By Mengzi, China

Chasing Childhood Dreams of Striking It Rich, in the Struggle to Succeed I Was Struck Down With Illness

In my early student years, I would often go to a rich classmate’s house to play. I felt extremely envious of this classmate because she had her own room and even had a Simmons mattress. When I thought of how I had to sleep together with my mother and father in the same room, the competitive side of me would become very dejected. Why didn’t I have a room of my own? When I asked my mom about this, she said to me, “You must work hard and use your own two hands to make money. Once you’ve made money, you can enjoy it and live the life of the elites.” After hearing this, I swore to myself that when I grew up I would work hard to make money.

After graduating from middle school, I began working. No matter how dirty or tiring the work was, as long as there was money to be earned, I’d do it. After getting married, my husband and I worked very hard together. We worked as sewer maintenance workers, brick bakers and construction workers. Through our efforts, we were able to save up a little bit of money and build a three-story house. At the time, it was one of the nicest houses in the whole town. The townsfolk said we had done well for ourselves and our families praised our hard work. I was pleased as punch to receive all these compliments from our family and the townsfolk and so, after that, I worked even harder to make money.

To make more money, I began working in a ceramics factory. Every day I worked for at least 12 hours and sometimes, if we were in a hurry to put out a shipment, I’d work 17–18 hours in a single day. The long, grinding hours left me with an aching back and arm and leg cramps. It was so bad I couldn’t even pick up a pair of chopsticks and no matter how I lay in bed at night I always felt uncomfortable. Despite how hard it was, all the fatigue and hardship seemed worth it when I got that big check at the end of every month. In this way, I put my nose to the grindstone for several years and, in the process, I developed a number of illnesses. I suffered from frozen shoulder, synovitis, a herniated disc, and cervical spine issues, among others. Sometimes my body would hurt so much that I’d cry and sometimes my back would be in so much pain that I’d be unable to sleep, I’d have to get up and massage out the pain with my fist. Despite all this, I just gritted my teeth and kept going, taking pain medications to fight through the pain at work. However, between daily expenses, medical bills and my children’s school tuition, we barely saved any money over the years.

I Came Before God to Receive His Grace: Only When I Ran Into Trouble Did I Finally See the Light

Later on, I put my faith in God and my brothers and sisters would often fellowship with me about how all things are in God’s hands, the amount of money we make is predetermined by God and that God gives us as much as we need to live. They told me to stop exhausting myself, because it was more important to spend more time reading God’s word and seek the truth and life. When I saw how my brothers and sisters seemed to lead such happy and relaxed lifestyles, I became very envious and tried to make more time to read God’s word and participate in church life. After a little while, I began to feel much more serene and grounded. I felt much freer than I had been in times past.

One time, I heard my brother-in-law say, “You can make a few hundred thousand a year planting crops.” This got me excited—I thought to myself, “If I could make a few hundred thousand a year, then all I have to do is work a few more years and I’ll be sitting pretty. You can only make so much working for someone else. If I were to plant crops and be my own boss, I’d reap all the profit.” Swayed by the temptation of money, I began farming on an about 2-acre plot.

After that, I once again became invested in making money and just barely had time to make it to meetings. In that first year I was up all hours of the day working. Rain or shine, I would be out in the fields working for 13–14 hours a day. Sometimes during droughts I would even have to wake up in the middle of the night to go water the crops. Because I was overworked, my old spinal issues and lower back problems became even worse. Even though I had to walk bent over at the waist, I still gritted my teeth and kept working. I thought to myself, “Times might be hard now, but once I make my money I can enjoy myself.” To my surprise, after all that hard work, I didn’t make any money that first year. I wanted to quit, but couldn’t bring myself to give up just yet, so I just had to suck it up and keep working. After the second year, I came out with a hundred thousand or so in profit. I was secretly very happy, thinking to myself that it was a good thing I hadn’t given up or else all the time and money invested would have been for nought. Having tasted success, my ambitions grew even larger….

Just as I was ambitiously preparing to begin a grand undertaking, one day a large wind blew through my town and knocked down all six of my greenhouses. As I looked at the demolished greenhouses and crushed vegetables, I knew that this half a year of hard work had all been in vain. The tears came streaming down my face and I knelt down before God, praying, “Dear God, this all happened so suddenly today—I ask for guidance in understanding Your intentions. What should I learn from what has happened?”

