belief in the Lord, it’s unavoidable that we face some environments or agonizing things. If we don’t first solve our incorrect viewpoints on faith in God, it is very difficult to ensure that we can follow Him until the end. Perhaps at a certain time when we face an event which is hard for us to accept, we will betray God and leave Him.

You know what? A little while ago, some misfortunate situations happened to my family. At that time, my spirit became weak, for I couldn’t figure it out: I read the Bible every day and observe church services; why should I encounter such things? Later, I read the passage of God’s words I shared with you above, and then realized that my view about faith in God was wrong: My belief in Him is in order to gain blessings. When God bestowed grace and peace upon me, I felt incredible gratitude to Him, but when facing unfortunate events, I complained against Him and misunderstood Him. Thinking of how I breathed in and out the breath exhaled by God, enjoyed the sunlight and rain He bestowed, and lived on grains He created, yet never thought of repaying Him, but constantly demanded things from Him, I suddenly found myself so irrational and that I didn’t worship God as a created being; I was really despicable and filthy. Then I understood that if we want to obey God, we must first realize that as a creation, submitting to God is natural, right and proper. Only when we have the sense that a creature should possess can we obey Him and not blame Him.

From historical records, we can see an obvious expression of those who followed God is obedience. For example, Abraham was able to obey God’s demand unconditionally, and offered his only son Isaac; the prophet Jeremiah conveyed God’s will all his life and never complained against God when subjected to great suffering and maltreatment; Job was able to obey God’s deprivation and still praised God’s name in trials; and Peter was crucified upside down for God, achieving obedience unto death and the supreme love of God. From them we can see that when they encountered things that didn’t conform to their own notions, they could obey God and have a beautifully resounding bearing of witness. This is mainly because they had a God-revering heart, and possessed the conscience and sense of a creature. They submitted to God just as a servant to his master; no matter how pained they felt at that moment, they still could obey God’s arrangements.

2. Recognizing God’s Earnest Intentions Behind the Adversities

Lele, do you remember Psalms 119:67-68? It says: “Before I was afflicted I went astray: but now have I kept your word. You are good, and do good; teach me your statutes.” Psalms 66:12 says: “You have caused men to ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water: but you brought us out into a wealthy place.” And also, it is written in Isaiah 1:25: “And I will turn my hand on you, and purely purge away your dross, and take away all your tin.”

As unfortunate things befall us, we usually focus solely on the surface, yet don’t know God’s intentions behind them. Just like when Abraham was asked to offer Isaac, he didn’t know God’s purpose was to test him, to allow him to be the father of many nations and to successfully complete His management plan; and also, while Job was undergoing the trials, he didn’t know it was a bet between God and Satan, through which God made Satan abandon its accusations against him and allowed him to be a free person. Though we can’t see or fathom the things of the spiritual world, we should hold on to our faith in God, believing that His essence is love. No matter what God does, it is beneficial to our lives, and the unfavorable and miserable environments make us better able to be perfected. It’s just like crops which can’t produce grain if they only receive the sunshine but don’t suffer the trial of wind, frost, snow and rain.

God’s words say: “If you believe in God’s sovereignty, then you have to believe that everyday occurrences, be they good or bad, do not happen at random. It is not that someone is deliberately being hard on you or targeting you; this was all arranged by God. Why does God orchestrate all these things? It is not to reveal you for who you are or to expose you; exposing you is not the end goal. The goal is to perfect you and save you. How does God do that? He starts by making you aware of your own corrupt disposition, of your nature and essence, of your shortcomings, and of what you lack. Only by knowing these things and having a clear understanding of them can you pursue the truth and gradually cast off your corrupt disposition. This is God providing you with an opportunity. You have to know how to seize this opportunity, and you should not butt heads with God. In particular, when faced with the people, matters, and things that God arranges around you, do not constantly feel that things are not as you wish them to be; do not constantly wish to escape them or always blame and misunderstand God. If you are constantly doing those things, then you are not experiencing God’s work, and that will make it very difficult for you to enter truth reality. Whatever you encounter that you cannot fully understand, when a difficulty arises, you must learn to submit. You should begin by coming before God and praying more. That way, before you know it, a shift will occur in your internal state, and you will be able to seek the truth to resolve your problem. As such, you will be able to experience God’s work. As this happens, truth reality will be wrought within you, and this is how you will progress and undergo a transformation of the state of your life. Once you have undergone this change and possess this truth reality, you will also possess stature, and with stature comes life.”

Actually, we live in sin every day. When God bestows blessings on us, we thank and praise Him, but when some unfortunate things happen in our lives, we complain against Him in our hearts. In comfortable circumstance, we are unable to realize our unreasonable demands of God, and still think we are faithful believers who have a deep love for Him. Through these unfavorable things happening to our families, our attitudes to God and desire for gaining blessings are exposed in the light, which allows us to clearly see our impurities in belief in God and offers us an opportunity to turn around our wrong views on faith in Him. Therefore, these unfavorable things are actually good things, and even more, feasts for us. God hopes that we can simply worship Him without any extravagant thoughts or demands in our hearts, so He uses all kinds of environments to change us. It’s just like when Job was tested. He lost his property and children, and had the sore boils all over his body, but after he experienced these adversities, his faith in God was elevated, and he thoroughly broke free from Satan’s control. So, if we want to have true obedience, we need to seek God’s will in all things we encounter and know His good intentions.

If we can appreciate God’s good intentions, gradually we can submit to the environments He arranges for us, knowing that regardless of what He does, His intention is to save us and offer us a chance to bear testimony for Him. Lele, if you don’t resist these unfortunate environments but accept them as gifts, you’ll feel very grateful, yet if you regard them as burdens, your life will be very tiring and bitter. In short, seeing things from different angles, we will have different gains.

May we all be able to do this: “Rejoice ever more. Pray without ceasing. In every thing give thanks” (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18).

Sincerely Yours,

Xiaoran