A Drifting Boat Finally Comes to Shore

A Drifting Boat Finally Comes to Shore

Fangxia

Due to my poor family, I lived a life of being looked down on and bullied from childhood. So I was seized with a strong desire within my young heart: When I grow up, I must worry about earning money, change my fate with my own two hands, and lead a superior life, to let my parents hold their heads high in front of other people.

After graduation from high school, I began to work to make money. In order to realize my dream earlier, I often worked overtime, so much so that, someone worked one job while I worked two at least. I was often so exhausted from the overload of work that I felt like being skinned alive. In spite of this, for the sake of leading a superior life, I ran a small business in the morning session and night market every day. Thus, I could only sleep four or five hours every day. It was a common occurrence that I dozed off while I was riding my bike. Having strived like this for over ten years, I earned some money and enjoyed more favorable material provisions in my life than before, but even so, I had severe cervical spondylosis, periarthritis and gastropathy because of years of exertions. My father often persuaded me, “Don’t earn money! Don’t fight it anymore! You will have it if it belongs to you, whereas you don’t kvetch for it if it doesn’t appear in your life. No matter how you struggle, you still can’t change the fate’s design!” But I didn’t nearly take it in. My thoughts were so entirely bent upon struggling with my own two hands to lead a superior life.

Later, I saw a passage of words said by a successful man in a book, “Brains determine wealth. Thoughts decide way out. Ways of thinking decide success or failure. The only way to change your ways of thinking is to study and to enrich your brain. Emulating the way of thinking of the successful people and making theirs a part of you, then you will succeed and your fate will be changed. …” I accepted this point of view and thought what he said were famous dictums. Then, in order to succeed, I chose the direct sale industry, beginning to think how to make money with my brain. As I didn’t have any connections or eloquence, much less money, it was really hard for me to do something successful in direct sale industry. However, I deemed that everything depended on human effort. Only if I spent a lot of money studying and expended effort in striving, would I surely succeed. At that time, I bought masses of books written by the successful individuals and desired to study their successful experience. Besides, I spent huge sum of money attending the live lectures of the successful people. In those years, I invested a few hundred thousand yuan in changing my way of thinking. I thought I got my money’s worth. The old proverbs go, “One has to give up something before he gains” and “No pains, no gains”. So long as my way of thinking was transformed, my fate would be changed.

Having no connection, I could only go all out in a strange market. Except for studying every day, I would look for customers in the market. My timid and weak nature took one month’s practice before I talked to strangers. After ten years of struggling in this way, I had amassed the extensive connections. Also, I had mastered some manners of dealing with others, such as how to skillfully let a customer place his order, how to communicate with others to make them like me in an instant, how to lead a team, and so on. Through continuously studying and practicing, I looked more like a successful person, which attracted many people to cooperate with me. After that, I had a respectable income. However, as a common saying goes, “Business is as fierce as war.” My team with forty or fifty people, which I spent three years of toil establishing, was stolen overnight by my capable assistant of whom I thought highly, leaving myself alone. Just then I was so overwhelmed with grief that I hardly wished to live. I couldn’t help looking up to sky and heavily sighing, “Heaven! How can it be so difficult to change my fate? Why am I more and more toilful? Why have my hard work been repaid with distress and harm finally? Why are my efforts out of proportion to my repayment? How shall I walk my future path?”

Just when I was in despair and helplessness, in 2012, the gospel of God came upon me. Through reading God’s words, I gradually understood some of the truth, saw the hope of life and came out of the sufferings. One day, I read the following passage of God’s word, “There will always be some distance between one’s dreams and the realities that one must confront; things are never as one would like them to be, and faced with such realities people can never achieve satisfaction or contentment. Some people will even go to any length imaginable, will put forth great efforts and make great sacrifices for the sake of their livelihoods and future, in attempt to change their own fate. But in the end, even if they can realize their dreams and desires by means of their own hard work, they can never change their fates, and no matter how doggedly they try they can never exceed what destiny has allotted them. Regardless of differences in ability, IQ, and willpower, people are all equal before fate, which makes no distinction between the great and the small, the high and the low, the exalted and the mean. 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”. God’s word had utterly convinced me. Thinking back, during the past twenty or more years, for I could not accept living a hand-to-mouth life and I was reluctant to be looked down upon by others and to have the cold shoulder turned upon me, I vainly hoped to change my fate with my own two hands. In order to become the best among all men, I could give up my period of sleep, work several jobs to increase income regardless of tiredness, hook into a strange industry, and throw money at studying. Down through the years, I had born suffering normal people couldn’t bear. Although I got some material enjoyment, yet in the end I didn’t realize my dream. On the contrary, I lived in a great distress. God’s words made me understand that my fate is in God’s hands and I will never control my fate. What I do for a living and how much wealth I possess cannot be decided by my acquired effort and struggle, but are completely predetermined by the Creator.

