By Jinyu, Taiwan

Many people believe that money is everything, and that only being rich makes you happy. However, when they are racing down the path of pursuing money, they find themselves farther and farther away from happiness. I’d also fallen down in my pursuit of money, ending up bruised and battered. After seeking in torment, I finally came to realize what the most meaningful thing a person should pursue in their life is and found the right path in life that leads to the light.

I Make a Resolution to Become a Millionaire as a Teenager

Growing up in a poor family, I was constantly subject to the cold shoulders of my rich relatives. Therefore, I silently made a resolution: I’m also gonna be a millionaire after I grow up. In order to achieve this goal, I dropped out of school to work at 16, and a few years later, I got a job at an electronics company. To live a life that others would envy and look up to, I slaved away day and night. On holidays when everyone else was resting or went out for an outing, I would be working late into the night and wouldn’t go to sleep until my back became sore and aching. Toiling like this for a month, I could earn 30,000 to 40,000 NT dollars. I began to do calculations in my heart: “If I keep working like this for a few years, I could also save some money.” Every month when I saw the amount of money in my bank account growing, I would forget all the hard work I’d put into making this money. “No pain, no gain,” I kept encouraging myself. “Although it is hard work now, life later on will be good.” Through several years of effort, I finally became a millionaire as I had expected. All my relatives and friends completely changed their attitude toward me and praised me for being capable and successful. This made me even more feel the value of money, and so I continued to strive for a higher goal.

My Hard-earned Money Gone in the Blink of an Eye, I Continue Struggling for Money After Recovering My Health

Because of the overwork and irregular sleeping pattern, my immune system was weakened. Once, I caught a cold, accompanied by a fever and a cough. My friends all advised me to go to the doctor, but I said, “Not only will that cost money, but I will earn a lot less if I take a day off. It’s just an ailment. I can get through it by taking some medicine.” Later, however, not only did I not recover, but my condition grew even worse. I was racked with a constant fever and began to suffer from chest pains and cough violently, to the point where I would cough up blood. Left with no choice, I stopped work and went to the hospital for an examination, and the results showed that I had tuberculosis. This diagnosis was like thunder from a clear sky to me, my legs went weak and I nearly collapsed on the floor. I thought: I just had a cold and a cough. How could it have developed into such a serious infectious disease? Ugh! Which company would dare to hire me in the future? How am I going to live on? If my relatives and friends find out, none of them will respect me, someone who has tuberculosis. In an instant, all my dreams dashed and I felt heart-wrenching pain. In the dead of night, I lay in my bed crying bitterly. Thinking of how all the money I had worked so hard to accumulate would end up on my treatment and how everything would go back to zero, I was overcome with pain and even wanted to jump into the river to end my life. But then I thought of my parents, who had raised me up—is this how I’m gonna repay them? By ending my own life? I haven’t given them a good life yet. At this thought, I held back my tears and grief and chose to receive treatment in the hospital. After taking medicine and receiving injections for half a year, I recovered my health.

In order to provide my family with a good life, as soon as I recovered, I went back to work in that electronics company relying on my rich experience. Over the years that followed, I had worked in a garment factory and an auto parts factory, through which I earned some money. Though my life couldn’t be considered very wealthy, it was fairly good. But this wasn’t enough to reach my goals—I wanted to buy a house and a car.

A few years later, my father accepted God’s gospel of the last days. Knowing how I had been working exhaustively to make money and living a very painful life, he said to me, “Xiyu, I know you have been proud and ambitious since you were little, and you always want to live a better life than others, but you should know that you will never make enough money. We humans were created by God, and only if we believe in and worship God can we have His blessings.” Because I only wanted to make money at that time, I didn’t take in anything my father said and just said to him perfunctorily, “Dad, I know believing in God is a good thing. But this is an era when everyone looks to money and advocates sayings like ‘Money makes the world go round’ and ‘Money isn’t everything, but without it, you can do nothing.’ Just look at our relatives who have money—they all admire the rich and despise the poor, and they all look down on us, so I have to make money. Dad, you should believe in God properly. You have my full support.” Afterward, my father came to exhort me many times, but I still couldn’t let go of my pursuit of money.

