By Lizhu
As the catering business became more and more difficult, my husband and I discussed turning to a new industry and looked for other ways to earn money. Later, I learned from my niece that recycling old home appliances and junk was easy and profitable. My entire family thus came to the outskirts thousands of miles away from home to start the business.
Because we did business honestly, the earnings could only meet family expenses. After a few years, my two sons got married and had their own children, cleaning out all our savings. Without the working capital, we could hardly maintain the business, so we borrowed money from our relatives everywhere. However, they gave us the cold shoulder, and said with irony that we were fit for nothing and that we actually had no money after having been doing business for many years. But my niece, in just a few years of engaging in the recycling industry, bought a car and a house, living a good life. Every year when returning to our hometown, she received special favor from the villagers. That made me see that all people only looked for money. It was really true that “Whoever has money is a don and whoever has no money is nobody.” The cold eyes of the world, the prejudice of my relatives and the pressure of money made me unable to breathe. I worked in the same business as my niece, so why could she become rich while I lived a hard life? Then, I asked my niece about the secret of success. She said, “As the members engaging in the industry of purchasing old home appliances, we should learn to shift our sails with the wind. For those who know the quotation, we can offer the going price; for those who have just begun to engage in this industry or who know little about the quotation, we can offer a lower price. We should also learn to speak from both sides of our mouths. Before forcing price down, we first sound them out. Besides, in the remote areas where no one has ever been there to recycle things, we can keep down the price to the lowest level. Anyway, it doesn’t matter if it’s a black cat or white cat; as long as it catches mice, then it’s a good cat. In doing business, we just need to make money.” What my niece said opened my eyes, and I knew that there were actually these knacks in doing business. Apparently, in the age when whoever has money is a don and whoever has no money is nobody, without a bit of trickery, I truly couldn’thad no way to stand in society.
Afterward, I also learned to size people up. Generally, I would first sound out the seller and wheedle out the price he wanted. When I knew that his offer was low, I would offer a little higher price to him. In this way, he would be willing to sell to me. If his offer washe wanted a high price, I would try my best to force the price down; if he didn’t know the quotation, I would directly keep the price down. The purchase prices of different brands of televisions were different. The imported home appliances were more expensive than the domestic ones, but whichever brands the appliances were, we bought them at the same price. Besides, we bought a broken laptop for thirty yuan, and bought a better one for seventy or eighty yuan. Then we took the laptops apart and sold the hard disks, memories and CPUs at a high price, so that we could earn more money. Later on, after many inquiries, I found out that if we registered and opened an account with the state appointed recycling company, and then let the customers send their old home appliances straight to the company in our name, we could pocket the difference. Thus, we could earn more money. However, I didn’t expect that after a period of time, those repeat customers raised their rates secretly, and took the copper out of the televisions, selling the restshells of the televisions to the company. (At that time, the copper was fifty yuan for one kilogram.) In this way, I could make no money.
Worn out physically and mentally, I wanted to get out of this filthy industry, yet I was unwilling. On the one hand, I had put the capital into it, and if I left my money would be poured down the drain; on the other hand, I was afraid that people would say that we were incapable and went bankrupt because of the others. In order to survive, I had no choice but to follow them in committing fraud and deception. I drew out the copper from the televisions and cheated the company to earn the easy money. During that time, I was always accused by my conscience but I had no other choice. Just as my colleagues said: “What can we do? Wwe have to do business against our conscience. Are we not forced to do so? Can we make money with a good conscience? If you kill a person, you would be required to pay with life; however, even if you coax a person into dying, you wouldn’t. Nowadays, the society is just like this. Human relations have become full of cheating. No one can earn money without deceit and fraud, so we could only follow the trends.” Indeed, it’s very difficult to do business honestly, and it’s more difficult to get out of the trend. I felt I had already fallen in a trap and couldn’t pull my feet out of it but only let the society’s evil tide lead me by the nose.
