By Jian Yi, China

I was born into an ordinary family. We were not well-off. My father was an idler who didn’t have a proper job. He also gambled. The people in our village looked down on us, and I felt very inferior. From a young age, I secretly set an ambition: When I grew up, I would stand out from the crowd and make everyone look at me with newfound respect. Only in this way would I be able to stand tall and not be looked down on.

At school, my grades had always been very good. Later, due to the pressures of being in an intensive class, I often suffered from headaches. My grades kept dropping until eventually, I dropped out of school. My family always said, “As long as you learn a skill, you can open a shop and be your own boss, and be just as successful in that way.” I thought to myself, “Although I cannot win people’s esteem through study, there is a saying in China, ‘There are three hundred and sixty trades, and every trade has its master.’ As long as I study hard to gain a skill, then in the future I can open a shop and be my own boss. Then, my relatives and friends will surely look at me with newfound respect.” Later, I studied makeup techniques. When I started working, I could only be a junior assistant because I didn’t have any practical experience. Every day I ran errands and did odd jobs, and I was yelled at and ordered about by the makeup teacher. I was not reconciled to accept this. In order to learn more techniques and accumulate experience so I could become a makeup artist as quickly as possible, I worked from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. nearly every day. After a period of hard work, I finally became a makeup artist. I never expected that my life would get even more painful after that. Every day after finishing my work, I had to do overtime to improve my performance. I was exhausted in body and mind. But then I thought, “‘One must endure the greatest hardships in order to become the greatest of men.’ As long as I persist and improve my skills, then I will have more chances to be praised and admired.” So I didn’t feel as miserable anymore. At the time, my mother often talked to me about faith. I knew that believing in God was a good thing, but I also felt that I was too busy with work, that I didn’t have any time, and that I was in the stage where I was doing all I could to build my career. Consequently, I didn’t take my faith all that seriously.

Later, I worked as a makeup artist in another studio, where I stayed for several years. With a lot of effort, I became the mainstay of my department. My skills were always the most outstanding, and I ranked first for performance basically every month. The boss would often praise my capabilities in front of my co-workers and ask them to learn from me. This gave my vanity the most enormous satisfaction. In particular, I would hear a lot of clients who I had never met before say, “We’ve heard all about you! My friends all say that not only are you highly skilled, but you’re also a great person. We came here especially because of you.” When I heard things like this, I began to feel pretty pleased with myself, and my desire to pursue fame and gain grew even more inflated. When I heard people around me say that though so-and-so was very young, she had already opened her own shop and was running her own business and was very capable, I was extremely envious. I thought that I had good skills as well, and just didn’t yet have the right financial conditions. I was only in my early twenties, and as long as I worked hard and took every client seriously, sculpting a good reputation, then sooner or later I would have a chance to open a shop and be my own boss. Whenever I thought about this, I felt an endless burst of energy coursing through my body, as if my blood had been electrified. I constantly pondered how to improve my skills and performance, and frequently watched makeup videos on various Internet platforms to learn good techniques from them. My co-workers were all desperate to finish early, but in order to improve the experience of my clients, I would spend extra time taking photos or videos of them. I would get them to post these on their social media to help promote me, and when I saw it getting lots of likes and favorable comments, I felt extremely pleased with myself. I was often the last person to finish work, and even after I had returned home I would chat with clients to cultivate my relationship with them. In order to retain clients, it was like I was living every day with a mask on, speaking fake, pleasant-sounding words. If a client was clearly fat, I would compliment her by saying, “You have a perfect figure! You need a figure like this to make the best of your clothes.” Some clients weren’t very good-looking, and I would search hard for good points I could praise and I would flatter them to make them happy. As for some difficult, hard-to-please clients, even though I was inwardly fed up with them, I would force a smile for as long as it took for them to be satisfied. I didn’t really want to say things that went against what I felt, but I had to for the sake of fame and gain. Although I won praise and admiration from those around me, once this brief happiness passed, my heart was left with more depression and exhaustion. I often thought: In order to win people’s esteem, I was working like a machine every day. Other than work, there was just more work. When would these days end? Would my life just pass by in this way? I felt confused and helpless. Then I remembered that ever since I was a child, my mother had told me to call on God when I ran into difficulties. During that time, I often brought my difficulties before God and prayed, “Dear God, I am confused, and I am under a lot of pressure at work. I even feel like my life has no meaning. Please help me!”