After praying, I read these words of God, “Because people do not recognize God’s orchestrations and God’s sovereignty, they always face fate defiantly and with a rebellious attitude, and they always want to cast off God’s authority and sovereignty and the things fate has in store, hoping in vain to change their current circumstances and alter their fate. But they can never succeed and are thwarted at every turn. This struggle, which takes place deep in one’s soul, brings profound pain of the sort that carves itself into one’s bones, as one fritters away their life all the while.”

From God’s word I came to understand that because I hadn’t pursued the truth, I had no real knowledge of man’s fate under God’s sovereignty. I had always wanted to change my fate through my own efforts—as such, I was resisting God’s sovereignty. I thought of how when I started making money and, through my hard work, was able to save up money to build a three-story house, I still wasn’t satisfied and took on a job working ten-plus hours a day to make even more money, not even bothering to rest when I was sick. Though I made a decent amount of money, I had completely exhausted myself and ended up having little left in savings after medical expenses. Later on, seeing how my brother-in-law had made money fast by planting crops, I also wanted to strike out on my own and farm the land to make big money. In the first year, I didn’t make any money and because I was overworked, my illness even worsened, but I wasn’t willing to quit. In the second year, I made decent money, but still not satisfied, I decided to expand my operation to include a number of big greenhouses, thinking that in this way I could fast-track myself to a life of luxury. But now, the fruits of half a year of labor had been destroyed by a large gust of wind. Only when faced with these facts did I finally realize that by not submitting to God’s sovereignty, not only would I not be able to make more money through my own efforts, I had actually increased my own suffering. I became willing to submit to God’s sovereignty and stop exerting myself to the brink of exhaustion in order to make money through my own efforts. However, I still didn’t understand why I valued money so much and so I continued to pray and seek God.

My Dream of Riches Was a Deadly Trap, Pursuing the Truth Is the Right Path.

I saw these words of God, “‘Money makes the world go round’ is a philosophy of Satan, and it prevails among the whole of mankind, in every human society. You could say that it is a trend because it has been instilled in the heart of every single person. … Is it hard to remove this from someone’s heart? It is very hard! It seems that Satan’s corruption of man is deep indeed! So after Satan uses this trend to corrupt people, how is it manifested in them? Do you feel that you could not survive in this world without any money, that even one day without money would be impossible? People’s status is based on how much money they have, as is the respect they command. The backs of the poor are bent in shame, while the rich enjoy their high status. They stand tall and proud, speaking loudly and living arrogantly. What does this saying and trend bring to people? Is it not true that many people make any sacrifice in the pursuit of money? … Is Satan not sinister to use this method and this saying to corrupt man to such a degree? Is this not a malicious trick? As you progress from objecting to this popular saying to finally accepting it as truth, your heart falls completely into Satan’s grasp, and therefore you inadvertently come to live by the saying.”

The exposition of God’s words awakened me. I felt as if I had suddenly awoken from my ignorant daze. In the past, it seemed, I had always lived by satanic toxins such as, “Money makes the world go round,” “Money is first,” and “Man will do anything to get rich.” All I ever thought about was making money. I thought that if I became rich, I could live the life of an elite, would be respected and admired by my peers and could spend money as I wished, buying whatever I desired. To me, this was the very definition of happiness. Under the influence of these incorrect concepts and notions, I went around like a robot on overdrive trying to make more and more money, taking on the hardest jobs and not resting for even a single day even as tears of pain streamed down my face. Later on I put my faith in God and the brothers and sisters fellowshiped with me on God’s intentions, telling me not to overwork myself and to focus on pursuing the truth, but I still couldn’t resist money’s temptation. I worked from day until night tending to my crops, which only worsened my herniated disc. I was wracked with unspeakable suffering every single day. Despite this, I still didn’t dial down my work rate, and even harbored ever greater ambitions, planning to plant even more to make even more money. I valued money more than my own life and had become completely enslaved by money. To earn more, I was willing to abandon the truth and even forfeit my own life.

I reflected on the people around me: My second oldest brother’s wife worked tirelessly to make more money, but then one day after lunch on her way to the farm she had been hit by a car while walking on the road and almost died. Then there was my little brother’s wife: She had high blood pressure, but to make more money she often worked overtime—eventually she had a stroke and even though she was rushed to the hospital for a craniotomy, they couldn’t save her. She was only thirty years old when she passed away. In the name of money, many of my family and peers had been duped by Satan and, in the process, had lost their lives or come very close. I, myself, had also become crippled by illness in my pursuit of money, living in utter agony, suffering and pain. Only then did I realize that by living by the satanic toxins of “Money is first,” and “Man will do anything to get rich,” I had set foot on a path of no return. Pursuing wealth couldn’t bring me happiness and well-being. Quite the opposite, it had left me crippled by illness and living every day in agony.

