Date:September 27, 1948
I was born into a Christian family. At the age of sixteen I heard Paget Wilkes in a conference and came to realize that I was a sinner and needed the Savior. From that time onward I believed in the Lord Jesus as my Savior. Once I went with my brother to cast out a demon. The demon knew that we were Christians and was scared. It left the man, and our faith was strengthened. When I was in school, I knelt down to pray three times a day. Once when I was praying, I seemed to hear a voice, saying, "Just as I have saved you, you should save others." I asked the Lord whether I should be a preacher and told Him that I was willing to be one. Since that day I have not heard any voice.
In February of 1931 our school invited Brother Nee to come to preach the gospel. He preached on the subject "There Is God." After I heard it, I felt that it was different from other preachings. After this, I often went to Wen-teh Lane in Hardoon Road, Shanghai, to meet with the brothers. In fact, I did not go to any other place. At that time Brother Nee asked me to take shorthand notes of the meetings. I have been doing that since then. Once I was deceived by Satan. Brother Nee told me that everything Satan says to us is false and should be rejected. I was bothered by Satan so much that I became confused in my mind and sick for a few months. I could not focus my thoughts. I was full of confusion and fear even while I was sleeping. I called on the name of the Lord, saying, "Lord, I am afraid." Soon the fear left me, and my sickness gradually went away.
Once the Lord's word came to me: "Seek Jehovah while He may be found;/Call upon Him while He is near" (Isa. 55:6). I went to the meetings of the church in Shanghai. I was willing to seek Him and to call upon Him. There I saw many people handing over their all. I was touched to do the same thing. After that, I came to Kuling. Brother Nee wanted me to take shorthand notes again. I said I could not do it because my head hurt. Brother Nee said that I should not worry and that the headache was not my business. I said, "My head belongs to me. How can you say that it is not my business?" He told me just to work anyway. As I was taking the notes of Brother Nee's message on "The Holy Spirit, the Church, and Resurrection," I began to believe his words. The Lord's resurrection power uplifted me and sustained me to continue in my note taking.
The messages on the mountain show me how subjective, proud, and self-loving I have been. I also have discovered a strange phenomenon: My head hurts under certain circumstances and does not hurt under other circumstances. Whenever I set my mind on unrelated subjects, my head hurts. But whenever I reject these distracting things, my head stops hurting. Within my being I discovered that my mind is mixed up with God's will, my feelings, and Satan's accusations. When my mind is under control, my condition improves. Since 1935 Brother Nee has been telling me that my mind needs to come under control. Yet even today, I have not learned this lesson well. I feel that Satan, the father of liars, is always tempting me to think wild things. I can only ask my dear Lord who loves me to control my thoughts.
Our brother is very strong in his mind. Before the Lord our mind should be as simple as possible. Your thoughts are wild, active, and complicated. Even while you are being dealt with, you cannot stop thinking, and your thoughts run out of your control. This makes it difficult for you to get through before God. It also prevents you from having a straight pathway.
During these years you have accumulated enough knowledge and heard enough messages, but you have not denied yourself enough. You are still very self-centered. Those who are discouraged are all self-centered. The same is true with those who love themselves. In fact, a self-loving person is very easily discouraged. Your thoughts are more active and stubborn than others'. Your thoughts probably have gone beyond the spiritual reality you have attained within. They are not real, but false. When a brother rebukes you, your mind suffers a blow. Then your thoughts, which should fall only to the level of the reality you have attained, fall below this point, and you become discouraged.
A self-loving person is very easily discouraged. A mark of those who do not love themselves is that they refuse to spend too much time thinking about themselves. A self-loving person devotes much energy thinking about himself and loving himself. There are two reasons a person cries. First, he is smitten by God, and he cries on account of God's dealing and breaking. Second, he feels sorry for himself because he loves and pities himself too much after God's smiting. In the first kind of crying, there can be praises in the midst of weeping; one acknowledges that what the Lord is doing is right. With the second kind, there is only self-love in the crying. One kind of crying is the result of God's breaking. The other kind of crying is the result of self-love. Our brother is very strong in his mind on the one hand, and very indulgent in self-love on the other hand. For years you have not been able to give up your self. You must reach the point where you no longer think about your self. You have to make a resolution to ignore your self and let your self go from now on. If you do this, your problem will go away.
In your speaking, your spirit was coarse. The feelings of your spirit also were very coarse. If a man has not been smitten and ground by God, his spirit is surely coarse. The degree of fineness of a man's spirit is determined by the amount of breaking and grinding he has received from God.
It is not right for our brother to be discouraged. The cross never discourages a man. The cross always leads to resurrection. Since the time of creation, there has been nothing more positive than resurrection. The cross is very positive because it removes all the undesirable elements in man. God's dealings only cause us to be discouraged about ourselves; they do not cause us to be discouraged about God. It is right for us to be discouraged about ourselves, but we have to be positive towards God.
There are two results to God's dealings through the environment. First, we become defeated, useless, and knocked out on the ground. Second, we experience resurrection. God's smiting is not merely to ruin and destroy a man, but it is also to cause him to rise up once the smiting work is finished. The smiting of the cross ushers us into the realm of resurrection. Some cannot rise up again after they pass through the cross. This means that they are sick and sunken in self-love. The cross is not the last thing that happens to a man. It is a necessary pathway to resurrection. The smiting of the cross may be severe, but it enables a person to rise up. The work of the cross destroys a man completely, even to the point of death. At the same time, however, on the other side of the grave, there arises the hope with God; one feels he can rise and have faith again through Him. Discouragement is not breaking; it is self-love. It is wrong for you to be discouraged for so long. You should say to God, "I am hopeless in myself. I am a hopeless man, but with You there is hope. You are the God of all hope."
You have to learn to continually turn your thoughts away from introspection. Do not look inward or analyze yourself. Introspection and self-analysis will never help us obtain deliverance. Sometimes we wonder how we can understand the things of God without using our mind. But many thoughts will not solve our problems. They are all lies. The best course for you to take is to not turn your mind inward at all. If you are wrong, you have to ask the Lord for His shining and judgment to tell you what is right and what is wrong. Do not try to replace God's light with your own thoughts. If God does not enlighten you, forget about whether or not your inward condition is good or bad. Just take care of God's light, and ignore your own thoughts. You should pray, "Lord, give me light and let me see. I will not replace Your shining with my own thoughts." No one can know whether or not he is right in himself by exercising his own thoughts. Only light will show us where we are. There is no need to set our mind upon ourselves. Simply drop the thoughts. What happens after they are dropped is none of our business. If we try to make it our business, we will come under the enemy's attack. Every self-loving person is under the enemy's attack. The best course of action is to ignore confusing thoughts. We should simply hand ourselves over to the Lord and fling everything into His hand. If we do this, the enemy will not be able to attack us.
Forget about your own confusing thoughts. Do not pay any attention to them. As long as you do not consider yourself so lovable, you will not be discouraged. You should not cherish any love for yourself. Revelation 12:11 says that the brothers overcome Satan by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony, and they loved not their soul-life unto death. Only those who do not love their own soul-life will overcome Satan. You have to look to the Lord absolutely and be freed from your own thoughts. You have to believe that you are crucified with the Lord and are resurrected with Him. If you can ignore the confusing thoughts, you will run a straight course, and your spirit will become tender and fine. Forget about all your problems and resolutely cast your self aside. If you do this, you will find a straight pathway in front of you.
