I was as honest as my parents taught me to be. Although I led a poor life, I was delighted every day. Later, as the socio-economic development gained speed, my desire for money became greater and greater. So the whole family couldn’t actually live on the several acres of land we cultivated. To make a living, we opened a small recycling station in the city with the borrowed money. Because we didn’t know anything about how to do business, much less did we know the inside stories of this industry, we simply believed that as long as we were steadfastly willing to toil and labor, doing business with credibility, we were sure to make big money.
Right on the opening day, a customer came to sell us a truckload of scrap iron. I was wild with joy, receiving him with hospitality and weighing the iron fair and square. He was greatly satisfied, saying, “I have never got so much money from selling the same load in other recycling stations. You really do fair business. I must call all my friends and relatives to sell scrap to you.” Hearing his words, I was overjoyed, and even more believed that if I did business according to my conscience, my business must be more and more thriving. However, when we were ready to load the scrap we had collected for several months and deliver them to another place, we found in them there were piles of junk, such as, bricks, stones, sandbags, and so on. At the sight of this, I was stunned. How could these businessmen be so conscienceless? Afterward, it was from a hometown fellow that I knew these men specially hunted for the newly-opened recycling stations, and taking advantage of their ignorance of the market, they cheated them so as to earn dirty money. So, after several months of hard work, not only did we not earn any money, we even lost several thousand yuan. To keep our business, my husband and I had to borrow money from relatives and friends.
Yet never had I thought that, before long, the people’s police also found us to defraud us. That day I was tidying up things at home when several policemen came with a ten–year–old child. They forcibly framed me by saying that I bought the stolen goods from this child. Not allowing me to speak, they forced me into the police car and took me to the police station. They detained me and did not release me to return home until my husband had to give them three thousand yuan. Afterward, these policemen found fault with us on various unwarranted charges frequently. They not only fined us but often took away my husband and my son. That disturbed our regular business. We couldn’t but supply the police station with money and goods constantly. I hated these so-called policemen to the bone. They were even more detestable than gangs of bandits and robbers! But how could we common people resist them? We could only stifle our indignation when facing their open extortion and blackmail time after time.
Because of these policemen, once again, we were up to the hilt in debt and sank into despair, having no way out. At this point, my in-law came to threaten us, saying, “I married my daughter to your son because I had thought you could become rich. But your family turn out to be so cowardly that you cannot even manage your business. I can’t stand watching my daughter suffering. Get them divorced.” His words struck a chill in my heart. I couldn’t help yelling within: Oh, the Lord of Heaven! Why do people today only have eyes for money? Where is their conscience, mortality, and humanity? I felt grieved and helpless. But in order to preserve the integrity of my family, I knelt down and promised him: No matter how hard our life is, I won’t let my daughter-in-law suffer. Only then did my in-law grudgingly allow my daughter-in-law to stay. Faced with such blows time and again, I fell ill and my whole being fell into a trance. The only wish I had then was: earning money. Without money, the life couldn’t go on.
Just when I was stranded, a business colleague and hometown fellow came to visit me. She said to me, “Aunt, you can’t earn much money by doing business straightforwardly. To tell you the truth, if you want to earn big money from collecting scrap, you’ll have to make good use of the scales. When others come to sell scrap, you can play tricks on the scale, make your scale read several pounds less than the actual weight, and then you’ll get the money.” I said, “Does your way work? Isn’t cheating on the scales entrapping others and going against conscience?” She laughed after listening to my words, “You have been cheated to such an extent; do you still hold on your conscience? Have the policemen shown mercy on you? Or the black-hearted two-way merchants? In this society, ‘The bold die of gluttony; the timid die of starvation.’ Conscience has no worth. ‘Whoever gives me money is my father; and whoever feeds me is my mother.’ If we common people still hold on our conscience, then we will have no means to survive. The saying has it that ‘Money makes the mare go,’ so you’d better think out ways in time to make money and solve your present difficulties. Up. Come to live in my house for several days and I’ll teach you how to make money.” Under her persuasion, I went to her house involuntarily. The means she used to do business basically opened my eyes. She weighed the scrap as she talked and laughed with the seller; while in secret, her hand shifted, pressing up on the scale from beneath, then the scale read dozens of kilograms or even hundreds of kilograms less than the actual weight of the object. Besides, no one could notice that. As I saw this, I was stupefied and sighed: How smart she is! No wonder she has made a fortune these years. I got it!
