Eastern Lightning | A Small Blade of Grass That Grew Among the Brambles (Part 2)

A Small Blade of Grass That Grew Among the Brambles

Yixin, Singapore

 The Picture of The Church of Almighty God | A Small Blade of Grass That Grew Among the Brambles (Part 2)

The next day at work my boss once again told everyone that I was going down the wrong path and also said a lot of things that blasphemed Almighty God. Listening to her made me really angry, so I asked her: “What ‘evil’ are you talking about? We are believers in God. Why don’t you investigate the words and work of Almighty God and seek God’s intention instead of blindly condemning and blaspheming Him? Do you really fear and revere God in your heart?” After saying all this I left in a huff. A short while later my boss came looking for me and told me that I should not have lost my temper with her. I said: “I didn’t want to lose my temper but you shouldn’t have said those things. Words that blaspheme, resist, and condemn God are not things that we believers in God should ever say, because they offend Him. Looking from your angle, it may seem that you are doing a good deed by urging me to change my mind. But I’m an adult, and I think things through rationally. The issue of whether or not Almighty God is the return of the Lord Jesus is something that I’ve sought knowledge about and investigated. It’s not something that I just decided to believe in willy-nilly. Please respect my decision, and don’t try and restrict me or prevent me from seeking knowledge about and investigating God’s work of the last days.” My boss then asked me if I’d watched any of the TV programs or read any of the rumors on the Internet about the Church of Almighty God. I replied: “Negative stuff always comes from Satan. What I read are the words of Almighty God, and what I watch are the films, choir videos, and MVs produced by The Church of Almighty God. I don’t watch what you watch. The Church of Almighty God doesn’t allow its members to do wicked deeds, which is exactly the opposite of what you lot are saying. Almighty God demands that we become honest and rational people who have humanity and good consciences.” After listening to what I had to say my boss was at a loss for words, and so she left looking like she had no idea how to deal with me.

After that my boss started picking on me and even started saying sarcastic things about me. I knew that she was trying to force me to abandon my faith in Almighty God. One day, she suddenly said to me: “Yun wants to talk with you when she returns from her business trip.” When I heard that I felt a bit upset and a bit nervous. I thought: “She will definitely try to prevent me from believing in Almighty God. I became a Christian after listening to Sister Yun preaching and she’s a VIP customer in our beauty salon, so if I offend her then the boss won’t be happy and I’ll have even more problems getting along with her in the future.” As the day of Sister Yun’s return got closer I got more nervous and afraid. One afternoon, I was sitting in the VIP room praying to God. I’d just finished my prayer when my phone rang. It was my boss: “Yun is coming soon. Give her a facial.” I wasn’t at all keen to do it but there was no way I could refuse. When I got back to the facial room I put on a recording of hymns of God’s word in order to calm myself in God’s presence. While listening to the hymn “I Am Determined to Love God With My Heart” I heard these lines: “I wish for You to open the eyes of my spirit, I wish for Your Spirit to touch my heart, so that before You I am divested of all passive states, and unconstrained by any person, matter, or thing; my heart I completely lay bare before You, such that my entire being is devoted before You, and You may test me however You wish. Now, I give no thought to my prospects, nor am I bound by death. Using my heart that loves You, I wish to seek the way of life.” God’s words gave me confidence, and gradually I began to feel calmer and more grounded. That’s right: I shouldn’t be restrained by any person, matter, or object when choosing the true way. Since I’ve already decided that Almighty God is the return of the Lord Jesus then I should go with it without the slightest doubt or hesitation. How my boss sees me and treats me and how my relationship with Sister Yun develops is all in God’s hands. I should rid myself of my worries and abide by God’s arrangements. So, I went to face the situation with confidence.

A few minutes later, Sister Yun arrived. I prayed silently to God: “Almighty God, I’m afraid that she’ll say something that blasphemes, resists, condemns and attacks You. I’m also afraid that she’ll hassle me. Please help and protect me, God.” At first, Sister Yun only talked about her business trip to Israel and how successful it had been. Eventually, however, she brought up the topic in a roundabout way: “During the last days there are lots of false Christs and false prophets who try to deceive people …” I didn’t want to hear her say anything that would blaspheme Almighty God so I interrupted her by saying: “Yes, the Lord reminded us in this way so we can guard against those false Christs who imitate the Lord Jesus by manifesting signs and miracles. But the Lord’s intention is to make us develop discernment, not to have us refuse to listen to all people who are spreading the gospel of the Lord’s return. The Lord Jesus said: ‘My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me’ (Jhn 10:27). The Lord will lead us along the true path, so we shouldn’t just worry about being misled by the false Christs of the last days but also consider the Lord’s return during the last days. As long as we seek the Lord then we’ll find the manifestation of the Lord because He has told us that God’s sheep can hear God’s voice.” But Sister Yun didn’t pay any attention to what I said and just repeated the stuff about false Christs deceiving people during the last days and that I should be more careful. Then she said more things about how bad The Church of Almighty God is. I ignored her, and when she saw that I wasn’t going to reply she stopped talking.