Investing in Stock Market and Engaging in the Direct Sales Business, I End up Losing All My Money and Saddled With Debt

Once my cousin advised me, saying, “You should try your hand at the stock market. This way you can make money more quickly. You see, I’m able to earn in a day what it takes you several years to earn….” When I thought of how my cousin had indeed made a pile of money in stocks and bought several houses, living with style and grandeur, I felt very envious of him. At that moment, I desperately wanted to make money, so I didn’t think much about it and immediately put all of my savings into the stock market. As I gradually began to make some money, I became even bolder and bought more and more stocks. Every day after work, I would stay up late studying the financial reports of the companies to determine which stocks were worthy of investment. Since the stock market can be so volatile that even a piece of news may change everything, my mood would fluctuate along with the movements of the stock prices. I spent every day in a state of high mental anxiety and was always fearful that I would lose every penny I had invested overnight. However, what I feared most came to pass. In 2008, the global financial crisis struck the stock markets all over the world, during which time I scrambled around like a cat on a hot tin roof as my stocks fell day after day. I wanted to sell them but buyers were nowhere to be found. Seeing all my investments evaporate into thin air, I felt as if I’d fallen into a deep abyss and my heart was going to break. I really wished that someone could lend me money to get me through this, but I knew if I brought this up to anyone I knew, it would only ruin our relationships. Seeing everything I had worked hard for years to earn vanish into thin air, I was grieved and heart-broken. I wanted to cry but shed no tears. I was constantly in low spirits and couldn’t eat or sleep. After living in depression for a really long time, I was unwilling to give up like this and encouraged myself to get back on my feet. Therefore, I began to look for new business opportunities.

Later, a fellow villager told me that direct sales business has a low startup investment and produces high profits, and that anyone who has expertise and a bright mind can succeed. When I saw some people who used to be poor buying nice cars after doing direct sales, my heart once again started to jump with excitement. I thought: “We do not have many opportunities to achieve something in our lives. This is a great chance for me to rise again! I may soon become a millionaire, or even a multimillionaire.” Just like this, I began to engage in direct sales business. At first, my performance was pretty good and I also managed to persuade some of my relatives and friends to join this business. In order to improve my performance, I learned how to flatter and toady up to others. When the customers didn’t understand me, I would have to bear their mockery and sarcasm and greet them with a smile, which constantly frustrated my self-esteem. Every night when I got home, I thought of how I had suffered a lot but hadn’t made any money, and then a sense of loss would wash over me. I would hide under my blankets and howl with tears to vent my depression. After that, however, I still had to continue working the next day. Later, because I failed to continually develop downlines, my performance became worse and worse and I again ended up in failure. This time, not only did I get myself heavily in debt, but I also lost all the money that my relatives had invested. This failure completely shattered my dream of being a multimillionaire. Thinking of how I had spent half of my life pursuing money and others’ admiration only to end up with nothing, I found myself at a cross in the road of my life without a clue of which way to go. I felt so tired and bitter and really wanted to seek relief through death.

The Gospel Reaching My Ears, I Understand That Man’s Fate Is in God’s Hands

Just when I was feeling lost and helpless, my father again came to my house to preach the gospel to me. He started with Genesis and told me that in the beginning, God created Adam and Eve and they lived happily in the Garden of Eden and had God’s presence. Under God’s protection and care, they were free of pain and sorrow and knew no death. Later, however, Adam and Eve were seduced by Satan and no longer listened to God’s words, thus losing God’s care and protection and falling under Satan’s domain being fooled and harmed by Satan. Because we humans depart from God, do not believe the fact of His dominion over all things but only believe that fate is in our own hands, we always try to change our destiny through relying on our own efforts, and this is why we live in great pain. “Xiyu,” my father said in earnest, “I can understand the pain you are suffering now. Before, I didn’t understand the truth and was always blindly pursuing money, but what I gained in the end was nothing but pain. After I came before God, through reading His words, I came to understand that our fates are in God’s hands, and that only if we obey God’s sovereignty and live under His care and protection can we find happiness and joy.”

