Not By Sight

(Translation of Chinese post 安息中作工 )

At a gathering in 2008, I responded to God’s “3A Covenant.” In love and faithfulness, He invited me to covenant with Him that I would be ready to follow Him Anytime, Anywhere, and in Anything. The following year, I went alone to Kazakhstan. In the years from 2009 to 2025, God has led me to cities of all kinds: impoverished, war-torn, prosperous, diverse, lonely, bustling, historic, and emerging. He taught me to speak, count, find my way, take public transport, buy phone cards, pay utility bills, and participate in His banquet. To my surprise, He encountered me in unfamiliar places amidst the crowds.

One day, Jesus asked me, “Do you want to be healed?”
I replied, “Lord, am I sick? Didn’t you call me to Your work precisely because I grew up in a loving and healthy environment?”

The thought of “being sick” never crossed my mind, so I never considered “healing” to be something I agreed to when I made the covenant with God to follow Him in anything. In the first few years on the field, God stirred life through my immature hands, foreigner’s feet, and babbling mouth. I witnessed firsthand the healing and rebirth of the blind, the lame, and the paralyzed. I saw “the water moving” and thought it was the result of my diligent work.

In 2015, God suddenly directed me to leave the field in Central Asia, hand over the ministry in two months, clear out my rented apartment, and say goodbye to my spiritual family. He didn’t explain, nor did He tell me where my next stop would be. He knew me well. I am strong-willed, and would go anywhere and do anything for the needs of humanity and the ideal of a loving God. One day on a high-risk front line, where few could reach, Jesus asked me again, “Over the years I have proven to you that I alone am the Lord of the Sabbath, and only in My rest can you truly do my work—by becoming the work of my hands.”

He continued, “People of all kinds, rich and poor, noble and lowly, are reluctant to rely on me because of their fear of lack and fear of losing control. Independence results in self-reliance. Thus people feel compelled to bake bricks, lay mud, build the tower of Babel, to build the pyramids, to build the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. People build winter villas and summer yachts. They gather the elite from across the world, and says “let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth. (Genesis 11:4)”

“In order to expose your false gospel of self-reliance, I reveal to you that I am the God who ‘dispersed the nations,’ and also the Lord of Sabbath who ‘brings all things to Oneness’. Apart from me, you can do nothing, and no one can do anything to you without my permission. You rushed to the front lines of the battlefield, where the ugliness of human nature was displayed to the extreme, in order to uphold your faith and protect what you love. Aren’t you tired? Do you realize that only I can defend my own glory and protect my beloved children? Do you want to be healed?”

I replied, ”Lord, I want to be healed, but when the waters rise, no one helped me…There are many others who need it more than I do…there are many others who are diligently digging channels to bring water [to the needy], and I want to do that too…”
The Lord said to me: “Get up, pick up your mat and walk!”
Me: “Mat? What is my mat? Didn’t I give up everything to follow You the year I graduated?”
The Lord asked, “What has sustained you all these years? What has supported you and those around you? In what circumstances could you feel comfortable to lie down in peace?”

I understood that Jesus was referring to my control, discipline and efficiency that was created out of fear and anxiety. From a young age, I was naturally timid and introverted. Amidst the challenges of growing up, studying, immigrating, and navigating cross-cultural environments, I became self-disciplined and controlling. I slept in my school uniform so I would be dressed for school the next day. As soon as a school year ended and summer vacation commenced, I would immediately begin preparing for the next semester’s assignments. I only dared to participate in group discussions after I had read all relevant books. I was a friend who often went without sleep to meet the needs of others. I was a missionary who could only lie down peacefully after having prepared three sets of contingency plans and three backup sets of files. I wanted to become a child who wouldn’t make God or others worry, so I became exceptionally disciplined and considerate, always giving to others and making sure never to take or become a liability.

I had never truly heard and accepted Jesus’ teaching to His disciples that only those who were “empty and poor in spirit” (Matthew 5:30) could embrace the Kingdom of Heaven within their hearts. Over the course of years, the spiritual life of Jesus extinguished my fears of shame, indebtedness, suffering, and death. For over a decade, Jesus allowed me to experience the destruction and fragmentation of my controlled, disciplined self, before He sent me into three years of spiritual wilderness. I felt resentment, anger, tears, helplessness, despair, and even the urge to give up.
I had to acknowledge that He is the God who governs my life and loves me, though I was deeply offended by Jesus’ own choice to enter into suffering, and He does not exempt humanity from suffering.

The Gospel message of Jesus’ incarnation went from being head knowledge to being part of my experiential heart knowledge. When I finally surrendered my self-reliance, the Heavenly Father gently said, “I am the perfect, pure, and good Lord. I do not need anyone, but I want you. I do not want to use you to accomplish anything for me, but I want to love you until your life is the accomplishment of my love.”

“Are you willing, starting today, to pick up your mat on the Sabbath and become My work in My rest? I scattered you and your forebears across the land due to war, international strife, economic needs, and educational ideals, not to flee the pursuers of Egypt, but to invite you to rely on me in the wilderness where you had nothing and knew nothing, so that you might be united with my Sabbath rest.”

Jesus continued, “Pick up the mat of control, efficiency and discipline that you once lay on out of fear of being a burden to others! As you carry it, you will walk slowly. You will be constantly reminded that what supports you is no longer your meticulous planning, your self-reliance or your thoughtfulness. The mat in your hands will constantly remind you to live in the Lord’s Sabbath rest. Only the work done in My rest can truly heal, and you must no longer allow the sins of flesh and human will to prevail!”

“At the same time, pick up the mat and walk vulnerably to those around you, revealing that you were once a paralyzed person and a sinner. Testify that you were forgiven of your sins by my precious blood, and that from now on, you will walk each step forward in my faithfulness. Whenever people talk about you, whether to your face or behind your back, don’t maintain an image of perfection or spiritual maturity.”

“Remain in Me. You no longer have your own good reputation or image. I am the ‘One’ in our Oneness. However, each time you feel anxiety and fear, immediately call upon Me, so that you may know that it is Me who heals, not your devoted service or spiritual example.”

The Heavenly Father spoke to me, “’For the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing. And greater works than these will he show him, so that you may marvel. For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will (John 5:20-21). Each time you humbly surrender and enter My rest, you may marvel at the life of My Son in you! You live because He live in you; you transcend external fears with inner peace because Chris is the Lord of your rest.”

“Daughter, the knowledge you learn, you can pass on; the life you experience can become a testimony of resurrected life. Knowledge enables one to distinguish friend from foe, but the resurrected life can transform enmity into friendship, between God and man, and between men.”
“Your era cannot bear further division; it needs Jesus’ resurrected life, which brings reconciliation and unity.”

It is now ten years later. In December 2025, God again gave me two months to empty my rented apartment and pack my belongings. Since graduation, packing belongings has become easier, but packing relationships and feelings has become increasingly difficult. As I considered the mat that the Lord called me to pick up, I said to my Heavenly Father, “In these past days, I have fully experienced the weight of Your grace. Like the paralytic at the pool of Bethesda, I still feel that when the water moves, I am powerless to resist. I still feel ignorant of how and when your hand moves. I ask that you would be the Sabbath rest for me and my loved ones for the next ten or twenty years, until we all become masterpieces of love in Your rest.