By Fudan, Africa
I come from Africa and I was born in a Catholic family. Now, I work as an engineer in a cement plant. Having sought the truth for several years, one day I had the privilege of accepting God’s work of the last days. Since then, I have lived a life of happiness. I read God’s words every day, and always have meetings with the brothers and sisters as well as perform my church duties. I feel I get greatly nourished in my spirit and gain a lot from all this. What I especially thank God for is that God helped me gain some knowledge of His authority through the practical experience of performing my duties.
In early April 2017, a sister informed me that our church would hold an exchange meeting online from 8:30pm to 11:30pm on the 23rd of that month, and I was asked to share a testimony of my experience in the meeting. I knew this was an opportunity for me to cooperate with God by preaching the gospel, testifying to Him and repaying His love. I felt so excited. However, when I was happily waiting to attend the meeting, something happened in my work unit: The porcelain kilns shut down ahead of schedule unexpectedly. I work in a cement plant, and my duty is to maintain the equipment. In normal times, the equipment is running all year round. Once it stops, that means we will have a large project to do. So we had been preparing for a large project, which was planned to begin on April 24th. Two days before our exchange meeting, I was asked to work the night shift, from 7pm of April 23rd to 7am of 24th. So there was a clash between my work hours and the time of our exchange meeting, which made me feel very anxious. I did not know how I could make sure that I could attend the exchange meeting and fulfill my church duty, because I had to lead a group of workers from South Africa and Germany to their worksites to work and they were all newcomers. From 7pm to 9pm, I needed to be with them to ensure safety, prepare the workplace and collaborate with the construction team. Then I still had to do a lot of work supervising the workers and making sure they could use the equipment properly, resolving any unexpected problems raised so that the work could proceed as normal, providing enough raw materials and making sure they were being used rationally, and checking safety procedures. Besides, the workers would ask me whenever they had problems because only I was familiar with our unit’s requirements, and I had to explain them to them. … I was clearly aware of the heavy workload for this project. But I also knew it was important to share my experience in the exchange meeting and testify about God to more brothers and sisters. I should not miss performing my duty because of my job. But how could I perform my duty properly under such circumstances? It was a dilemma.
At that time, I thought of God’s words, “The work of God never waits for any that cannot keep pace with Him, and the righteous disposition of God shows no mercy to any man.” So I hurried to find this passage of God’s words, wanting to understand more of God’s will. I saw these words, “I have already said to you all that I should say; the road that you select is your choice alone. What you should understand is this: The work of God never waits for any that cannot keep pace with Him, and the righteous disposition of God shows no mercy to any man.” (“Christ Does the Work of Judgment With the Truth”). God’s words guided me, making me even more assured that I should entrust my duty to Him because He works so quickly. I knew I should choose to satisfy Him first.
Moreover, I thought of God’s words, “The more you are asked to serve in coordination with others, the more experience you will gain. Due to having more burdens and experiences, you will gain more opportunities to be perfected. Therefore, if you can serve God with sincerity, then you will be mindful of God’s burden; as such, you will have more opportunities to be perfected by God. It is just such a group of people that is currently being perfected. … If you do not seek out opportunities to be perfected by God, and if you do not strive to be ahead of the pack in your seeking of perfection, then you will ultimately be filled with remorse. The best opportunity to attain perfection is the present; now is an extremely good time. If you do not earnestly seek to be perfected by God, once His work has concluded, it will be too late—you will have missed the opportunity. No matter how great your aspirations, if God is no longer performing work, then regardless of the effort you put in, you will never be able to attain perfection. You must seize this opportunity and cooperate while the Holy Spirit does His great work. If you miss this chance, you will not be given another one, no matter what efforts you make” (“Be Mindful of God’s Will in Order to Attain Perfection”).
From God’s words, I got a feeling for God’s love for me. God was giving me a chance to cooperate with Him practically. Now is the time when God is doing the work of the last days and is the golden opportunity for us to gain the truth by cooperating with Him and repaying His love. This opportunity will not last too long. If I missed this golden opportunity, I would not be perfected afterward. I recalled when I believed in the Lord in a religious context. I was confused by many questions and always at a loss. But since then, God had saved me by His clear teachings. He had bestowed plentiful life on me, given me this rare opportunity of understanding the truth and being perfected, and shown me a real way of life. I had to testify to His salvation of me in the exchange meeting, which is a job He had entrusted me with, not others. Performing my duty faithfully meant standing witness; failing to perform my duty equated to losing the testimony. At that time, I knew clearly in my heart that I was part of a spiritual war. God was looking at me, so I wouldn’t disappoint Him. I thought: “During my lifetime, I will try my best to perform my duty properly in every environment He has orchestrated for me. I can put off or refuse to do everything except my duty, which is a behavioral principle for all Christians.” Therefore, I resolved to attend the exchange meeting no matter what would happen. However, I still did not know how to resolve the practical problems in my work. Therefore, I continued reading God’s words, and a passage of God’s words helped me a lot.
