HAVING ENTERED THROUGH THE NARROW GATE AND WALKING ON THE CONSTRICTED WAY (4)
A person who is always soaring in the air cannot bear remaining fruit. Perhaps he will say that he gained three last week and two more this week, but after a year he will not gain one as remaining fruit. He may say, “Well, last week I got two. Eventually, I realized that they were not so good, so I gave them up. Now I have found some better ones.” Eventually, however, not one is better, and everyone has to be discarded. Mothers are not like this. Every mother loves her child regardless of the child’s appearance or behavior.
T. Austin-Sparks knew this quite well. He came to visit us in Taiwan for the first time in 1955. He said, “Every mother loves her child. If you are wise, don’t say anything bad about her child. Otherwise, you will offend her.” Once a mother brought her child to him, and this child was not so attractive. But he dared not to say that before the mother. The mother handed over the child to him, and he felt he had to say something. He said, “Oh, what a child!” This was a neutral saying, but this caused the mother to think, “My, what a child I have.” To a mother, all her children are good. We need such a mother’s heart (1 Thes. 2:7). Concerning a new one, we should not say, “He is not good material; I am sure he could never be like the apostle Paul.” If we have such an attitude, we will not be able to bear remaining fruit.
We should not work on that many people. Instead, we should always keep just three or four under our hand. We must learn to restrict ourselves in our labor. The Lord’s constitution in Matthew tells us that we have to enter. Then we have to walk. We should not think that we do not need to work too much, since we should not contact too many. This would mean that we have stopped entering the narrow gate and walking on the constricted way. This is against the kingdom constitution to the uttermost. The Lord’s constitution of His kingdom is that we have to enter and then walk. We have to work.
When I say that we should not spread too much, I do not mean that we should not work. Rather, we have to work every day. A good student prepares his lessons every day and does a little bit every day. The problem with us is that we do not work regularly. After being in the training concerning the vital groups, we still may not have started the vital work. We may say that we do not feel that we are vital and that we will work when we become vital. But this is wrong. If we do not work, we can never be vital. If we would work, then we would be vital. (The Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1993, vol. 2, “The Training and Practice of the Vital Groups”, ch. 13, pp. 373-374)
The church in Zamboanga 