I saw a passage of God’s word that said, “Satan uses a very subtle kind of way, a way very much in concert with people’s notions; it is not any kind of radical way. In the midst of unawareness, people come to accept Satan’s way of living, its rules of living, establishing life goals and their direction in life, and in doing so they also unknowingly come to have ideals in life. No matter how high-sounding these ideals in life seem, they are just a pretext that is inextricably linked to fame and gain. Any great or famous person, all people in fact, anything they follow in life relates only to these two words: “fame” and “gain.” Is this not so? (Yes.) People think that once they have fame and gain, they can then capitalize on them to enjoy high status and great wealth, and to enjoy life. Once they have fame and gain, they can then capitalize on them in their pleasure-seeking and unscrupulous enjoyment of the flesh. People willingly, albeit unknowingly, take their bodies, minds, all that they have, their futures and their destinies and hand them all over to Satan in order to attain the fame and gain they desire. People do this without ever a moment’s hesitation, ever ignorant of the need to recover it all. Can people still have any control over themselves once they go over to the side of Satan in this way and become loyal to it? Certainly not. They are completely and utterly controlled by Satan. They are also completely and utterly unable to free themselves from the quagmire they have sunk down into”. Through the revelation of God’s word, I realized that the reason why I was living in such pain those years was that I was bound by fame and gain Satan instilled into me, that my thoughts were so entirely bent upon building a beautiful homeland with my own two hands, and that I believed “one’s fate is controlled by his own hands.” In order to attain the fame and gain, I struggled to ascend in the business world and paid a great price; in order to attain the fame and gain, I racked my brains to change myself to adjust to this society that I was inextricably trapped. After reflecting on God’s words and recalling years of my bitter journey, I experienced the suffering and harm, brought by pursuing fame and gain to me, were indeed so great. I felt the afflictions of Satan from the depth of my heart. I didn’t want to be bound and afflicted by fame and gain Satan used any more. Then I prayed to God; I would give myself to God and let God rule over and arrange me, and no longer wanted to live by satanic poisons.

Later, I spent much more time to read God’s words and live the church life. Gradually, I understood some of the truth and came out from sufferings, with smiles appearing on my face. Besides, I learned to rely on God in everything and no longer trusted in myself. When I didn’t strive on my own any more, but committed everything to God, I enjoyed God’s blessings. Not only did I establish three teams, but also the business was brisk and my income was much more than before. After seeing God’s deeds, I desired to experience God’s work more. As a result, I managed my business when I preached the gospel with brothers and sisters in my spare time. I devoted less time and energy to my business; I had never expected that my teams’ membership grew faster than they shrank. Soon, they were expanded to 100 people, and we also had hundreds of consumers. I deeply knew that all of this was God’s blessings. I thanked God for His grace from my heart.

Later on, my husband and some people of my team went to Shandong Province to open up new markets. In just a few short months, the market developed very well. Several bosses with influence cooperated with us in succession. At that time, the team wanted me to go there to make profession training, by which means we could stabilize the team, then the team could thrive, and moreover we could stiffen the morale of the team and widen its influence. In addition, the outlook for the market there was broad. Facing with such a once-in-a-lifetime offer, I was eager to go. If the team’s membership were properly trained, I couldn’t imagine that how many times the members of our team and our income would be multiplied. My husband and partners of the team phoned me constantly, hoping me to go there. I thought: If I go there, my fate might be changed greatly that I will truly be able to lead a superior life. Just as I decided to go there, I remembered that I always struggled against fate on my own in the past. As a result, far from expanding the market I rather lost my team I carefully managed, which eventually brought nothing but heartbreak and sufferings upon me. Now I have believed in God and God’s words made me know that my fate is controlled by God’s hands. Wouldn’t I go back onto the old path if I continued to depend on myself? At the moment, I came before God and prayed, “Oh, God! I know my fate is in Your hand, yet I still want to depend on myself to change my fate. Today, there is a business opportunity before me. I want to have a try. But I am willing to commit it to You. May You guide me and let me know how to choose.” After prayer, I saw these words from God, “Only when one accepts the Creator’s sovereignty, submits to His orchestrations and arrangements, and seeks true human life, will one gradually break free from all heartbreak and suffering, shake off all the emptiness of life.”

“… After you recognize this, your task is to lay aside your old view of life, stay far from various traps, let God take charge of your life and make arrangements for you, try only to submit to God’s orchestrations and guidance, to have no choice, and to become a person who worships God”. From God’s word, I understood that only if we accept and submit the orchestrations and arrangements of the Creator can we break free from sufferings. And what I should do was to give up my old wrong outlooks on existence and to let God rule over, arrange and orchestrate my fate. I believed that what God arranges for me is best. Then, I made a resolution before God that I would stop living according to Satan’s law “To build a happy homeland with our own two hands.” I committed my fate and business to God. Whether my business is good or not and whether how much money I can earn are decided by God. What I possess is not gained by my own effort but is predestined by God. Led and guided by God’s word, I understood God’s will. Finally, I determined not to go there.

In the following days, I began to spend much more time to read God’s word and preach the gospel. Little by little, I no longer as before worried all day that others would compete for my business. I felt particularly free and liberated. My husband said, “Since we got married, regardless of whether we had money or not, and however kind I was to you, you had never been happy as if there was a big stone in your heart. I have never seen that you are optimistic and happy as you are now. The God you believe in is really the true God!” With his words, I sincerely thanked God! It was God’s words that changed my life course. It is God’s words that let me see clearly that satanic life codes are harmful to people. Only God’s words are the truth. There is happiness for us if we live by God’s words, accept and submit to His sovereignty. Only if we believe in and worship God can we live a valuable and meaningful life.

Jesus Christ is God Himself. The Holy Father, the Holy Son, and the Holy Spirit, They are One. We can know from the bible verses, the Lord Jesus said, “he that has seen me has seen the Father….” (John 14:9) “I am in the Father, and the Father in me….” (John 14:10) “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30).