After I returned home, I immediately tried to exercise the tricks taught by my hometown fellow. At the very start, I did so with great cowardice and fear. That day, I was prepared to give a customer short weight by adjusting my scale to read 20 pounds less than the actual weight. But I was very afraid and my skill was not that good; at last, I went for wool and came back shorn: I just made the scrap weigh 10 pounds more than it actually did, plus my heart fluttered with fear. Although my first try ended in failure, however, for the sake of money and our future life, I still continued to try it with fear. Several times of “training” later, I was bold and skilled, and moreover, every time I saw the extra couple of yuan, dozens of yuan, or hundreds of yuan I earned this way, I had indescribable enjoyment in my heart. It never occurred to me that with tricks, I could earn money so easily. It seemed that if I went on like this, I would soon become a rich person, and never need worry about money. Thinking of this, I was bolder and bolder to do this, and I dared to give short weight to whoever the seller was. Especially when dealing with big business, I would make the scrap weigh much less, i.e. even thousands of pounds less than the actual weight, while the seller totally didn’t discover it. In this way, I could profit several hundred yuan from each deal. Just like that, under the temptation of money, my conscience became more and more numb.
With this cheating method, I gathered a big deal of money by fair means or foul just in a few years. After I paid off all our debts, I still had dozens of thousands of savings. I had thought I could live a worry-free life then, but I hadn’t expected that later, misfortunes came upon my family one after another: My second son was cheated into pyramid selling and out of more than thirty hundred yuan; later, he made a girlfriend, who was also a liar, and again was cheated out of fifty to sixty thousand yuan; one day when we went back to our hometown, our station was stripped bare. All at once, the dirty money I earned was lost and my family was poor again. With such blows coming in a row, I fell ill. For half a month, I had lost my appetite and later, I did not even have the strength to get out of the bed. The doctor told my husband, “Your wife’s illness couldn’t be cured easily. Maybe even her life would be at risk. You’d better prepare for the worst in advance.” During that time, I was always in an unspeakable panic and unease. I kept asking myself: My parents have taught me to be a good person and to do things with my conscience since I was young. But all these years I went against my conscience to earn easy money by cheating. Am I offending the Heaven and so the Heaven is taking it back? I began calling in my heart: Oh, the Lord of Heaven, please save me!
Just in the time of my agony and bewilderment, in January 2013, Almighty God’s work of the last days came upon me. I felt I was like a strayed lamb who returned back to its mother’s side. In the days when I attended meetings with brothers and sisters, I felt God’s love: My heart is greatly comforted, immersed in the peace and joy that can’t be described. Brothers and sisters all helped each other and loved each other, and could follow God’s words to pursue to be a real man. I like such an environment and such a church life very much. One day, I saw Almighty God’s words that said: “You ought to know that God likes those who are honest. In essence, God is faithful, and so His words can always be trusted; His actions, furthermore, are faultless and unquestionable, which is why God likes those who are absolutely honest with Him. Honesty means giving your heart to God, being genuine with God in all things, being open with Him in all things, never hiding the facts, not trying to deceive those above and below you, and not doing things only to curry favor with God. In short, to be honest is to be pure in your actions and words, and to deceive neither God nor man” (“Three Admonitions”). From God’s words, I realized that God is the truth and the symbol of justice. God’s essence is faithful and sincere, so God also asks us to be an honest person, not to deceive others or tell lies. God likes upstanding people, not deceitful people. All these years, in order to earn more money, I did many deceitful things that betrayed my conscience. This way of doing things could not please God but was detestable to Him. Having read God’s words, I made a secret resolution within: I must believe in God with my heart, to be a person that has conscience, and to do things according to God’s words. I can’t do dishonest business again.
