By Ma Lan
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.
The End.
Part One: Practicing God’s Words in Doing Business Leaves Me Feeling Peaceful and at Ease (I)