In May 2021, the company, which had always been very busy at this time of year, saw a quiet season. I often had the chance to rest at home. Through the brothers and sisters reading me the words of God and fellowshipping with me in gatherings, the anguish and repression in my heart eased quite a bit. I formally accepted Almighty God’s work of the last days, and began to live church life. During gatherings, everybody simply opened up and fellowshipped about their experiential understanding. Everybody would fellowship to help out whoever had run into difficulties. Nobody looked down on anyone else. When I gathered with my brothers and sisters, my heart felt at ease and at peace, and I finally discovered that people could live in such a relaxed and liberated way. Later, because I often took leave to attend gatherings, my boss grew worried that I would go to another company, and asked my co-workers to find out what was going on with me. I thought about how diligent I had been at work these last few years, how I had won my boss’ approval, and how I was a key focus of cultivation from the company. If the boss saw that I was constantly taking leave, would she disapprove of me over time, and stop focusing on cultivating me? I started to regret frequently taking leave to attend gatherings, and decided that after this, I would only attend a few gatherings occasionally provided they did not get in the way of work. But then I thought about my brothers and sisters gathering together to fellowship God’s words, and how my heart felt liberated and free from repression, so in my heart, I still wanted to attend gatherings. Every time gathering conflicted with work, my heart would feel as if it were being torn in two different directions.

In October 2021, my work grew busier and busier. In the busy season in particular, I didn’t go to a gathering for an entire month on end. At the time, I felt somewhat self-reproachful, but I didn’t dare to take any leave when I saw the company was so busy. Every makeup artist had clients reserved by the company in advance, and so it was simply impossible to find someone to take on my work. Some clients even made special trips from other areas, so I definitely couldn’t turn them down. If I were to ask for leave at this moment, my boss would certainly be unhappy. If the boss disapproved of me, then she might fire me. After mulling it over, I decided that actually work was more important. At that time, I was so busy that I didn’t have a good rest for a whole month. When I had a bit of time after work, my mother read me the words of God. I couldn’t get my heart to settle down, and before I’d heard a couple of sentences I started to drift off. To try and alleviate the pressure of work, sometimes, I would go out eating, drinking, having fun with friends, and watch videos and TV dramas to numb myself. Although I felt some brief happiness at the time, when I came back to reality and was confronted by all my problems, my heart would still be extremely repressed, and I’d still feel exhausted in both body and mind. Afterward, it was only when work was less busy that I went to gatherings.

