God’s Word Is a Lamp to My Feet: The Guide of My Life

God’s Word Is a Lamp to My Feet: The Guide of My Life

Yang Huan’ai

As parents, we all hope to provide a better learning environment for our children, so that they can become successful and live a comfortable life in the future. However, in today’s society, it’s difficult for those parents who are not powerful or rich to send their children to prestigious schools. As a result, choosing schools for children has been a worry to many parents, including me.

This year, my son just graduated from elementary school and was soon to study at a middle school. To help him attend a good school, I accompanied him to a prestigious school for his entrance exam. At that time, the school would only enroll 500 students, but there were nearly 3,000 students taking that exam. When seeing the gate of the school was packed with a lot of students who are sitting for the examination and their parents, I thought to myself: How tough the competition is! It seems unlikely for my boy to attend this school. Yet despite this, after the exam was over, we still waited for the notice at home, hoping against hope.

During that time, I feared to miss any phone call. I called back immediately once I found missed calls, for fear that if I missed the phone call from the school, my son’s future prospect would be delayed. However, one week later, we didn’t receive his exam results yet, which made me somewhat discouraged and disappointed. I thought: There is no hope of my son’s attending that school. Then he said to me: “Mom, I don’t want to attend XX school. It’s bad and there are many bad students. I still wanna go to XX (another prestigious school), for both its teaching quality and school spirit are good.” On hearing these words, I became even more tormented inside. I thought: I can do nothing about it. Our family is not rich and my husband’s job is unstable. Moreover, we have to repay high housing loans, pay the education costs of two sons, and also support three elders. All these have already overwhelmed me. We don’t have extra money to grease the wheels to send you to that prestigious school. The problem of choosing a school for him troubled me deeply. I was in great distress and could only go before God to pray and seek, asking Him to guide me out of the difficulty. After prayer, I thought of God’s words: “A person cannot choose the people or factors under whose edification and influence he or she grows up. One cannot choose what knowledge or skills one acquires, what habits one forms. One has no say in who one’s parents and relatives are, what kind of environment one grows up in; one’s relationships with the people, events, and things in one’s surroundings, and how they influence one’s development, are all beyond one’s control. Who decides these things, then? Who arranges them? Since people have no choice in the matter, since they cannot decide these things for themselves, and since they obviously do not take shape naturally, it goes without saying that the formation of all this rests in the hands of the Creator.” “Since the conditions under which a person grows up are predetermined long in advance, the environment in which one lives during this process is also, naturally, predetermined. It is not decided by a person’s choices and preferences, but is decided according to the Creator’s plans, determined by the Creator’s careful arrangements, by the Creator’s sovereignty over a person’s fate in life”. Thank God! God’s words are so practical. From His words, I understood that our fates are in the hands of God. Not to mention which school my son would go to, whether he would learn to do ill and how his future would be are also in the hands of God. Moreover, prestigious schools will not always produce good students. Just like my neighbor’s child, though his parents spent much money sending him to a famous school, his examination results were still lamentable. By contrast, my friend’s daughter studied at an ordinary school at first. But Later, she passed into an ideal high school with distinction without paying any extra money.

Looking back, in choosing a school for my son, the reason that I was distressed and confused was due to not having a true understanding of the Creator’s sovereignty. Afflicted by satanic poisons, like “Only good schools can cultivate good students” and “Knowledge changes the fate of man,” I believed that as long as a child went to a prestigious school, he would get excellent scores, and then he would stand out, enjoy great success and be an important person in the future. These were irrational ideas instilled in me by Satan. Just as God says: “Wherever one is, whatever one’s job is, one’s means of living and the pursuit of one’s goals bring one nothing but endless heartbreak and irrelievable suffering, such that one cannot bear to look back. Only when one accepts the Creator’s sovereignty, submits to His orchestrations and arrangements, and seeks true human life, will one gradually break free from all heartbreak and suffering, shake off all the emptiness of life”. In reality, everyone’s fate has long ago been predestined by God and all rest in the hands of Him. In retrospect, at first I was intent on studying at a prestigious school, and vainly attempted to change my fate through knowledge. Never did I think that when choosing a school, the opposition from my father made me miss the chance to study at a famous one, though I had been admitted to a good school with excellent performance. Therefore, I complained against my father about his ruining my wonderful future, which caused a great tension between us. Only after believing in God did I know that it was under God’s sovereignty and arrangements. If I attended the famous school at that time, it would have been impossible for me to believe in God today. For example, a friend of mine graduated from a prestigious school. He once was a senior lecturer of a certain company. Later, he set up a firm of his own. Then, to make more money, he frequently mingled with lots of “capable persons” who worked in the Housing Management Bureau and Taxation Bureau. As a result, he was almost arrested for tax evasion, spending days in fear. And there are also many people graduating from famous schools around me. For the sake of pursing a quality life, they use flattery, fight both openly and in secret with colleagues, and seek fame and fortune. On the surface, they enjoy a life of luxury, but actually lead a weary life. In comparison, though I only live on salary, I feel secure every day. Now I understand that knowledge can’t bring us happiness or help us live out a real life. Only when we submit to God’s sovereignty and arrangements and live by His words, can we stay far from Satan’s various afflictions and live under the blessing of God. At that point, my spiritual suffering was alleviated and I was willing to obey God’s sovereignty and arrangements. Then, I decided to share my experience and thoughts with my son, and help him learn to obey the Creator’s sovereignty and arrangements, so that he could stay far from Satan’s affliction.

Thank God for His guidance. Through reading God’s words, my son’s attitude gradually changed. He no longer insisted on attending a famous school, and said, “Mom, let’s submit to God’s sovereignty and arrangements. I’ll go wherever God arranges for me.” I was gratified with his words.

Though my son studies at an ordinary school, both of us can calmly face it and obey God’s orchestration and arrangement. Because we understand God’s will, and know that my son’s fate and future are not determined by what kind of school he attends but are in God’s hands. Thank God! It is His words that guide us to find the right direction!

Jesus Christ is God Himself. The Holy Father, the Holy Son, and the Holy Spirit, They are One. We can know from the bible verses, the Lord Jesus said, “he that has seen me has seen the Father….” (John 14:9) “I am in the Father, and the Father in me….” (John 14:10) “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30).