By An Ran, China

When I was a child, my father worked in a government office in town, and my mom ran a tailor’s store. Our family’s financial situation was quite good. Whether I was visiting relatives or classmates, they would all look at me with envy, and relatives would all come to visit our home for Chinese New Year and to celebrate festivals. I heard my family members gossiping, “Nowadays, people are all very materialistic. They only come to our house because we’re doing OK. If we were too poor to eat, nobody would come. As the sayings go, ‘People respect those with possessions, while dogs bite the ugly,’ and ‘If you are poor in a busy city, no one will care about you; but if you are rich in a remote mountain area, distant relatives will come out of the woodwork.’” I also agreed strongly with this view, and felt that only with wealth could you be admired and looked up to by others.

After I got married, my family’s finances were average, but my eldest sister-in-law’s family were in business, and their living conditions were much better than ours. My mother-in-law often said, “Look at how capable your eldest sister-in-law and her husband are! They’re making big money. But then look at you two, you barely bring home any money over a year.” One time, my mother-in-law was chatting with my father-in-law and said, “Look at Old Li’s son from our village—he went out and made a lot of money in just a few years. When he came back, he renovated his father’s house and bought a large LCD TV. Everything they wear and use is new. Now look at our son. We’re still shelling out money for his kid! With those two at home, a bag of white flour barely lasts a couple of meals before it’s gone. You should hurry and grind some cornmeal tomorrow. It’s a waste to eat only white flour.” Hearing this, I felt extremely sad. I made a secret vow that no matter how much I suffered or how hard it was, I had to make a lot of money. I would only be admired if I had money, and money determined my status in this family. Once I had money, my mother-in-law wouldn’t look down on me anymore, and would look up to me instead.

In 2011, my husband and I opened a breakfast store. At first I was reluctant to hire more people, and so I got up at 11 p.m. to work and tried to prepare the food before breakfast time. Breakfast time is only a couple hours long, and if you don’t prepare enough, you will sell out. Business was pretty good at that time, and I could save tens of thousands of yuan a year. However, because I had been working with my head down year after year, the back of my neck started to hurt. When it got serious, I just massaged myself and it got a little better, so I didn’t take it seriously. In the third year, one day I felt dizzy, confused and nauseous. My husband accompanied me to the hospital for a check-up. The doctor said that my confusion and nausea were caused by cervical spondylosis, and I couldn’t lower my head for long periods anymore. If it got any more serious, I wouldn’t be able to do anything at all. I had no choice but to hire one more person. Later, in order to make more money, I added a few more breakfast options, and with the greater number of options, I got even busier. I would go to bed around 7 p.m. every night and get up to work just after 11 p.m., so I only slept around four hours a day. I was busy selling breakfasts, but I didn’t have time to eat any myself, and by the time I finished serving breakfasts, it was already lunchtime. Every day, I would be so busy that I wouldn’t get a bite to eat until after 3 p.m., and as soon as I’d eaten I’d have to get the supplies ready for the next day. After each day my feet, waist, and back would all hurt. My legs felt like I’d been standing on ice—they were so cold they had lost all sensation. However, I gritted my teeth and persevered in order to make money. As the saying goes, “One must endure the greatest hardships in order to become the greatest of men.” After several years of hard effort, we had earned hundreds of thousands of yuan, and bought a house and a car. My parents-in-law saw that we had gotten rich, and they always greeted us with a smile; our relatives and friends also greeted us warmly. Every time I went to my parents-in-law’s house, I enjoyed the feeling of being the center of attention. This just showed that finances truly do determine your status; people have dignity and prestige when they have money. However, because of working very hard from dawn to dusk in those years, coupled with staying up late over a long period, my husband got heart disease, and his stent surgery cost 160,000 yuan for one operation. I was also so tired that my cervical and lumbar vertebrae ached every day, and when I lay down in bed at night, there was no place on my body that didn’t hurt. Sometimes when I suffered a cervical spondylosis attack, I felt dizzy, afraid to move, and my mind became confused. This was not even the worst thing—the worst thing was my flour allergy. I kept sneezing whenever I was exposed to flour, and when it was severe it was like I had asthma. I was terribly uncomfortable because I was so desperately short of breath. I had to wear five or six layers of masks every time I worked, and, especially on the hottest days of summer, wearing such a thick layer of masks made my face sweat all over. I can’t even describe how uncomfortable it was! But in order to appear distinguished in front of others, I had to suffer behind the scenes. I had to persevere no matter how hard it was or how much I suffered. At the end of 2018, I had been running the breakfast store for eight years. As breakfast stores appeared in every housing development, our breakfast store in the morning market wasn’t so popular anymore, and business got worse every year. I saw that it was not going to work. I had taken out loans to buy my house and car, and this way I couldn’t save very much at all each year. In order to save more money, I opened another store. My husband worked in the old store, and I worked in the new store. We were exhausted and sleepy at the end of every day, and sometimes I was so drowsy I would have to put my head on the table and take a nap. Since my husband had heart disease and a stent operation, he couldn’t stay in the store for a long time, but even so, we didn’t give up on the idea of making money, and persisted in working even though we were ill. At that time, I was like a spinning top, spinning non-stop and unable to eat or sleep well. Sometimes I thought, “What is life for? I am working myself to the bone every day for money. Being rich may make people admire you for a while, but you will still die in the end. What’s the point of it?” I felt so helpless and empty inside, and often thought, “When will this kind of life end?” However, without any other way out, I just had to keep on living like that.

