By Zhang Jin
I am a truck driver, who has been in this trade for almost 30 years. In 2004, I accepted God’s work in the last days. Through reading God’s words and having meetings with my brothers and sisters, I came to know that there’s only one true God in the whole universe, and that He is the only true almighty God. However, as I had no true knowledge of God’s almightiness and sovereignty, I just doctrinally admitted that man’s fate is in God’s hand. In real life, I still lived by the satanic poison of “Money is not everything, but without it, you can do nothing,” busying myself earning money every day. Most of the time, I was just holding religious rituals and going through process regardless of when reading God’s words, attending meetings, or performing my duties. Instead of treating believing in God as the greatest thing in my life, I dismissed it as spiritual sustenance. This went on until one time God saved me from the verge of death when I prayed to Him and relied on Him in danger. Only then did I fully acknowledge this: Man’s fate is controlled in God’s hand. Money cannot buy life and only God can save us when we are in disasters.
Working in the transportation business for more than twenty years made me a very good driver. Regardless of how bad the road is, as long as it is wide enough for a vehicle to get by, I can pass it smoothly. The stone quarry I work for now is situated on a mountain. On the way between the quarry and the outside world, there is a steep slope which is more than 100 meters long with a dangerous bend. Years and years of exploitation made the quarry deeper and deeper, and the slope also got steeper and steeper. Now, the slope has a gradient of 40 degrees, the right side of which is a gorge of more than 20 meters deep and the left side a sheer cliff. Apart from that, the slope is only about three meters wide, and only could allow one vehicle to get by at a time. There is no way for an empty vehicle to climb such a slope, for the wheels would slip. If someone wants to drive up this slope, he must have his vehicle heavily loaded, put it into bottom gear, step on the gas, and speed up the slope without stop. Otherwise, it would be out of control and slide backward and tumble into the gorge, in which case the driver will have no chance of survival. In recent years, there have been several accidents happening in the quarry: A twenty-four-year-old young man surnamed Song and a forty-year-old man surnamed Luan all died because of failing to climb up the top of the slope. Their trucks went out of control and slipped backward rapidly and finally fell into the deep gorge. Such a steep slope is a great challenge to drivers who are not skillful enough. Even I, a veteran driver, would have to be very cautious and concentrate intently every time I drove to this part of the road. Dangerous though this job is, it could bring me a large income; sometimes I’m able to earn about one thousand yuan a day. So in order to make more money, I’ve been doing this job despite the danger.
One day in September 2016, I was transporting three blocks of stone which weighed about 40 tons. When I drove to the steep slope, as usual I gripped the steering wheel firmly and stepped on the gas to accelerate the truck forward. When the truck got within ten meters of the top of the slope, the sound of the engine suddenly became small. I got nervous instantly, and then felt the truck slowed down sharply. Aware that there must be something wrong with the engine, I was thrown into a panic, thinking: “How come the engine broke down at this critical juncture? What should I do?” As the sound of the engine was getting smaller and smaller, my heart almost leapt into my throat. I gazed at the tachograph steadily and noticed that the rotating speed was dropping. At usual times if I want to climb the slope, the speed of the engine must be above 1600 rpm. However, at that moment the engine speed had dropped to 500 rpm and the truck could barely move. At that time, the scenes of my two colleagues’ accidents where their trucks were thoroughly damaged and they died on the spot flashed through my mind. I felt like my heart fell into an ice box. I was so frightened that I broke into a cold sweat and became pale in the face. I cried out in my heart: “No, I don’t want to die!” I stood up instinctively, slammed on the gas with my left foot, and held the steering wheel tightly with my two hands, not daring to slack off for a single moment. My heart thumped wildly as if it were about to burst. However, despite how hard I hit the accelerator, the engine still didn’t work. At that time, I felt as if death were drawing near. I was overwhelmed by fear and despair, and tears burst out of my eyes. I thought to myself: “Will I die here today? I’m so young, I don’t want to die. How should my wife and children live on if I died?” Then the engine almost died and the truck was about to slip backward. At this critical moment, I suddenly remembered Almighty God. Driven by the instinct for survival, I cried out loudly: “Almighty God! Save me! Almighty God, save me! …”
To my surprise, something miraculous happened: The engine that almost died began to run, and the rotating speed was gradually rising. When it rose to about 800 rpm, the truck started to move forward at a very slow speed as if there were some power pushing it. At this time, a glimmer of hope flared up inside me, and I wept for joy. Nonetheless, I still felt extremely fearful in my heart, and did not dare to leave God for a single second. I kept calling to God as if I had caught hold of a life-saving straw. Finally, the truck climbed to the top of the slope. After I parked in a safe place, my whole body was trembling violently with heart thumping hard, and my clothes were soaked through in sweat. I lay my head on the steering wheel, panting and gasping heavily. I felt like I had totally collapsed, having no strength at all. Knowing that it was Almighty God who saved me, I was full of infinite gratitude toward Him, and shed tears involuntarily. I prayed to God, “Dear almighty and practical true God, I thank and praise You! It is You who used Your great power saving me from the verge of death. Without Your rescuing me today, I would definitely have died. Dear God, I sincerely thank and praise You! It is You who saved me from death and bestowed upon me a second life. I am determined to believe in You and follow You wholeheartedly from today on, and perform my duty well to repay Your great love for me.”
Returning home, I read a passage of God’s words, “People spend their lives chasing after money and fame; they clutch at these straws, thinking they are their only means of support, as if by having them they could live on, exempt from death. But only when they are about to die do they realize how distant these things are from them, how weak they are in the face of death, how easily they shatter, how lonely and helpless they are, with nowhere to turn. They realize that life cannot be bought with money or fame, that no matter how wealthy a person may be, no matter how lofty their position, all are equally poor and insignificant in the face of death. They realize that money cannot buy life, that fame cannot erase death, that neither money nor fame can lengthen a person’s life by a single minute, a single second. The more people feel this way, the more they yearn to keep on living; the more people feel this way, the more they dread the approach of death. Only at this point do they truly realize that their lives do not belong to them, are not theirs to control, and that one has no say over whether one lives or dies—that all of this lies outside of one’s control.”
God’s words made me understand that money cannot buy one’s life or lengthen one’s life by a single minute or second. When death draws near, regardless of how much money one has, it can’t perform any function. In the face of disasters, money is powerless and of no value. In the past, I lived by the satanic poison of “Money is not everything, but without it, you can do nothing,” regarding money as a precious treasure while treating believing in God and pursuing the truth as something I did in my spare time, and in order to earn more money, I even did not attend meetings sometimes. This time if it were not for God stretching out His almighty hand to rescue me when I was on the verge of death, I would have surely died. At the moment of life and death, even if I have a lot of money, what use would it be? Can money buy my life? It was God who bestowed upon me a second life. I deeply appreciated that my life is controlled in the hand of God, and that in the face of disasters only God can save me from danger.
Later, I saw God’s words saying, “Almighty God, the practical God! You are our impregnable fortress. You are our refuge. We huddle under Your wings, and calamity cannot reach us. Such is Your divine protection and care.” God is our support as well as our strong tower. All things, living or dead, are in the hand of God. Man’s life and death are even more controlled by God’s hand. This is the manifestation of God’s authority. Thank God! Through this experience, I saw God’s marvelous deeds, truly appreciated God’s almightiness and sovereignty, and also felt God’s care and pity toward us mankind. At the same time, my erroneous viewpoint was also turned around, and I would no longer live by the satanic poison of “Money is not everything, but without it, you can do nothing.” I am willing to believe in God and pursue the truth wholeheartedly, fulfilling the duty as a created being with all my heart and all my might to repay God’s love.