My father’s sincere words warmed my heart. I thought back to how he had preached the gospel to me many times, but I just treated him perfunctorily every time, thinking that I should work hard to earn money while I was still young and that no one would respect me if I had no money. It turned out that it was because I didn’t recognize God’s sovereignty and always wanted to rely on my own efforts to change my fate that I lived in such pain. I wanted to take on a different way of life, and so I agreed to attend gatherings with the brothers and sisters in the church.

Once, at a meeting, we saw this passage of God’s words: “The fate of man is controlled by the hands of God. You are incapable of controlling yourself: Despite man always rushing and busying himself on his own behalf, he remains incapable of controlling himself. If you could know your own prospects, if you could control your own fate, would you still be a created being?” Through fellowshiping God’s words with the brothers and sisters, I came to know that God is the Creator and we humans are created beings, that our fates are controlled by God’s hands, that how much money we can make in our lifetimes is predestined by God, and that it cannot be changed no matter how much we busily rush around. However, because I hadn’t recognized God’s sovereignty and had been living by the fallacious views of Satan, such as “One’s destiny is in his own hand,” and “Man can create a pleasant homeland with his own hands,” I was always wanting to earn money through my own efforts so that I could live life on the top and make others look up to me and admire me. After I had earned a million, I still wanted more, but only ended up losing what I had earned and exhausting myself in body and mind without realizing my dreams. That’s when I saw that we human beings are simply unable to control our fates, and that I lived such a painful life because I didn’t recognize God’s sovereignty and always wanted to rely on my own hard work to change my fate. I decided that I no longer wished to struggle desperately as before. Afterward, I would read God’s words and attend gatherings with my brothers and sisters whenever I had time, and I felt very happy.

God’s Words Help Me Find the Root of My Suffering

Later, I saw another passage of God’s words, “‘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. From the very beginning, people did not accept this saying, but then they gave it tacit acceptance when they came into contact with real life, and began to feel that these words were in fact true. Is this not a process of Satan corrupting man? … 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? Do many people not lose their dignity and integrity in the pursuit of more money? Moreover, do many people not lose the opportunity to perform their duty and follow God for the sake of money? Is this not a loss for people? (Yes.) Is Satan not sinister to use this method and this saying to corrupt man to such a degree? Is this not a malicious trick? … That is to say, this saying already controls your behavior and your thoughts, and you would rather have your fate controlled by it than give it all up. Does not the fact that people act in this way, that they are controlled by this saying and manipulated by it, illustrate that Satan’s corrupting of man is effective?”

Pondering God’s words, I began to reflect on why I had been so relentless in my pursuit of money over those years, and that was when I came to realize that it was because I had been living by these satanic thoughts and views such as “Money makes the world go round,” “Money isn’t everything, but without it, you can do nothing,” and “No pain, no gain.” I therefore believed that in this age where the only thing people recognized was money, we would be unable to do anything without money, that if we had money, we would be respected wherever we went, and that only such kind of life was of value. I thought of how, in order to make more money, I worked around the clock at the cost of my own health, and even when I got sick I still was unwilling to spend money or time to seek treatment until I got tuberculosis. Despite this, I still didn’t reflect on myself but continued struggling for money day and night after I recovered. In the hope of being a multimillionaire, I began to invest in stocks and engage in direct selling, totally becoming a slave to money, but unexpectedly all my investments failed and I ended up heavily in debt. These continuous blows left me exhausted both physically and mentally and I almost lost my hope in life—all this suffering was actually brought about by my living by satanic axioms of logic. Only then did I realize that by instilling in us these erroneous thoughts and views, Satan is attempting to lead us onto the wrong path of worshiping money, so that we are willing to become slaves to money and may finally be swallowed whole by it. The more I thought about this, the more afraid I felt. I truly saw that without the truth I could only be deceived and afflicted by Satan and that living like this was truly pitiable and dangerous. If I hadn’t come before God, I would continue being toyed with and afflicted by Satan until I was devoured by it. Satan truly was so evil.

