Facing Gains and Losses With a Smile and Calmness

By Chenchen
In our entire life, with great reluctance, we always lose what we are obsessed with; meanwhile, unknowingly, we always gain what we are dismissive of. Obsession, which is fruitless, can only increase the burden in our simple lives. We become pained, perplexed, bitter, and helpless because of our persistence in our own pursuits. But as the years go on, we gradually see through these things and then our mind becomes tranquil.
The process of becoming mature is also the process of learning to give up. Only when we put aside our desires, can we gain more. Throughout our lives, we are always struggling for fame, vanity, status, and love. Even if we clearly know the sufferings it will bring to us, we still want to give it another try. Once, I asked a friend who admired a girl, “Why are you still trying to charm her, since she evidently won’t say yes?” He replied, “I am not willing to give up easily.” I had nothing to reply but could only sadly watch him making efforts for love. Finally, without any fruit, he was tired, pained and had to give up. After going back and forth and through many failures, my friend learned his lesson and became lowkey. As an outsider, I didn’t know whether to rejoice at his maturity or grieve for his unstarted love.
It is said that human life is full of eight sufferings: suffering of birth, suffering of old age, suffering of sickness, suffering of death, suffering of being apart from loved ones, suffering of being together with ones we despise, suffering of not getting what one wants, and suffering of not able to lay down what one should lay down. I once asked, “What does man live for?” Someone replied, “For suffering.” “Why are we always suffering?” “Because we can’t gain what we want, or lay down what we should lay down.” Yes, we have been fighting against fate all our life, always confidently believing our fates are in our own hands. Only from loss after on loss can we realize the great truth. However, when looking back, we will find the best times have already gone, yet we’ve gained nothing, and years of strife have been in vain.
Fortunately the Creator doesn’t abandon us who live in misery. To save us from the painful life, He uses His words to wake up our heart and spirit. By chance, I saw a passage of God’s words on a gospel website, “Because people do not recognize God’s orchestrations and God’s sovereignty, they always face fate defiantly, with a rebellious attitude, and always want to cast off God’s authority and sovereignty and the things fate has in store, hoping in vain to change their current circumstances and alter their fate. But they can never succeed; they are thwarted at every turn. This struggle, which takes place deep in one’s soul, is painful; the pain is unforgettable; and all the while one is frittering away one’s life. What is the cause of this pain? Is it because of God’s sovereignty, or because a person was born unlucky? Obviously neither is true. At bottom, it is because of the paths people take, the ways people choose to live their lives. … If people cannot truly recognize the fact that the Creator has sovereignty over human fate and over all things of human, if they cannot truly submit to the Creator’s dominion, then it will be difficult for them not to be driven by, and fettered by, the notion that ‘one’s fate is in one’s own hands,’ it will be difficult for them to shake off the pain of their intense struggle against fate and the Creator’s authority, and needless to say it will also be hard for them to become truly liberated and free, to become people who worship God” (“God Himself, the Unique III”).
This passage allows me to know the root cause of why we can’t treat gains and losses correctly. It is that we don’t recognize the sovereignty and arrangements of the Creator. Thus we always struggle against our own fate to try and show our capability. Once defeated, we will blame others and sink into negativity. We cannot accept we are so weak, cannot view our powerlessness correctly, much less forgive our defeat. We seem to forget that we are just ordinary men in this world. We do not have the magic touch, nor can we control our fate; the only thing we can do is to do whatever we are capable of and obey God’s sovereignty.
No matter whether they are near-illiterate farmers or wise scholars, they can all subconsciously feel the existence of fate. More and more people find that Heaven’s will can only be touched and felt with our hearts. There are many unexpected things throughout our eventful years, through which, we can know the authority and power of the Creator and see the goodness and good intention of God. I think only when we realize that Heaven’s will represents the unavoidability and irreversibility of fate, can we know the Creator’s power of ruling over everything; only when we understand the Creator is responsible for our life, can we correctly treat gains and losses.
The Bible records a man who gained God’s praise. He is Job. Facing the loss of his vast wealth and children, he could treat it calmly, and express from the bottom of his heart, “… Jehovah gave, and Jehovah has taken away; blessed be the name of Jehovah” (Job 1:21). That he could rationally treat the gain and loss, stemmed from his knowledge of and true faith in God. He knew that all he had, including his wealth, was not because of his labor, but granted by God.
Job’s attitude toward God’s blessings is what we should each imitate. We should always thank God for His sovereignty, no matter what we gain or lose in our life. Only by doing so can we live freely.
Postscript:
The Creator has already prepared everything for us. We should thank and feel fortunate for His blessings.
The Creator has made a good plan for our life. We should not face it defiantly and negatively, but rather learn to obey His ordination, and unknowingly, we will see that His plan for our lives is the most suitable.