Later, I worked out that Chinese restaurants made money, and so I sold the breakfast stores and prepared to open a Chinese restaurant. During the renovation process, unexpectedly, my husband was mentally overstimulated and got ill, having to be hospitalized. The doctor said that with his illness, he mustn’t get tired, get angry, or be overstimulated. I saw that with my husband in this condition, even after he was discharged, he wouldn’t be able to run a restaurant. We had no option, and so I sold off the restaurant with the renovations almost complete. I lost over 200,000 yuan at that time, and felt ashamed to see my relatives and friends; I felt like the people who knew me would definitely look down on me and laugh at me. In 2019, I borrowed hundreds of thousands of yuan from my relatives to invest in a project, but in the end, the boss of the project I invested in was arrested. I was dumbfounded at the time: “Other people make hundreds of thousands by investing. How could it end up like this when I do it?” My dream of getting rich was shattered, just like that, and I had no tears left to cry. I went to investigate in preparation to start some other business, but everything required capital, and who else could I have borrowed money from? I had borrowed money from all my relatives to invest, and now I had nobody to borrow from. I thought about the car loan and mortgage repayments at home, and the living expenses for my son’s education—what on earth was I going to do? After my husband was discharged from the hospital, it was like he had Alzheimer’s disease and could not help me at all; I even had to take care of him. During those days, I was so worried that I couldn’t eat or sleep, and my heart was in anguish. Sometimes, I just wanted to die and get it over with, but then I thought about the debts that had not been repaid, my son who had not graduated yet, and my husband who was still sick. If I died, wouldn’t this family be over? Wouldn’t my son collapse? I couldn’t die! At that time, I really felt like I couldn’t afford to live, but couldn’t afford to die either. When I couldn’t sleep at night, I could only cry silently. I looked back to the years when I worked so hard to earn money in order to live a life of luxury and became a slave to money. But in the end, all my hard-earned money was lost, my husband was racked by illness, and we were in huge amounts of debt. We really had ended up with nothing, like we’d tried to carry water in a wicker basket. What was the point of living like this? I just couldn’t figure out this question and no one could give me an answer. When I was at my wit’s end, my husband and I discussed going to find my mother to start believing in God. The second year we’d been running the breakfast store, my mother testified to me about God’s work in the last days; in my heart, I also believed in God, but the business was so busy at that time that I didn’t even have time to eat or sleep, let alone believe in God. Therefore, I rejected God’s salvation. But then, in August 2020, I came to believe in God. Although my family was penniless at that time, I read God’s words every day, and my heart was filled with joy and peace—I felt such great comfort.