But my boss still wasn’t happy about me believing in Almighty God and continued to pick on me and attack me in front of my colleagues. During this period, the brothers and sisters from The Church of Almighty God were always there to fellowship and share God’s words with me so that I could understand God’s intentions. They also told me that God is holy, and that when God created mankind He gave us free will, the freedom to choose. They said that God never forces anyone to do anything but only expresses truths that provide sustenance for us and help us to understand His intentions and differentiate good from evil. It’s similar to when God told Adam and Eve that they could eat fruit from any tree in the Garden of Eden except the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, because if they did they would surely die! That showed that God is essentially benevolent in giving mankind the freedom to choose, and it is only Satan that controls and coerces people, because Satan is evil. So, accepting Almighty God’s work of the last days is each individual’s decision, and nobody is forced into it. The brothers and sisters found a passage of God’s words: “In every step of work that God does within people, externally it appears to be interactions between people, as if born of human arrangements, or from human interference. But behind the scenes, every step of work, and everything that happens, is a wager made by Satan before God, and requires people to stand firm in their testimony to God. Take when Job was tried, for example: Behind the scenes, Satan was making a bet with God, and what happened to Job was the deeds of men, and the interference of men. Behind every step that God does in you is Satan’s wager with God—behind it all is a battle. … When God and Satan do battle in the spiritual realm, how should you satisfy God, and how should you stand firm in your testimony to Him? You should know that everything that happens to you is a great trial and the time when God needs you to bear testimony” (“Only Loving God Is Truly Believing in God” in The Word Appears in the Flesh). The communications with them helped me to understand this passage a little bit better. I now understood that no matter what happened to me, it was always sanctioned by God. God was using these situations to test me to see if I had real faith in Him and to make me develop discernment. God wanted me to see clearly what comes from Him and what comes from Satan, and the trials were to make me learn to rely on God and look up to Him, bear witness for God like Job, and thus humiliate Satan.

With the leadership from God’s words and the assistance of the brothers and sisters, I was able to build a clearer picture of the true way. I was certain that I wasn’t on the wrong path by following Almighty God but was following the footprints of the Lamb. The brothers and sisters from The Church of Almighty God were fellowshiping truths and God’s intentions with me. They were bearing witness to God’s work of saving mankind, and to all that God has and is. They never tried to force me to believe anything, but instead helped me to learn how to discern each kind of voice so that I could make my own decisions freely. But Sister Yun and my boss believed in all the online rumors, and didn’t hesitate to say anything that resisted and blasphemed God in order to coerce me and prevent me from accepting God’s work of the last days. When I didn’t accept their point of view they started to bully me, mock me, and verbally attack me. But I saw clearly that everything they said and did came from Satan, because bullying, coercing, and attacking people are actions that derive from Satan. I thanked God for giving me the ability to see at a glance who comes from God and who from Satan. I now felt that there was brightness in my life and that a heavy weight had been lifted from my heart. I was so grateful to God for incarnating in human form during the last days and expressing so many truths so that every time I was harassed I was able to turn to God’s words and understand His intentions and find a way of practice. I felt so fortunate that through the sustenance provided by God’s words I was able to grow, inch by inch!

At first, I thought that the whole affair had come to a conclusion, so I was surprised when a new round of attacks started. I had just finished giving a customer a beauty treatment when my boss came and took me to the room next door. As we got to the door she told me that Sister Yun was in there waiting for me. I went in, and when I saw that Sister Yun and Pastor Liu and his wife were there I immediately got a bit nervous as I didn’t know what they were going to do. I quickly said a silent prayer to God: “God, they’ve come to talk with me again. Please protect me and help me by giving me wise responses to what they say.” After praying, I no longer felt nervous, and I wondered if they had come to force me to leave Almighty God. And if I refused to, would I lose my job? But then I remembered that everything was in God’s hands and that God’s arrangements were always suitable, so even if I lost my job I wouldn’t leave Almighty God.

Source The Internet

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