After a sister learned about my state, she looked up a passage of God’s words for me to read. Almighty God says: “Satan uses fame and gain to control man’s thoughts, until all people can think of is fame and gain. They struggle for fame and gain, suffer hardships for fame and gain, endure humiliation for fame and gain, sacrifice everything they have for fame and gain, and they will make any judgment or decision for the sake of fame and gain. In this way, Satan binds people with invisible shackles, and they have neither the strength nor the courage to throw them off. They unknowingly bear these shackles and trudge ever onward with great difficulty. For the sake of this fame and gain, mankind shuns God and betrays Him and becomes increasingly wicked. In this way, therefore, one generation after another is destroyed in the midst of Satan’s fame and gain. Looking now at Satan’s actions, are its sinister motives not utterly detestable? Maybe today you still cannot see through Satan’s sinister motives because you think one cannot live without fame and gain. You think that if people leave fame and gain behind, they will no longer be able to see the way ahead, no longer be able to see their goals, that their futures will become dark, dim and gloomy. But, slowly, you will all one day recognize that fame and gain are monstrous shackles that Satan uses to bind man. When that day comes, you will thoroughly resist Satan’s control and thoroughly resist the shackles Satan uses to bind you. When the time comes that you wish to throw off all the things Satan has instilled in you, you will then make a clean break with Satan and you will truly loathe all that Satan has brought to you. Only then will mankind have a real love and yearning for God” (The Word, Vol. 2. On Knowing God. God Himself, the Unique VI). After reading God’s words, I realized that Satan uses fame and gain to bind people and make them shun God. I thought back to the poverty of my family when I was growing up, and how the people around me looked down on me. I set my sights on achieving great things and standing out from the crowd, so that everyone would look at me with newfound respect. Although my mother often told me about belief in God, I never took it to heart. I thought that I was young, and this was the time to work hard in my career. After becoming a makeup artist, I racked my brain pondering how to improve my skills and performance, and often flattered clients to make them happy so I could improve my performance at work. In order to do my work well and win esteem from more people, I would always be the last to leave the company, and even after work, in my only bit of time, I would help edit photos and videos for clients in order to promote myself. I would even sometimes dream about things to do with my work. My heart had been bound tightly by fame and gain for a long time. When there was a conflict between work and gatherings, I was worried that taking too much leave would make my boss dissatisfied and affect my future career development, and so for an entire month I didn’t go to gatherings or read the words of God. I felt exhausted in body and mind, and tried to relieve my stress by watching TV dramas and videos on the Internet. This resulted in my heart drifting further and further away from God. My heart felt emptier and even more in anguish. I saw that Satan was using fame and gain to control me. It was making me devote all my heart to my work, preventing me from going to gatherings or doing my duty, and gradually making me shun God, betray God, and lose my chance for salvation. I had to see through Satan’s plot and attend gatherings as much as possible. So I prayed to God to help me.