One day, I read a passage of God’s words: “The work carried out during the last days is the work of conquest. It is not the guidance of the lives of all the people on earth, but the conclusion of mankind’s imperishable, millennia-long life of suffering on earth. … This is because the last days are the conclusion of the entire era. They are the completion and the ending of God’s six-thousand-year management plan, and they conclude mankind’s life journey of suffering. They do not take the whole of mankind into a new age or allow mankind’s life to continue; that would hold no significance for My management plan or for the existence of man. If mankind carried on like this, then sooner or later they would be entirely devoured by the devil, and those souls that belong to Me would ultimately be ruined by its hands. My work lasts for but six thousand years, and I promised that the evil one’s control over the whole of mankind would also last for but six thousand years. So, now the time is up. I will neither continue nor delay any longer: During the last days I will vanquish Satan, I will take back all My glory, and I will reclaim all the souls that belong to Me on earth so that these distressed souls may escape from the sea of suffering, and thus will be concluded My entire work on earth” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. No One Who Is of the Flesh Can Escape the Day of Wrath). From God’s words I understood that the stage of work that God is doing in the last days is to end mankind’s life of suffering and take people back from Satan’s hands so they are harmed by it no longer. I was so excited and felt a sense of belonging that I had never felt before. I couldn’t control my tears. I had been struggling so hard to live in the world for so many years, with no place to express the pain in my heart—only God understood my bitterness and helplessness. This time, I had found a way out, which was to come before God and accept His salvation. I thought about how in 2012 my mom had testified to me many times that God had come to express the truth among mankind in the last days to save us. However, at that time I was obsessed with money and refused God’s salvation in order to live a life of luxury. I was so regretful. If I had accepted God’s work of the last days earlier, I would not have had to suffer so much or endure so many hardships in the world. Today I had the good fortune to come before God because God’s love had come upon me, and God wanted to save me and lift me out of this sea of suffering. In the past, I was only concerned with trying desperately to make money, and my life was too hard and tiring, but this time I couldn’t miss my chance to be saved by God again. It was like I had grabbed a lifeline, and I wanted to seize this rare opportunity to follow God wholeheartedly and stop living for money. After that, I often met with brothers and sisters to fellowship about God’s words, and I felt particularly at ease and peaceful.

In the spring of 2021, my brothers and sisters gathered with me and fellowshipped about how Satan uses fame and gain to harm people. When I heard this, I felt that it was very specific to my state, and when I got home, I looked up the words of God to read them carefully. Almighty God says: “In fact, no matter how lofty man’s ideals are, no matter how realistic man’s desires are or how proper they may be, all that man wants to achieve, all that man seeks for, is inextricably linked to two words. These two words are vitally important to the life of every person, and they are things Satan intends to instill in man. What are these two words? They are ‘fame’ and ‘gain.’ Satan uses a very mild kind of method, a method very much in concert with people’s notions, which is not at all radical, through which it causes people to unknowingly accept its way of living, its rules to live by, and to establish life goals and their direction in life, and unknowingly they also come to have ambitions in life. No matter how grand these life ambitions may seem, they are inextricably linked to ‘fame’ and ‘gain.’ Everything that any great or famous person—all people, in fact—follow in life relates only to these two words: ‘fame’ and ‘gain.’ People think that once they have fame and gain, they can then capitalize on those things to enjoy high status and great wealth, and to enjoy life. They think fame and gain are a kind of capital that they can use to obtain a life of pleasure-seeking and wanton enjoyment of the flesh. For the sake of this fame and gain which mankind so covets, people willingly, albeit unknowingly, hand over their bodies, minds, all that they have, their futures and their destinies, to Satan. They do so genuinely and without even a moment’s hesitation, ever ignorant of the need to recover all that they have handed over. Can people retain any control over themselves once they have taken refuge in Satan in this way and become loyal to it? Certainly not. They are completely and utterly controlled by Satan. They have completely and utterly sunk into a quagmire, and are unable to free themselves. Once someone is mired in fame and gain, they no longer seek that which is bright, that which is just, or those things that are beautiful and good. This is because the seductive power that fame and gain have over people is too great; they become things for people to pursue throughout their lives and even for all eternity without end. Is this not true?” (The Word, Vol. 2. On Knowing God. God Himself, the Unique VI). “‘Money makes the world go round’; is this a trend? Compared to the fashion and gourmet trends you mentioned, is this not much worse? ‘Money makes the world go round’ is a philosophy of Satan. It prevails among the whole of mankind, in every human society; you could say it is a trend. This is because it has been instilled in the heart of every single person, who at first did not accept this saying, but then 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? Perhaps people do not understand this saying to the same degree, but everyone has different degrees of interpretation and acknowledgment of this saying based on things that have happened around them and on their own personal experiences. Is that not the case? Regardless of how much experience someone has with this saying, what is the negative effect that it can have on someone’s heart? Something is revealed through the human disposition of the people in this world, including each and every one of you. What is it? It is the worship of money. 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! Satan uses money to tempt people, and corrupts them into worshiping money and venerating material things. And how is this worship of money manifested in people? 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 order to get money? Do many people not lose their dignity and integrity in the pursuit of more money? Do many people not lose the opportunity to perform their duty and follow God for the sake of money? Is losing the chance to gain the truth and be saved not the greatest of all losses for people?” (The Word, Vol. 2. On Knowing God. God Himself, the Unique V). After reading the words of God, I understood that Satan uses fame and gain to control people and instill various rules of survival in them, such as “Money isn’t everything, but without it, you can do nothing,” “Money makes the world go round,” “Man dies for wealth as birds do for food,” and “Money is first.” People live by these satanic poisons, and regard fame and gain as the objective of their pursuit. They pursue them desperately, but in the end it is all empty. I was no exception. When I was a kid, I saw my relatives and friends visiting my house every Chinese New Year and at all the festivals, and I knew they flattered and curried favor with my family because my parents had some financial resources. It was just like the saying, “If you are poor in a busy city, no one will care about you; but if you are rich in a remote mountain area, distant relatives will come out of the woodwork.” After I got married, my mother-in-law was a snob, and curried favor with my eldest sister-in-law’s family because they were well off. When she saw that we weren’t making much money, she would criticize us even when there were outsiders around and go around with a sullen face all day long, as if we owed her something. Because of this I came to believe that your finances determined your status, and that people could live without anything except money. Only with money could you get good material enjoyment, be admired and envied by others, and live with dignity. I lived by these fallacious values and outlooks on life, and worked myself to the bone from dawn to dusk to make money. I didn’t stop to rest even when my lumbar and cervical vertebrae hurt, and persevered in working despite my severe flour allergy. I made some money and enjoyed the benefits that money brought me, my neighbors and mother-in-law all greeted me with smiles, and my vanity was satisfied. However, only I knew about the bitterness and pain that lay behind this. I worked desperately hard to make money, but in the end I still ended up back to square one in life. Not only that, my husband was beset by illness, and my cervical and lumbar vertebrae also hurt. The pain in my body and spirit could not be expressed in words; all of this was caused by my pursuit of money, fame, and gain. I only now understood that the goals I had pursued and my perspective on survival were wrong. Satan’s sinister intention lay within it all. Satan just wants me to work hard to make money and live for money, fame, and gain. In this way, I cannot come before God and receive His salvation. This is precisely Satan’s sinister intention. I am so thankful to God for His salvation of me. If it hadn’t been for believing in God, I would have continued to work hard to make money, and with my current health, I might have lost my life one day as a result. I’m thankful for the exposure of God’s words which helped me see Satan’s sinister intention clearly: to use money, fame, and gain to harm and corrupt me. Now, I just want to wholeheartedly believe in God and pursue the truth, and no longer be fooled by Satan and continue pursuing only money.