Just when I was in the trap, living in sin without the ability to rescue myself, my daughter brought two sisters to tell me about God’s work in the last days. Hearing their sincere words, I also laid bare my inner bitterness in discussion with them. Through their fellowship, I actually found some solutions for solving my difficulties and problems, and felt very illuminated and liberated in my heart. Before leaving, they gave me a book, saying. They said it was a copy of God’s word and tellingtold me to read it earnestly, and I gladly accepted. After that, so long as I was free, I would bring out the book of God’s words to read carefully. One day, I saw these words of God: “There is an enormous secret in your heart. You never know it there because you have been living in a world without light shining. Your heart and your spirit have been taken away by the evil one. Your eyes are covered by darkness; you cannot see the sun in the sky, nor the twinkling star in the night. Your ears are clogged with deceptive words and you hear not the thunderous voice of Jehovah, nor the sound of the rushing waters from the throne. You have lost everything that should have belonged to you and everything that the Almighty bestowed upon you. You have entered an endless sea of bitterness, with no strength of a rescue, no hope of survival, left only to struggle and to bustle about …” (“The Sighing of the Almighty”). “None actively seek out the footsteps or appearance of God, and none wish to exist in the care and keeping of God. Rather, they are willing to rely on the corrosion of Satan and the evil one in order to adapt to this world and to the rules of life the wicked mankind follows. At this point, the heart and spirit of man are sacrificed to Satan and become its sustenance. Moreover, the human heart and spirit become a place in which Satan can reside and a fitting playground for it” (“God Is the Source of Man’s Life”). Through reading these two passages of God’s words, I finally saw that the reason the society is evil and dark is due to Satan’s control of this world. Satan uses various poisons and philosophies to deceive and corrupt us and devour our spirits. Living by these satanic poisons, we become more and more corrupt. In doing business, I saw these satanic poisons as the words of wisdom and my own life goal to struggle for, such as “Whoever has money is a don and whoever has no money is nobody,” “Money isn’t everything, but without it, you can do nothing,” and so on. Besides, relying on the satanic philosophy “It doesn’t matter if it’s a black cat or white cat; as long as it catches mice, then it’s a good cat” to do business, I gradually learned how to go with the wind and how to deceive people by tricks. Even though I knew it was wrong, I still betrayed my conscience and made the shady money. In order to earn money, I abandoned human principles and had no humanity or morals. I only placed money and interests above everything, thinking that one who had money was capable, and that such people could receive respect and admiration. Consequently, I became more and more cunning, treacherous, greedy and selfish, without any humanity. At this time, I came to understand that people without the truth cannot differentiate between positive things and negative things but only succumb to the evil trends, becoming ever more deeply corrupted by Satan and ever more distant from God.
Later, through attending gatherings and reading God’s words with my brothers and sisters, I understood some truths and realized that God likes the honest, and that only an honest person is the true human likeness, and can live in the light. At that time, I particularly liked listening to the hymn of God’s word “God Blesses Those Who Are Honest”: “When you give your heart to God alone and you don’t play false to Him, when you never do what would deceive those above you or below, when you’re open with God in all things, when you don’t do things simply to win the favor and smile of God, this is being honest. Honesty means when you run from impurity in each word and each deed, when you cheat not God nor people. Honesty means when you ran from impurity in each word and each deed, when you cheat not God nor people. This is honesty, oh, this is honesty. If your words are filled with excuses, filled with vain explanations, then you are not practicing the truth, you’re not willing to do so. …” Whenever I heard this hymn, I was very moved. I thought: Relying on trickery to deceive people caused me to live in condemnation and torment every day. My life was too tiring and full of suffering, and what I did made God detest me. Now I believe in God. I should seek to be an honest person according to God’s requirements, and shouldn’t make bad money or deceive others anymore. As a human, I should live with dignity and integrity. However, I was so deeply deceived by Satan. Although I knew being an honest person is God’s request, when I was faced with circumstances, it was very difficult for me to put God’s words into practice because I had no truth.
