By Siyuan
Brothers and sisters,
Hello everyone! I am a young person and I’ve just got married. In order to earn more money to help my family lead a good life, I work desperately hard and put most of my time into working. Recently, I had the good fortune to accept the God’s kingdom gospel, and now I want to pursue the truth diligently. But since my work is keeping me so busy that I do not have the time to attend meetings and read God’s words, I feel quite helpless and miserable. What am I supposed to do?
Zhenxin
Sister Zhenxin,
Hello! I also used to have this difficulty that you have brought up. But later, through praying to God, reading His words and with the help and support of my brothers and sisters, I came to understand God’s will. I clearly saw that we are incapable of controlling our fate, because it rests in the hands of God. As long as we rely on and look up to God, and are willing to act in accordance with His requirements, our problems and difficulties will be solved. Next, I would like to share my experiences with you.
When I first started to believe in God, although I felt that believing in God was good, I did not believe that a person’s fate was determined by God. I still thought that I could build a beautiful home with my own hands. Thus, I put my work first and only believed in God when I had the time. Sometimes when my work clashed with my meetings, I would choose to work to earn money and not attend my meetings. Every time I made such a choice, I would feel uneasy in my heart and would feel unhappy and indebted to God. I was also worried that, by believing in this way, God would not commend me, and I would ultimately be unable to attain His salvation. I remember several times when my work clashed with my church meetings, I would hurry to the meeting place as soon as I got off work. But when I arrived there, the meetings would be almost finished. Once, when I reached the meeting place, the brothers and sisters were saying the closing prayer, so all I could do was wait outside the door. When they came out, a sister among them especially stayed behind on my account, and she read me a passage of God’s words: “Awaken, brothers! Awaken, sisters! My day will not be delayed; time is life, and to seize back time is to save life! The time is not far off! If you fail the college entrance examination, you can study and retake it as many times as you like. However, My day will brook no further delay. Remember! Remember! I urge you with these good words. The end of the world unfolds before your very eyes, and great disasters rapidly draw near. Which is more important: your life, or your sleep, your food and drink and clothing? The time has come for you to weigh these things.” “There is no medicine in the world that cures regret! So, how should I speak to you? Is My word not worthy of your careful, repeated consideration? You are so careless with My word and so irresponsible with your life; how could I bear it? How could I?” At that time, when I listened to the words of God which the sister read to me, I ended up feeling quite upset, and I felt these words exactly addressed my situation. It just felt like God was reminding and exhorting me through the sister. I thought: “Yes! God became flesh in the last days to save humanity; this is such a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! Now is the critical time of God’s work to save mankind. If I miss this opportunity, won’t I regret it for the rest of my life? If I see God’s salvation but cannot attain it, then aren’t I blind and ignorant? Has God not patiently and earnestly spoken so many words all for the sake of our salvation? Presently, the world is becoming more morally degenerate by the day and strange astronomical phenomena are appearing; humans are becoming more and more degenerate and evil; disasters are frequently happening all over the world and are growing in intensity. If we still do not come before God to accept His judgment and purification, we will lose the opportunity to receive salvation. God well knows that I have been corrupted by Satan so deeply that I don’t have the power to overcome sin, and that I am rushing about all day long for wealth and fame. I can’t see clearly what the most valuable and meaningful things to pursue are and I live trapped by Satan. Today, God is reminding and exhorting me through the sister and this is God’s true love and salvation for me. I cannot continue laboring relying only on my own two hands.” I therefore became determined to believe in God and pursue the truth as best as I could from that day on, and to put belief in God first. But at the same time, I was afraid that, without toiling hard, I wouldn’t earn more money and that my family and I wouldn’t have any security in our life together. Therefore, in my heart I began to hesitate and struggle…
One day, I read the following passage of God’s words: “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?” God’s words make it very clear: The fate of man is totally controlled by the hands of God and people cannot manipulate their fates by themselves. Without God’s mercy and grace, no matter how hard we toil and rush about we will still obtain nothing. Contemplating God’s words, I saw that God had revealed the root of why I had been leading such a miserable life. It turned out that I’d been living by Satan’s teaching that “Man can build a beautiful home by his own hands.” In order to obtain more fame, gain and money, I worked my fingers to the bone, but I ended up being toyed around by Satan till I was half dead and was living a life of unbearable pain. All those years, in order to live a life that was superior to other people’s, my husband toiled away in a coal mine and he was unbearably exhausted all day long. To get him to make more money, I asked him to work hard, and if he had a rest I would sulk to show him my displeasure. He therefore seldom took any real rest. As for me, I also never stopped being busy. I took care of my family and also worked in a nearby farm. But no matter how we rushed about and kept busy, there were always various things happening in my family that required us to spend our money, so after years of this our savings never exceeded ten thousand RMB. This fact proves that we are incapable of controlling our own fates! I have truly come to understand that the amount of wealth we possess in life is not decided by ourselves, but is preordained by God. Just as God’s word says: “What occupation one pursues, what one does for a living, and how much wealth one amasses in life are not decided by one’s parents, one’s talents, one’s efforts or one’s ambitions, but are predetermined by the Creator.”
Thinking back, I struggled to make money for decades and led a miserable life. When I was in the most pain and felt the most helpless, it was God who extended His hand of salvation to me, saving me from Satan’s traps and leading me onto the right path in life, that of pursuing the truth. This was the greatest blessing that God bestowed on me. I also thought of Job, who had a mountain of sheep and cattle and untold masses of wealth. It was when Satan accused Job before God that Job encountered Satan’s temptation. Just in one day, all of his possessions were stolen away and all his children died tragic deaths. But he still maintained his purity and did not deny God or blame God. Even though his body became covered in sore boils and he was in great pain, yet he was still able to fear God and shun evil, praise the holy name of God, stand witness for God and shame Satan. After that, God appeared out of a whirlwind, spoke to him and blessed him with double the fortune and lifespan he’d originally had. From this we can see that a person’s wealth and lifespan are all in God’s hands, and not obtained through our own efforts. Job’s experience helped me to understand that believing in God means obeying God and entrusting everything we have into His hands. No matter what issue we may encounter, we must always pray to God to seek His will, and practice according to His requirements. Only this is truly believing in God, and only by doing so can we receive God’s approval and be saved by Him.
The brothers and sisters also fellowshiped with my husband and me about God’s will. They fellowshiped that we should stop striving by ourselves and we should be content with having enough food and clothing. Later, I entrusted my work to God, and I put meetings first and found a job to support my family. Thereafter, I often gathered together with the brothers and sisters, read God’s words and sang hymns to praise and worship Him, and my spirit found peace and joy. Later on, what greatly surprised me was that we were no longer allowed to farm the land we rented so we got more than ten thousand yuan in compensation. And what was more, we earned more than ten thousand yuan from selling the trees on the land. I had never had such a sum of money before. I truly experienced that how much wealth we possess in our life does not depend on our own efforts, but is predetermined by God.
Sister Zhenxin, since we believe in God, we should learn to rely on God in all things. As for how to balance work and belief in God, we still need to pray to God more. When we are able to understand the value and significance of pursuing the truth, we will be willing to entrust our life and work into God’s hands. To conclude, let’s sing a hymn of God’s words together: “When people experience until the day their outlook on life and the meaning, the basis of their existence have entirely changed, when they have been altered to their very bones and have become someone else, is this not incredible? This is a great change, an earth-shattering change. Only when you become disinterested in the fame and fortune, status, money, pleasure, power and glory of the world, and can easily forgo them, will you have the likeness of a human being. Those who will ultimately be made complete are a group such as this.”
