Brother Nee also suffered from those who were ambitious for position. Because his health was not good, he often was not able to attend the meetings. He worked on his publications and took care of the conferences, but mostly he could not take care of the meetings of the church on a regular basis. He turned over the responsibility of all the meetings to me. When I was new in the work, there was a brother among us who was very active and aggressive, expressing that he loved the Lord so much. I appreciated that brother, and I asked him to give a message in one of the Lord's Day afternoon meetings. At that time we had three meetings on the Lord's Day—in the morning, afternoon, and evening. Brother Nee found out about this and told me that I should not have asked that brother to give a message. I was wondering what was wrong. Brother Nee did not tell me at that time.
Eventually, I came to know the situation with that brother. He was the third one to come into the church life in Shanghai. The second one was Dr. Yu, the eye specialist, and the first one was the brother who had been a postmaster. These three brothers all came out of the China Inland Mission in Shanghai. That was a strong reason why the Shanghai missionaries went against Brother Nee. These three were the top ones who were gained by that mission.
From 1927 when this particular brother came into the church, he was always ambitious to be one of the elders, but he truly was not qualified. He was not that kind of person, so Brother Nee would not agree with his being a leading one. Eventually, in 1948 after he had been in the church life for twenty-one years, he left the church and caused a division. He started a meeting in his home and hired a traveling preacher, similar to what Micah did in Judges 17 in hiring someone to be his priest.
I saw a number of brothers who passed through the church life, expecting to receive some position. Brother Nee always told people that the church is not an organization with position but an organism with living members. Anything that is positioned on a person's physical body, such as false teeth, is an inorganic item which is foreign to the body. Nearly all the famous preachers among the Chinese who were around my age passed through the Lord's recovery in China. They came and met with us for a while, expecting to receive some position in the work. Eventually, they found out that there was no position for them, so they left and became opposers. Brother Nee told us publicly that whoever desires a position in the church life will never get that position.
There was another brother among us who pretended to be the most spiritual person to fulfill his ambition. At the beginning, nearly the whole church in Shanghai was fooled by this young brother, but gradually the "fox tails" came out, one by one. All the responsible brothers believed that he was very spiritual, and some of them even felt shameful that they were not as spiritual as he was. Eventually, however, this young man was exposed. The leading ones and the co-workers came to know that he was false, and they all agreed to deal with him. He was ambitious, pretending to be something that he was not. The church called an urgent meeting, and the whole congregation came together. In this meeting one of the co-workers announced something concerning this brother's falsehood, and many others also stood up to condemn him. He was condemned by the entire congregation. Then he left and became another cause of division. After he left, he was hired to be a teacher by the top women's seminary in China.
Whenever trouble came among us, the "arrows" always went to Brother Nee. He was the target. At that time none of the arrows came to me because I was not qualified to be the target. I was under the protection of a big "umbrella," and that umbrella was Brother Nee. Sometimes when people attacked him, they would highly appraise me. Within myself I realized their subtlety. I realized that if Brother Nee were gone, their arrows would be shot at me.
I want to say something for the sake of the young brothers. The ambition of the brothers is a problem in the church. It is a shame to say this, but it is a fact. This ambition caused Brother Nee much suffering. Brother Nee told us that no one ever gave him a position and that he had no position to give others. Eventually, those who were ambitious for position left. Some of the divisions were caused by this kind of ambition. The ambitious ones would never admit that they were ambitious. When they caused a division, they did it with a certain excuse. They put on a "cloak" of a certain doctrine. They would say that the church was wrong in this certain doctrine, and because they were clear about this they had to leave. This was altogether a pretense, an excuse, and a cloak for their ambition.