In the quiet season, I was able to coordinate my work so I could go to gatherings, but during the high season, when work was busy, I had to frequently ask for leave, which made my boss unhappy. I felt that constantly finding all kinds of excuses to take leave wasn’t a solution, but if I were to change jobs, then I would lose the chance to make my dream of standing out from the crowd come true. As soon as I thought about letting go of my job, I couldn’t bear to do it. But if I carried on like this, then I would only end up further and further away from God, and ultimately lose my chance for salvation. Every day, my heart felt like it was being torn in two. I was distressed and suffering, and didn’t know how to choose. After my mother found out about my state, she read me a passage of God’s words: “If you want to gain the truth and life, then you must lay down a foundation on the words of God. This will allow you to embark on the path of pursuing the truth, which alone is the goal and direction in life. You are only truly one of God’s chosen and preordained if you allow His words and the truth to lay a foundation in your heart. Right now, your foundations are still unstable. If even a small temptation from Satan befell you, to say nothing of a great disaster or trial, you could be shaken and stumble. This is a lack of foundation, which is very dangerous! Many people stumble and betray God when persecution or adversity befalls them. Some people begin to act recklessly after they gain some status, and they are then revealed and eliminated. You can all see these things very clearly. So, you should now first determine the direction and goal that you ought to pursue in life, as well as the path that you ought to walk, and then calm your mind and work hard, expend yourselves, put in effort, and pay a price for that goal. Set aside other matters for now—if you continue to ponder on them, it will impact the performance of your duty, and it will impact the crucial matter of your pursuit of the truth and your salvation. If you have to think about finding work, making lots of money, and getting rich, and about establishing a stable foothold in society, and about finding your place, if you have to think about marriage and finding a partner, and about taking on the responsibility of supporting a family and giving them a good life, and if you also want to learn some new skills, to excel and be better than other people—would thinking about all these things not be exhausting? How many things can fit into your mind? How much energy does a person have in their lifetime? How many good years does one have? In this life, people have the most energy between the ages of twenty and forty years old. During this period, you must master the truths that believers in God ought to understand, and then enter into the truth reality, and accept God’s judgment and chastisement, as well as His refinement and trials, and reach the point where you do not deny God, no matter what the circumstances. This is the most basic thing” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Paying the Price to Gain the Truth Is of Great Significance). My mother fellowshipped with me, “God wants our lives to have value and meaning. You are young and full of energy, and I don’t look to you to be the breadwinner in the family. I only hope that you will properly believe in God, and use your best years to believe in God and pursue the truth. These are the most important things in your life! Everything other than belief in God is empty. If you don’t believe me, then try it and see: Even if you pour all your energy into your work, then when the day you achieve success and fame comes, you will not be happy. Nowadays, there are many people who are rich and famous, but are they truly happy? People’s desires can never be satisfied. Only God’s words can point the way for people, and make their lives relaxed and happy every day.” I thought to myself, “People’s desires are indeed endless. It’s just like when I first started working. I lacked experience, my wages were low, and I was not valued. But after constant effort, I finally became the mainstay of my department. I won esteem from everyone, and my remuneration also got better and better, but I was still not satisfied. I kept planning how to improve my skills and accumulate contacts so that I could have a career of my own and win the esteem of even more people. I constantly expended my time and effort for fame and gain. But even after I attained these things, I still wanted even more, and my desires just kept on growing. As a result, not only did attaining these things not make me happy, but instead, they brought me even more pain.” I thought a bit more and realized the feelings of ease and peace in my heart after I read the words of God and understood a bit of truth could not be bought for any amount of money, fame, or gain. Only by doing our duty can we get more opportunities to experience God’s words, and only by constantly coming before God, eating and drinking the words of God, and praying to God in the course of doing our duty, will our life growth be faster. The sisters of mine who had come to believe in God at the same time as me were now all doing duties, and their life growth was very fast. They also understood the truth more and more clearly. But then when I looked at myself, I saw how I was busy with work every day. I didn’t go to gatherings, read the words of God, or do my duties. There wasn’t much of a difference between me and disbelievers. If I continued like this I would never gain the truth! How much energy can one person have? If they want this thing, but are unwilling to let that thing go, it is as if they are trying to stand on two boats at once; they will end up falling in. If I couldn’t make the correct choice, then I truly would lose my chance at salvation.

After I tussled with myself in my heart for some time, I submitted my resignation to the company. I submitted it several times but it was refused each time. The boss talked to me a number of times, “The company doesn’t want to lose such an outstanding employee as you. If you have any demands, please state them, and we will do our best to satisfy you. It must have been difficult to stick with it up until now.” She also said that she would increase my salary, promote me to technical director, and also give me a 1,000 yuan subsidy on top of my original wages. Although I refused, it was hard for my heart to let go. If I stayed on and continued working, then not only would I get a higher salary, but I would also get a promotion to technical director. Wouldn’t I then be closer to my dream of standing out from the crowd? This made my determination, never that solid to begin with, start to waver. In this period, my co-workers also often said, “You’ve been in this job for so long; why do you want to leave? If I were you, then I wouldn’t leave no matter what. The company really values you, and there are so many clients who have taken a liking to you. How can you abandon it all just like that?” When I heard this, my heart felt hesitant and vacillating. I wanted to stay and continue working, but then I thought that choosing that life meant there would be no opportunities at all for gathering or doing my duty. I thought about the gatherings with my brothers and sisters. Everybody opened up their hearts and fellowshipped, no matter whether they were feeling pain, suffering or joy. That kind of liberation of the spirit can only be found in the house of God!