Once, a person came to purchase our CPUs, memories, hard disks and some other little accessories, and overpaid us by 500 yuan. When I found out I quickly told my son, “He overpaid us. Let’s call him and return the extra money.” After hearing what I said, my son replied with a stern face, “It is this difficult to make money, so we can’t return it. Mom, let’s divide it.” At that time, although God used my husband to tell me that we couldn’t take the money, when seeing my son’s firm attitude and thinking that it was indeed not easy to make money, I, holding the one hundred yuan my son parceled out to me, tacitly agreed. When I went back to my room, the scene that had taken place just now recurred to me. I thought that God had already reminded me through my husband, but I still wanted to take unfair advantage of the man. I already was a believer in God, often sang songs about being an honest person, and knew clearly that God likes honest people and despises and hates those who are deceitful and greedy. However, I still chose to be a deceitful person that displeased God. I was corrupted too deeply by Satan, and was unworthy of being called human. Thinking of this, I felt rather upset. Then I came before God to pray, and repented and confessed to Him. After praying, I took out the book of God’s word, and saw these words from God: “My kingdom requires those who are honest, not hypocritical, and not deceitful. Aren’t the sincere and honest people unpopular in the world? I am just the opposite. It is acceptable for the honest people to come to Me; I delight in this kind of person, I also need this kind of person. This is precisely My righteousness” (“The Thirty-third Utterance”). “Since He began to manage, God has been waiting for man to give his heart to Him, to let God purify and equip it, to make him satisfactory to God and loved by God, to make him revere God and shun evil. God has ever looked forward to and awaited this outcome” (“God’s Work, God’s Disposition, and God Himself II”). Pondering God’s words, I realized that God hopes for us to be honest people, give our hearts to Him, and revere God and shun evil because only honest people can be saved and enter His kingdom. However, I knew very well that God likes the honest, detests and hates deceitful people, but I still wanted to take unfair advantages of other people. Only at this time did I see clearly that the satanic poison “Whoever has money is a don and whoever has no money is nobody” had an extremely deleterious and serious effect on me. These lies of Satan and satanic rules of survival deceived my spirit and made me devoid of conscience, which would allow me to embark on the evil path of resisting God and to be thoroughly devoured by Satan at last. Having understood these things, I made up my mind: In the future, when doing business, I won’t commit fraud or deception. I must conduct myself in good conscience, and practice being honest—one is one, two is two. I will earn the money that I should earn. Whether my business is good or not is in God’s hands. I only have to rely on my faith to experience the words of God, and be an honest person that pleases Him.
Afterward, I purchased home appliances according to the regular prices, and no longer cheated others by trick. I also no longer took out the copper in televisions and sold them separately. When practicing like this, I felt peace and joy in my heart. What surprised me most was that when my husband and I did business according to our conscience and practiced being an honest person, our business became better and better and many sellers were willing to cooperate with us. I remember that once one of our colleagues wanted to sell us fifty-seven freezers. We refused him, for we resented that purchasing these freezers was too much hassle and unprofitable and we didn’t have enough cash. However, he insisted on our carting them away, and said, “Money isn’t a problem. You can pay me when you have money.” Then, seeing that these freezers were good, we bought them for one hundred and seventy yuan each. (The original price was one hundred yuan each.) After we got back home, my husband and I took these freezers apart, discovering that the freezers had half as much copper again as the common freezers. Even my niece, who did this business for over ten years, never met such case. Therefore, we earned extra money about half of our total profits. From this I saw God’s blessings. Thinking about the past when I did business relying on underhanded means and deceitfulness, I was very exhausted and had a guilty conscience. Besides, I made no money. When I put being an honest person into practice in accordance with the requirements of God in business, not only did I feel peace and joy, but my business also became ever better. Only then did I realize that only being an honest person will be blessed by God. Just as God’s words said: “You ought to know that God likes an honest man. God has the substance of faithfulness, and so His word can always be trusted. Furthermore, His actions are faultless and unquestionable. This is why God likes those who are absolutely honest with Him” (“Three Admonitions”).
Another time, we received a batch of goods which was half as many again as that I ordered. At that time, I unknowingly had a greedy thought, wanting to have them for ourselves. Just then, some of God’s words guided me from within: “Honesty means to give your heart to God; never to play Him false in anything; to be open with Him in all things, never hiding the truth; never to do that which deceives those above and deludes those below; and never to do that which merely ingratiates yourself with God. In short, to be honest is to refrain from impurity in your actions and words….” I thought: Yes! God requires us to be honest people. I can’t deceive God or people. So I discussed buying the extra goods with my husband and then sent the money to the seller. After knowing what we did, the seller’s boss appreciatively said to us: “I’d never seen such good people as you.” Later, my two sons wanted to learn computer. After he knew that, the boss told me: “You can rest easy and let your sons come to me to learn computer. I charge the others several thousand yuan at least. But I can teach your sons free of charge, and I promise to teach them well.” After my sons got there, the boss not only taught them to fix computers but also looked after their basic necessities. From this, I genuinely experienced God’s faithfulness. We just practiced a little truth, yet we obtained such great blessings from God and such a good assessment from the boss. I was really thankful to Almighty God. All this was God’s salvation for us. Were it not for the judgment and guidance of God’s words, I would have done business only based on Satan’s rules, and become increasingly corrupt, treacherous, greedy and selfish. It was God’s words that helped me jump out of the trap of sin, live out some likeness of the human and walk on the bright and right path of life.
All the glory be to Almighty God!
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