In the Service
In your coordination with the brothers and sisters who work with you, you should also exercise faith and not have your own choice. You should not say, “I prefer to coordinate and serve with Brother So-and-so.” I can tell you that very often the companion you choose will end up hating you. Today you love him, but he will hate you in the future. It is really strange that none of the companions you choose will work. Therefore, in the matter of coordination you need to learn to leave it in the Lord’s hand and trust in the Lord. Take myself as an example. In these many years of serving the Lord I have not chosen any particular person to be my co-worker, nor have I selected any particular one to receive my training. I do not make my own choice as to whom I would work with, nor do I make my own choice as to whom I would train. Throughout all these years the Lord has been arranging everything for me; I just learn to trust in Him and to exercise faith rather than struggling by myself or having my own demands, choices, inclinations, and preferences. Of course, we should also not have any anxiety or worry, but we should believe that whenever we have a particular need, God knows about it. This is faith.
THE EXERCISE AND LEARNING NEEDED
FOR ENDURING SUFFERINGS
Another thing that all of God’s serving ones should learn is to exercise to endure sufferings. This is also a most necessary item of the Christian character. This does not mean that we should create or seek out sufferings for ourselves; rather, it means that we should learn to suffer. What is a suffering? Anything that is not according to our desire is a suffering to us. As a northerner, I grew up eating food made from wheat and seldom ate rice. In the fall of 1934 I was invited to work in Pingyang, Wenchow, where it was impossible to buy authentic northern steamed bread, even with gold. At that time I had indigestion due to a serious stomach ulcer. This kind of illness is very sensitive to the fall weather. After I arrived in Pingyang, the saints served me rice every day. The strangest thing was that the rice that the southerners cooked was dry and hard, unlike the rice that the northerners cooked, which was sticky. Even before I ate the rice, I was scared just to look at it, and I wondered how I would be able to [426] digest it. During that time I gave messages two or three times a day, in addition to service meetings. Eventually, I had indigestion due to the half-cooked rice, and my body was weakened.
When the saints saw this, they took extra efforts to find someone to make steamed bread for me. At that time I had been eating steamed bread for thirty years, so the first day that I saw the smooth, shining surface of the bread that they brought me, I knew that the inside was still raw and not thoroughly leavened. I dared not say anything because it would have been improper to do so. When the saints served the bread, I just ate it. They said that the bread was the best local bread because it was made by the only person who knew how to make that kind of bread. I just had to eat it. This is what it means to suffer.
Brother Watchman Nee had a similar story. He was a southerner. He began to labor for the Lord in 1921 around the age of twenty. One time he was invited to work in Hsuchow, in Anhwei Province, north of the Yangtze River. The northerners did not have regular beds. They slept on brick beds warmed by a fire underneath. In order to provide hospitality for Brother Nee, the saints borrowed a bed that had a framework of metal strips without any bedding except a bed sheet. They told Brother Nee, “We borrowed this bed especially for you.” Thus, Brother Nee slept on a bed of metal strips, something he had never before experienced.
When we go forth to work for the Lord, we have to learn to commit ourselves to the circumstances. We cannot expect the circumstances to always be accommodating to us and working for us. This is impossible. Some of you will go to different towns and villages for propagation. You do not know what kind of circumstances you will be in, what kind of things you will encounter, and how much financial support you will receive. Everything is an unknown. Therefore, you need to live by faith and learn to suffer. You should arm yourselves with a mind to suffer so that you can be a good soldier of Christ. Peter also exhorts us to follow the Lord with the mind of Christ, a mind to suffer (1 Pet. 4:1). When a real soldier goes to fight at the frontline, the environment is beyond his control. Therefore, he has to get ready in ordinary times by exercising to endure sufferings.
We said earlier that anything that is not according to our desire is a suffering. For example, we may be afraid that others will snore, [427] yet it may happen that the one who sleeps on the same bunk bed with us snores terribly. We should not say that we cannot take it. Instead, we have to exercise. If we have such a mind, it will take us only a week’s exercise to be able to fall asleep. If we do not pay attention to a certain thing, we will not suffer because of it, but once we direct our attention to it, we will suffer. Hence, to learn to suffer is to learn not to be mindful of anything.
That time while I was eating the uncooked steamed bread, I was really not able to eat it, but I remembered that the Lord had said, “Into whatever city you enter and they receive you, eat what is set before you” (Luke 10:8). So I prayed, “Lord, You said that we should eat what is set before us; now they have set before me something raw, so I should eat it raw.” Eventually, I ate it. Thank and praise the Lord that my stomach problem was not worsened, although I indeed became thinner. A month later Brother Nee had a conference in Hangchow, so I finished my work and rushed to that conference. When I arrived there the next day, he was speaking on the podium. Once he saw me, he said, “Alas! Brother Witness is as thin as a stick!” Afterward in the next meeting, he shared in the message that co-workers who go out to labor for the Lord should learn to suffer hardships.
We must learn to endure hardships if we intend to work for the Lord. We should not forget that as soldiers we must be ready to go to war, not to attend a feast. As a result, we need to get ourselves prepared. When we go out to spread the gospel, we have to prepare to go to the battlefield to suffer. We have to pave the way for ourselves in every matter. We need to take care of our living quarters and find a way to prepare our meals. In dealing with gospel friends or brothers and sisters we must learn to relate to them on their level. All these things require us to exercise faith and to learn to suffer.