After that, I did business with some restraint. But because I couldn’t resist the temptation of money, I could still skimp a bit on the weight sometimes when doing business. Once, a company was going to sell several tons of scrap iron to us. I called my husband’s cousin to help us. He said to me, “Sister-in-law, they sell so much scrap this time, will you not make it weigh less?” I said to him, “I have believed in God. I can’t do such things. God is watching me!” He said, “You believe in your God, but your God can’t be watching you every day. Do it one more time. Your God may not know about it. Time and tide wait for no man. And, this comes from the public unit. It’s perfectly justified to profit from it. Have you ever heard others say, ‘He is a fool if he doesn’t want to take extra advantage’? Don’t be so rigid.” My cousin’s words attracted my heart: Right! This is a good chance of making money. Since they are in large quantity, even if I make them weigh thousands of pounds less than they actually do, nobody will know it. So, once again, I went against God’s words and betrayed my conscience to make my scale read several kilograms less than the actual weight. When my families knew I earned extra several hundred yuan, they were very happy and said, “If we can have such deals daily in the future, we will earn several hundred more yuan each day, and it won’t take us long to become rich.” However, I saw this money and just couldn’t delight in it anyhow. I always felt uneasy, with my conscience being pricked sharply: God wants me to be an honest person, but how come that I cheat others again? God is righteous. What attitude will He take to me when seeing me still cheat Him? Will He despise and hate me? In those days I was dazed and confused and felt constantly uneasy.
Unexpectedly, a few days later, my son fought with my neighbor because of improper words. He injured the neighbor’s eye and the latter threatened to kill all my family if his eye went blind. The sudden occurrence worried me quite a lot. I didn’t know how to cope with it. In a flurry, I hastened to come before God to pray asking for His help. Afterward, I saw God’s words say: “Those deceitful people who act one way in front of others and another way behind their backs are not willing to be perfected. They are all sons of perdition and destruction; they belong not to God but to Satan. They are not the kind of people chosen by God! If your actions and behavior cannot be presented before God or looked upon by the Spirit of God, this is proof that there is something wrong with you. Only if you accept the judgment and chastisement of God, and care about the transformation of your disposition, will you be able to set foot upon the path to being perfected” (“Those Who Obey God With a True Heart Shall Surely Be Gained by God”). It was not until I read God’s words of judgment and chastisement that I realized this occurrence was born of God’s righteous punishment. It turned out that all that I did was observed by God, not as my cousin’s tempting words that God wouldn’t know about it. It seemed that God really searches man’s heart and knows all that we do. I came before God to commit my sins and repented them. And I made a resolution: In the future, I must act as God’s words say and never do evil things to resist God anymore. About this misfortune, I’m willing to obey God’s orchestration and arrangement, accepting all the punishments coming from God. Much contrary to my expectations, on the following day after I said such prayers to God, my neighbor said we would be still neighbors as long as we had his eye cured. This matter not only allowed me to see that God’s righteous disposition is unoffendable by men, but also showed God’s love and mercy, and God’s tolerance.
After this occurrence I often reflected: Why can’t I act following God’s words? Why can I still cheat others under Satan’s temptation? When the sister who was watering me came, I told her my confusion. She said, “We can’t practice the truth because we are all deeply corrupted by Satan and we are controlled by Satan’s thoughts and views. Only by reading God’s words and having discernment of Satan’s thoughts and views can we not fall into Satan’s trickery and be controlled by Satan. Let’s read a passage of God’s words and you’ll be clearer.” God says: “These trends arise one after another, and they all carry an evil influence that continually debases mankind, causing people to lose conscience, humanity and reason, weakening their morals and their quality of character ever more, to the extent that we can even say that the majority of people now have no integrity, no humanity, and neither do they have any conscience, much less any reason. … One after another, such trends cause people, who are not of sound body and mind, do not know what the truth is, and cannot differentiate between positive and negative things, to happily accept them as well as the life views and values that come from Satan. They accept what Satan tells them about how to approach life and the way to live that Satan “bestows” on them, and they have neither the strength nor the ability, much less the awareness, to resist” (“God Himself, the Unique VI”).