At this point, I had the clear realization that Satan uses money to tempt and corrupt people, to distance me from God, make me unable to quiet myself and pursue the truth and read God’s word, and make me live with an insatiable desire for money for which I’d worked myself half to death, ultimately losing the opportunity to be saved by God. I couldn’t be duped and tormented by Satan in this way any longer, so I came before God to repent and pray saying, “Dear God, we have all been deceived by Satan and Satan has used the false notion that ‘Money is first’ to deceive me and cause me to be unable to practice Your word despite my belief in You and drive me to work hard through my own efforts to make money. These years have been so miserable. God, I am now willing to repent, but I know I can’t do this by myself. I pray that You guide me to free myself from Satan’s chains and submit to Your orchestrations and arrangements….”‘

After I’d prayed, I read these words of God, “If people have a genuine understanding of God’s disposition, and can give heartfelt praise to His holiness and righteousness, then it means they truly know Him and possess the truth; only then do they live in the light. Only once a person’s view of the world and of life changes does one undergo a fundamental transformation. When one has a life goal and comports oneself according to the truth, when one submits absolutely to God and lives by His words, when one feels peaceful and illuminated to the depths of one’s soul, when one’s heart is free of darkness, and when one can live entirely free and unrestrained in God’s presence, only then does one lead a genuine human life, and only then has one become a person who possesses the truth.” God’s words gave me direction. I put my faith in God this day, knowing that my life derives from God, that He rules over my fate, supplies me all that I need to survive and that the aims of my pursuit in life should be submission to God, pursuit of the truth, living according to God’s word and walking the right path. Pursuing wealth would only further stoke the fire of my raging ambitions and desires. I would never be satisfied and, ultimately, would be crippled by illness in my endeavors to earn more money. In the end, this would just lead to more misery. I am willing to put aside my old, incorrect life philosophy and do my best to pursue the truth, walk on the right path in life and live a truly meaningful life.

Experiencing God’s Salvation Firsthand: Practicing the Truth Is Very Freeing

After I came back before God, I began to see God’s blessings. The cucumbers I planted in the fields and those my brother-in-law planted in the greenhouse ripened and were ready for market at about the same time, and all of my other crops grew very well. Through this I felt God’s almightiness and sovereignty and gained some understanding of the phrase, “all things are in God’s hands.” After that, I read God’s word with great thirst and admiration and trained myself to consciously submit to God’s sovereignty in all things. I no longer put off reading God’s words and going to meetings for fear of losing the opportunity to make money. Gradually, my illness improved and I finally wore a smile on my face once again. I gained a deep appreciation for the benefits of faith in and submission to God and knew that this was the right path which I must walk in life.

One time, my sister called home telling me that the price of vegetables was very high in her city and asking me if I wanted to come and farm there. She guaranteed that I could double my earnings. I thought to myself, “It’s true, after working in a big city for a few years, my sister was able to come home and build a four-story house. Back home, I’ve been working myself half to death and still don’t make as much as her. Maybe I should go stay with my sister and rent a piece of land to farm there.” Just when I was about to agree to go stay with my sister, I remembered a passage of God’s word, “For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26). The guidance of God’s word was a keen reminder—Satan’s plot was hidden in this proposition. If I were really to go to a big city to farm, I would feel the temptation of big profits and would spend all day busying myself making money and would have no time to read God’s word, attend meetings and fulfill my duties. In this way, I would fall back under Satan’s control and would once again live a life where I sacrificed my own health in the pursuit of money. Even if I were to make a lot of money, what would be the point if I were to lose my health and miss out on the opportunity to pursue the truth and be saved by God? How much money we make in this life is predetermined by God. If we still wish to work through our own efforts and oppose God, then we have no faith in God’s sovereignty. I should submit to God’s sovereignty and arrangements, be content with things as they are, fulfill my duties, deal with things according to God’s word, and live as God demands. This is what is really important! Having realized all this, I tactfully refused my sister’s invitation.

Recently, I’ve put those days of working myself half to death for money behind me. I am no longer tormented by Satan’s false notion that “Money is first.” I fulfill my duties in the church and live a very fulfilling life every day, experiencing the true value and meaning of life.