Later, a sister came to talk to me, and we read a passage of God’s words together: “God does not merely pay a price for each person in the decades from their birth to the present. As God sees it, you have come into this world countless times, and have been reincarnated countless times. Who is in charge of this? God is in charge of this. You have no way of knowing these things. Each time you come into this world, God personally makes arrangements for you: He arranges how many years you will live, the sort of family that you will be born into, when you will build a home and a career, as well as what you will do in this world and how you will make a living. God arranges a way for you to earn a living, so that you can accomplish your mission in this life unhindered. And as for what you should do in your next incarnation, God arranges and delivers that life to you according to what you ought to have and what ought to be given to you…. God has made these arrangements for you many times, and, at last, you were born into the age of the last days, into your present family. God arranged an environment for you in which you could believe in Him, He allowed you to hear His voice and come back before Him, so that you could follow Him and perform a duty in His house. It is only with such guidance from God that you have lived until today. You do not know how many times you have been born among man, nor how many times your appearance has changed, nor how many families you have had, nor how many ages and dynasties you have lived through—but God’s hand has been supporting you the whole time, and He has always been watching over you. How much God toils for a person’s sake! Some people say, ‘I’m sixty years old. For sixty years, God has been watching over me, protecting me, and guiding me. If, when I’m old, I can’t perform a duty and I can’t do anything—will God still care about me?’ Is this not a silly thing to say? God does not have sovereignty over a person’s fate, and watch over them and protect them for just a single lifespan. If it were just the matter of a single lifespan, a single lifetime, that would fail to demonstrate that God is almighty and has sovereignty over everything. The labor that God does and the price that He pays for a person is not merely to arrange what they do in this life, but to arrange for them a countless number of lifetimes. God takes full responsibility for every soul that is reincarnated. He works attentively, paying the price of His life, guiding every person and arranging each of their lives. God toils and pays a price in this way for man’s sake, and He bestows upon man all of these truths and this life. If people do not perform the duty of created beings in these final days, and they do not return before the Creator—if, in the end, no matter how many lives and generations they have lived through, they do not do their duties well and they fail to meet God’s demands—would their debt to God not then be too great? Would they not be unworthy of all the prices God has paid? They would be so lacking in conscience, they would not deserve to be called people, as their debt to God would be too great. Therefore, in this life—I am not talking about your former lives, but in this life—if you are not able to give up the things you love or external things for the sake of your mission—like material pleasures and the love and joy of family—if you do not give up the pleasures of the flesh for the sake of the prices that God pays for you or to repay God’s love, then you are truly wicked! Actually, any price that you pay for God is worth it. Compared to the price that God pays on your behalf, what does the tiny amount that you offer up or expend amount to? What does the little you suffer amount to? Do you know how much God has suffered? The little that you suffer is not even worth mentioning when it is compared to what God has suffered. Moreover, by doing your duty now, you are obtaining the truth and the life, and in the end, you will survive and enter into God’s kingdom. What a great blessing that is!” (The Word, Vol. 3. The Discourses of Christ of the Last Days. Paying the Price to Gain the Truth Is of Great Significance). After reading God’s words, I realized that God has paid a huge price for every one of those chosen and preordained by God, ensuring their safety and protecting them so they are not swallowed up by the various evil trends. If we cannot do our duty in our lifetime, we are truly indebted to God! God has paid a painstaking price for me. Ever since I was a child, I listened to my mother talking about belief in God. God arranged this family for me and always watched over me and protected me. When I sank into money, fame, and gain and could not pull myself out, suffering and feeling helpless, it was God’s hand that saved me, and used my brothers and sisters to bring me before God. Through gathering and reading the words of God, I learned to accept things from God when I faced various problems, and stopped being ill-content with my destiny like I was before. I lived in a far more relaxed and liberated way. When I could not attend gatherings normally, then no matter how late it was, the sister would, time after time, wait for me to finish work and fellowship God’s intentions with me. Sometimes she even wrote letters to fellowship God’s words with me. Was this not all ruled over and arranged by God? God could not bear to see me lose myself while I pursued fame and gain, and end up being swallowed by Satan. Time after time, He raised up people, events, and things to support and help me, quietly waiting for me to turn around. If I carried on not repaying God’s love, then I would be too lacking in humanity. God’s work is soon to be at an end, and we can see disasters getting worse and worse. If I had kept on stubbornly refusing to come to my senses, then what use would money be, however much of it I earned? Could it save my life? Even if I became a powerful woman in other people’s eyes, what of it? Could that save me? I thought of something the Lord Jesus said: “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). Thinking back to those years in which I devoted all my energies to my work, I lost many opportunities to do my duty and gain the truth. Now, through reading God’s words, I understood God’s good intentions in saving people. Only by doing my duty and thoroughly casting off the bondage and affliction that Satan had put upon me, could I have the opportunity to be saved and survive. Next, I prayed to God daily about the resignation, asking Him to protect my heart and keep it from wavering.