God says, “Where you will go every day, what you will do, who or what you will encounter, what you will say, what will happen to you—can any of this be predicted? People cannot foresee all these occurrences, much less control how these situations develop” (“God Himself, the Unique III”).
God’s words made me understand that we cannot foresee anything much less control how it happens and develops. Only God can decide and control everything. The effects of our work do not depend on the effort of anyone. We should not give the credit to anyone for the success of a project. Whether someone is injured in the course of a project and whether the project can be done well does not depend on our preparations. On the contrary, everything is decided by God. What I can do is to do everything that lies within my power. What’s more, whether our company earns money, whether people are willing to buy our products, and whether our company operates smoothly are all decided by God. So I should believe in His sovereignty and obey what He arranges for me. This is what a smart person would do.
I remembered God has said, “One must use wisdom in every aspect and use wisdom to walk My perfect way. Those who act within My word are the wisest of all, and those who act in accordance with My word are the most obedient” (“Chapter 49” of Utterances of Christ in the Beginning). So I began to consider how to resolve my problem. In our unit, when the workers have to do something important outside of work, they go to the hospital and tell the doctor they are ill, and then they ask the doctor to write a two-day sick leave note. Then they will say to their colleagues, “Look! I’m ill. The doctor has allowed me to have a rest for two days.” This way, they do not need to go to work. But if I did this, I wouldn’t be able to find a person to take my place so quickly. Even if I could find one, he would have to work for 24 hours without cease, which would make him tired. Moreover, I did not want to lie. I said to myself, “No. That is not wise.” Then I thought: “How about continuing to work after attending the meeting?” But it wouldn’t do. All the members were newcomers. They had never gone to our worksites and they were not familiar with many things. I didn’t want to imagine the scene of nineteen newcomers waiting for me at a loss for three hours in a strange factory. Though I could not think of a good solution, due to the leadership of God’s words, I was willing to rely on God and await Him to prepare and reveal a perfect solution for me.
In a twinkling, April 23rd came along. In the morning, when I practiced my spiritual devotions, I listened to two hymns: “Rise Up, Cooperate With God” and “Marching on the Path of Loving God,” of which the lyrics greatly encouraged me: “Since I’ve chosen to love God, I will be faithful to the end. … To love God, we shouldn’t be restrained by anyone or anything. Let’s give up everything and be devoted to God, so that He can have rest earlier. …” Spurred by these lyrics, I wanted to shoulder my responsibility in the duty God had given me and testify to Him to more people in the exchange meeting. This is what I had to do as a created being and as an expression of loving God. Thus, I prayed to God, “O, God! I know this situation has been arranged by You and You hope I can practice the truth. I’m willing to stand witness for You, but I haven’t thought out a solution for my work problem. God, may You give me a way out. …” Just when I prayed, God gave me an idea, and I couldn’t help saying out loud, “I can go to the worksite earlier and try to prepare everything before the exchange meeting, and then I can attend the meeting and see how God leads me.”
That afternoon, I went to my unit and clocked in at five thirty. I prayed to God secretly in my heart, “God, I want to attend the exchange meeting of our church so that I can bear witness for You. Now I’m at work here, but I have to leave at eight fifteen to attend the meeting, because I want to obey You first and I know everything is in Your hands. I’m willing to accept anything that happens in this situation.” So, at six, I went to the worksite and did the preparation for the night shift with the day shift construction team. At seven o’clock, I joined the night shift construction team, and all the work ran well. Usually, some unexpected problems would occur in the course of our work, which might take several hours to resolve. But there were no problems this time and everything went well. The workers in the team said to me, “We’re professional and experienced. We can finish the eight-hour project within three hours and you don’t need to supervise us.” After hearing this, I was very glad and felt that was part of God’s preparation. At eight twenty-five, I sat down in a small meeting room and attended the exchange meeting of our church as planned. During the whole meeting, I threw all of myself into it without being disturbed. The project also ran smoothly, the workers did a good job without my supervision, and the machines functioned properly without any breakdowns. In a word, everything went well. And although my internet connection was bad, every brother and sister could hear clearly when I shared my testimony. These were all God’s wondrous deeds. From this experience, I understand that God rules over all living and non-living things. I praise God from the bottom of my heart.
In the following thirty plus days, there was still a clash between my work and the regular meetings from 8:30pm to 11:30pm on Wednesdays and Sundays. I knew the same method could be applied to allow me to attend these regular meetings. Of course, I felt it was easier after that because I had seen God’s authority in my practical experience and realized that all things function normally within His orchestration. Nothing is difficult with God’s presence. What I needed to do was to obey God’s sovereignty and rely on Him to fulfill my duty.
Now, I have more faith in all things that I do and I am no longer worried about anything because I know God commands everything and I have seen God’s sovereignty through these practical experiences. Thank God for arranging these situations for me this month. I hope I can experience more and have more knowledge of Him, and attain a love for Him and satisfy Him. Amen!