I thought of how, in today’s society, there are so many people who cheat and scheme against each other, stopping at nothing to earn money. Some of them, though having made a lot of money, feel empty in spirit and begin to take drugs to pass the time and head to self-destruction. Some earn money at the expense of their health and end up with incurable diseases; regardless of how much money they have, they can’t buy life. I also saw many people who wished to strike it rich by investing in stock market but in the end lost all their money, turning from wealthy men to people who had nothing overnight, and some of them found it so unbearable that they even committed suicide. Through the revelations in God’s words, I came to see Satan’s sinister motive. Satan is just using the viewpoint of “Money makes the world go round” to corrupt us and drive us to desperately earn money and walk on a path of no return until we are finally captured by it. I was unwilling to continue such a painful life, so I prayed to God, saying, “O God, I refused Your salvation again and again and was walking on a wrong path, with the result that I was tortured unbearably by Satan. I’ve made up my mind to no longer live for money. May You lead me to come out of the morass of money, so that I can pursue the truth and walk the right path in life of obeying and worshiping You for the rest of my life.” Afterward, I withdrew all the investment and began to work normally. In my spare time, I would read God’s words, and I felt especially released and relaxed.

Obeying God’s Sovereignty, I Find the Right Direction in Life

One day, I was reading God’s words at home when my cousin called me, saying, “I’m investing in a direct sales product which is highly profitable. Come and join me. I promise it won’t end up like before. It will surely bring in money. I know you don’t have money, so I don’t need your investment. You have both expertise and experience. You just need to take care of market development….” My cousin’s repeated persuasion stirred my heart, and I thought, “I can make money even without investing anything? Isn’t this a wonderful thing? If I succeed this time, not only can I pay off all my debts, but I can also live a rich life.” As I thought this way, an indescribable sense of reproach welled up in my heart and I realized that I was again tempted by money. So I silently prayed to God, asking Him to lead me away from Satan’s trap.

Later, I saw these words of God, “For one sees that when one does not comprehend fate, when one does not understand God’s sovereignty, when one gropes their way forward willfully, staggering and tottering through the fog, the journey is too difficult, too heartbreaking. So when people recognize God’s sovereignty over human fate, the clever ones choose to know it and accept it, to bid farewell to the painful days when they tried to build a good life with their own two hands, and to stop struggling against fate and pursuing their so-called ‘life goals’ in their own way. When one does not have God, when one cannot see Him, when one cannot clearly recognize God’s sovereignty, every day is meaningless, worthless, miserable.” From God’s words, I came to understand God’s will and know what to do. I should bid farewell to the painful days when I struggled with my own hands and walk the path of obeying and worshiping God. I thought back to the bitterness of my pursuing money in the past. In order to make lots of money, I sacrificed my all and even traded my health for money without hesitation. As a result, I worked myself ill and had to spend all I had earned treating my illness; when I recovered, I again threw myself into earning money. Just like this, my desire for money grew ever greater with time, to an extent that I still wanted to earn ever more even after having one million. But in the end, all my investment failed and everything went back to zero. The pain and suffering of that journey were unforgettable and beyond telling. Through those years of experiences, I saw clearly a fact: What I can obtain is not something I can change through my hard work but is ruled and preordained by God, and how much wealth I can have in my life is up to God. I no longer wanted to stray away from God and make the same mistake again. I only wished to entrust my destiny to God, obey His sovereignty and arrangement, pursue the truth and lead a peaceful life. So I tactfully refused my cousin’s kind offer.

Now, I read the word of God every day, listen to hymns of God’s words and watch the videos produced by the church, and I often gather with my brothers and sisters to fellowship the truth. Whenever we encounter something we don’t understand, we pray together and use God’s words to solve all the difficulties and problems we encounter in our lives. Although my life isn’t as luxurious as before, I live in release and freedom and my spirit feels genuinely peaceful and at ease. I’ve bidden farewell to the pursuit of being a millionaire and embarked on the right path in life, and I have no regrets in this life. Thanks be to God!