It was from God’s words that I understood: That I did so many things against my conscience in these years turns out to be the consequence of my being corrupted by the evil trends from Satan. Driven by the thought ‘Money makes the mare go,’ I valued money above everything. To earn more money, I got involved in its whirlpool before knowing it. I lost my original conscience and reason and bit by bit, I was assimilated and infected by this evil trend, earning dirty money at the cost of my conscience. Now I see. The reason I live in timidity and fear all day long is because God’s righteous chastisement has come upon me due to my doing too many conscienceless things. Only at this moment do I know that the means which Satan uses to corrupt man are really too sinister and awful. That I employed tricks to earn money and do unjust things can only cause me to be cursed by God and to end up in perdition and destruction. Now I have some discernment of Satan’s tricks and come to know that it is the social trends that Satan uses to tempt man. I can’t follow Satan again. I must resolutely practice the truth and live out the likeness of a real man according to God’s requirement.
Later, I saw that a business colleague, who often cheated in doing business and bribed the police to dominate the market, got his just deserts: A big fire came and his goods worth several hundreds of thousand yuan were burnt to ashes. And there was another business colleague who cheated others and earned much dirty money. One night, he drove his truck to load the stolen things in a construction site; but on the way home, his truck overturned and he was smashed to death on the spot. These scenes exactly fulfilled God’s words: “For I have said that I will punish all evil-doers, and that those who perform good deeds will receive the material enjoyment that I bestow, demonstrating that I am the God of righteousness and faithfulness Himself.” Man that did too many things against conscience would surely get his just deserts. This was called “Virtue is its own reward sooner or later, and the same goes for evil.” This was an absolute truth. Only by pursuing the truth and being an honest person could we be approved by God. Realizing these, I made a resolution that I would follow God’s words to do things, to conduct myself; that I wouldn’t cheat anyone but would do business according to the way of “cheating neither old nor young, selling at a uniform price, and being honest”. Besides, I also told my families to do business in an honest way and not to earn dirty money by cheating others and giving them short weight.
When I did business according to God’s requirement, Satan came to tempt me. One day, a hometown fellow saw that we did business fair and square, he said, “Who else is as fool as you are nowadays? You are so cowardly. Only incapable people can do business this way. You see? So-and-so has done business for the same amount of time as you, but he has already earned several million yuan. Now he owns several sets of apartments, plus a car. But look at you. Nothing you own. What business you do?” At this moment, I was very clear that it was Satan tempting me. Thus I called out to God in my heart, asking Him to keep me from Satan’s schemes. After praying, I told him sternly with justice, “Even though we may only earn ten yuan one day, we earn it with conscience and we spend it with peace and happiness in our heart. No matter how much others earn, if it’s dirty money, then the Lord of Heaven will take it back. Have you heard the saying, ‘The heaven is watching what man is doing,’ ‘Virtue is its own reward, and the same goes for evil’? The Lord of Heaven is fair.” Hearing my words, my hometown fellow blushed with embarrassment and went away. I really thank God! It was God that protected me from being deceived by Satan.
Later, when I do business, I do it according to God’s words. Sometimes when I want to give short measure, God’s word “You must be honest” will resound in my ears. Then I will stop doing evil things at once, and go back to being honest, not losing the direction. When I practice this way, not only is my business not affected, but the people who come to sell scrap to us become more and more. I remember one day I had hardly arrived home when I saw an aged aunt came to sell a load of scrap. She said to me breathlessly, “I have long heard others say that you do honest business. So, see, I have just found your station.” Listening to what she said, I was very touched, because I saw that as long as we practiced the truth, we would get God’s blessings. Just as God’s words say: “The future direction will be thus: Those who gain the utterances from God’s mouth will have a path to walk on earth, and be they businessmen or scientists, or educators or industrialists, those who are without God’s words will have a hard time taking even a single step, and will be forced to seek the true way. This is what is meant by, ‘With the truth you will walk the entire world; without the truth, you will get nowhere.’ The facts are thus: God will use the Way (which means all of His words) to command the whole universe and govern and conquer mankind” (“The Millennial Kingdom Has Arrived”).
It was after I experienced God’s words that I understood: In whatever we do, as long as we do it according to the word expressed by God, we will have a path to follow, and will live with integrity and dignity. Thank God for saving me from the evil trends, giving me a real life, and allowing me to have found myself back.