Later, I submitted my resignation again, and the boss said, “Have you really made up your mind? We are getting ready to open another studio, and want our most outstanding employees to work in it. You were the first person we thought of. If it were anyone else, our minds would not be at rest. You’ve been with the company for many years, and you qualify for shares in the new studio. Just think how good it would be to have something of your own at such a young age later on. Why don’t you reconsider? The main thing is that we’ve been together for so many years, and now we have an emotional bond.” As she spoke, she sobbed and started crying. The conditions she proposed were exactly what I had been seeking all this time, and the money I had was just the right amount for the investment. If I just persisted for a while longer, I would achieve success and fame, and be envied by even more people. How good I would look in front of my relatives and friends! Just as I was fantasizing in my head about my wonderful future, I suddenly realized that my ideas were not in accordance with God’s intention. I hurriedly prayed to God silently, “Dear God, I know that this is another temptation that came upon me. Satan is again using what the boss said to disturb my heart and make me pursue fame, gain, and status. But this time, no matter what, I will break with Satan once and for all, and stand firm in my testimony to comfort Your heart.” While praying, I remembered a passage of God’s words I had read before: “When you repeatedly investigate and carefully dissect the various goals that people pursue in life and their myriad ways of living, you will find not one of them conforms to the Creator’s original intention with which He created humanity. All of them draw people away from the Creator’s sovereignty and care; they are all traps which cause people to become depraved, and which lead them to hell. After you recognize this, your task is to lay aside your old view of life, stay far from various traps, let God take charge of your life and make arrangements for you; it is to try only to submit to God’s orchestrations and guidance, to live without individual choice, and to become a person who worships God” (The Word, Vol. 2. On Knowing God. God Himself, the Unique III). Satan uses all kinds of thoughts and ideas to paralyze people, tempting them to pursue fame, gain, and status, trapping them deep inside, so that they deny God, betray God, and lose any chance to be saved. These are Satan’s sinister motives. Now, were these conditions the boss had proposed to attract me not a trap, luring me into degeneration? How could I stubbornly refuse to come to my senses any longer? God wants us to submit to His sovereignty, and do the duties of a created being. Only in this way can we understand the truth, live out a human likeness, and ultimately be saved by God. So I resolutely said to my boss, “All people have their own ambitions, and I want a new environment.” My boss agreed. After leaving the company, I felt much more relaxed at heart. From then on, I could properly pursue the truth like my brothers and sisters.

After this experience, I saw Satan’s sinister motives clearly. Satan makes people pursue fame and gain, with its goal being to make people shun and betray God, come under its power completely, and eventually descend with it to hell. If people rely on themselves, they simply have no way to overcome Satan’s schemes. Only by reading the words of God and understanding the truth can people see through things and say farewell to the mistaken ways in which they existed in the past. Only by pursuing the truth can we gain God’s salvation. After I let go of my job, although I was not esteemed by more people and my material life was somewhat lacking, the sense of ease and peace in my spirit could not be exchanged for any amount of money, fame, or gain. I finally cast off the bondage of fame and gain, and fulfilled my duty in the church. Thank God for His salvation!