Sometimes I wondered, “I worked so hard in those years, but in the end, I was left with nothing but debts. Why was my life so painful?” In seeking, I read the words of God: “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? … The destination of man is in the hands of the Creator, so how could man control himself?” (The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Restoring the Normal Life of Man and Taking Him to a Wonderful Destination). God’s words made me understand that a person’s life is in the hands of God. No matter how hard people work or how desperately they scrabble, they will never get what they want if God does not bestow it, despite all their rushing and scrabbling around. Looking back over all those years, I went out early and came back late every day, and I didn’t care how much I suffered or how tired I was; I just worked hard to make money because I wanted to live a life of luxury and be admired by others. I wanted to change my fate with my own ability, but in the end, my husband and I were beset with illness and all we got in return was emptiness. Now I realized that our lives are not in our control. How much money we earn is not determined by how we work with our hands, but all depends on God’s sovereignty and preordination. At the same time, I also felt God’s painstaking intentions. Without experiencing this bitterness and helplessness in life, I would not have come before God. In 2012, my mother preached God’s gospel of the kingdom to me, but I was only concerned with making money and didn’t accept it. It was eight more years before I came before God, but God did not abandon me because of my ignorance and rebelliousness. God’s love is so great! I should stand properly in the position of a created being, and entrust the rest of my life to God, submitting to God’s sovereignty and arrangements. Since then, I have read God’s words whenever I have some free time, and every day has been very fulfilling.

Later, I rented a small stall in the morning market to sell roasted nuts to make a living. Although I didn’t make as much money as before, I was not as busy, and I had time to do my duty. I thought about the loans I had to pay back from my previous investment, and I prayed to God about these problems, “God, I want to do my duty, but You know my real difficulties. I want to sell my house to pay off my loans. I beg You to open up a way out for me.” Later, the house sale went very smoothly and part of the loan was repaid. From then on, I dedicated myself to gatherings after I packed up my stall, ate and drank the words of God with my brothers and sisters, and did my duty to the best of my ability.

In mid-February 2024, my younger brother called me to say a relative’s store was for sale. After deducting expenses, I could earn more than 100,000 yuan a year, and I wouldn’t have to pay the money for the store up front. I could start up the business first and then pay the money when I had it. When I heard this, my heart skipped a beat, “This is really good. This store is more than ten years old and has a stable customer base. I wouldn’t need to pay a dime in the early stages, and could make money as soon as I took it on. If I worked at it for three years, I’d be able to pay off all my debts, have money for my son’s wedding, and pay for my retirement. I could also slowly lead that kind of prestigious life again.” But then I had another thought, “No. Wouldn’t that mean I’d just be going back to my old life? I’ve finally managed to break free from Satan’s torments, and I can’t go backward. If I have to choose between making money and doing my duty, I will choose my duty.” At this time, I thought of a passage of God’s words that I had read in a previous gathering, and I looked it up and read it. Almighty God says: “Being content with food and clothing, is this the correct path? (It is correct.) Why is it correct? Is the value of a person’s life about food and clothing? (No.) If the value of a person’s life is not about food and clothing or enjoyment in the flesh, then the profession a person engages in should only fulfill the need for food and clothing; it shouldn’t go beyond this scope. What is the purpose behind having food and clothing? To ensure the body can survive normally. What is the purpose of survival? It’s not for the sake of fleshly enjoyment, nor for the sake of enjoying life’s course, and it certainly isn’t for the sake of enjoying all the things that humans experience in life. All of these are unimportant. So what is the most important? What is the most valuable thing a person should do? (One should walk the path of believing in God and pursuing the truth, and then fulfill their own duties.) No matter what kind of person you are, you are a created being. Created beings should do what they are meant to do—this is what has value. So, what is it created beings do that has value? Every created being has a mission entrusted to them by the Creator, a mission they are meant to fulfill. God has determined the destiny of each person’s life. Whatever their life’s destiny is, that is what they should do. If you do it well, then when you finally stand before God to give an account, God will provide a satisfying answer. He will say that your life was lived valuably and fruitfully, that you turned God’s words into your life, and that you are a qualified created being. However, if your life is just about living, struggling, and investing for the sake of food, clothing, pleasure, and happiness, then when you finally stand before God, He will ask, ‘How much have you fulfilled of this life’s task and mission that I gave you?’ You will tally it all up and find that the energy and time of this life were spent on food, clothing, and entertainment. It seems like you haven’t done much with your faith in God, you haven’t fulfilled your duty, you haven’t persisted to the end, and you haven’t carried out your devotion. With regard to pursuing the truth, though you had some willingness to pursue it, you haven’t paid much of a price, and you haven’t gained anything. In the final test, God’s words have not become your life, and you are still the same old Satan. Your methods for viewing things and acting are all based on human notions and imaginings, and Satan’s corrupt disposition. You are still completely opposed to God, and are incompatible with Him. In that case, you will be rendered useless, and God will not want you anymore. From this point on, you will no longer be God’s created being. That is a pitiful thing! Therefore, no matter what profession you engage in, as long as it’s legal, it is arranged and predestined by God. But that doesn’t mean God supports or encourages you to earn more money or to rise to prominence in the career you have taken. God doesn’t approve of this, and He never required it from you. God will moreover never use the profession you engage in to push you toward the world, to hand you over to Satan, or to allow you to willfully pursue fame and profit. Instead, through the profession you engage in, God allows you to address your needs for food and warmth—that is all. Additionally, within God’s words He has told you such things as what your duty is, what your mission is, what you should pursue, and what you should live out. These are the values you should live out and the path you should walk throughout your life. … in matters of a career, it is crucial to be content with food and clothing. If you can’t see this point clearly, you might lose your duty and jeopardize your chances of being saved” (The Word, Vol. 6. On the Pursuit of the Truth. How to Pursue the Truth (20)). After reading the words of God, I understood that one should be content with just having food and clothing. People come to this world not to live and enjoy themselves, but to do their duty as created beings. Thinking back to those years of hard work, it almost cost me my life, and it was God who saved me from Satan’s torments. By coming to God’s house to gather and read God’s words, I understood what people should pursue in order to achieve the most meaningful life. I felt very at ease in my heart. This is something that cannot be bought with money, fame, or gain. The money I earn from selling roasted nuts now is enough for me to live on, and when I go home I can still attend gatherings and do my duty. If I went to run a store, how would I have time to believe in God and do my duty? Wouldn’t it mean I would have to abandon my duties and go back to my old ways? I cannot live for money, fame, or gain anymore; that would be digging my own grave. I have to listen carefully to God’s words, and fulfill the duty of a created being while being content with food and clothing. Only in this way can life have meaning. Therefore, I resolutely called my brother and turned him down.

Now I am busy with my duties most of the day, and I feel very at ease in my heart. It is not like before, when I lived for money, fame, and gain and felt utterly miserable and helpless. Thank God for His salvation!