By Chen Xiang
Honestly Making Money Based on Conscience
My husband and I set up a recycling station. At the outset of doing business, we treated every customer with sincerity. Especially when the old came to sell scrap, we would give them special favor. Customers were so trustful of us that they all sold scrap to us. Over time, our business began to become brisk. We could make one or two hundred yuan each day. Figuring it out in this way, we could make five thousand yuan a month. I was very content with that.
One day, a business friend came to visit us. When he was drinking with my husband, he sighed and said, “Alas! My business is not doing as well this year as the former years. In the past two years, much money could be easily made. At that time, I could make from seven to ten hundred yuan a day at most. But I can’t do it now: Every day I can only make four or five hundred yuan; even when I make the most, it just reaches six or seven hundred yuan.” Upon hearing that, my husband said in surprise, “We can only make one or two hundred yuan a day. But you can make so much, how come you still feel it’s not enough? What’s your acquisition price?”
The friend said, “Now there are many recycling stations and the competition is fierce. I lost some regular customers. But now I offer the highest price to collect their scrap, making some of them come back again.” My husband said helplessly, “Offering a high price means you can’t make money.” The friend said with a proud look, “Since I offer a high price, I certainly give them short weight, or else how can I make money? Do you not use some tricks on your platform balance?” Hearing his words, my husband and I felt a little puzzled. The friend seriously said to my husband and me, “You’re just too honest. Do you think people in this trade are all honest? These years, if people don’t cheat or make extra money in their business, who is willing to do it?”
I said, “Doesn’t cheating others mean we lose our conscience?” He said indifferently, “Conscience? How much is the conscience worth? If you don’t cheat, you can’t make much money. Now business people are all doing like this.” Subsequently, the friend told us a trick of how to cheat customers. That was to remove the original weigh-beam from the platform balance, to buy a false weigh-beam that could give short weight to replace the original one, and then to decrease the weight by forty percent (fifty kilograms of scrap scales only thirty kilograms). Then, he personally taught us to practice it on our platform balance. He taught and said, “After the original weigh-beam is replaced with a false one, pull the beam out when you want to give short weight, and push it in when you don’t do it in ordinary days. In this way, it’s not easy to be found by others.” At his words, I immediately understood: It turned out that they made money by cheating customers. Little wonder that people of the same trade around can make four or five hundred yuan a day while we can only make one or two hundred yuan. But then I thought: If I give the customers forty percent short weight, then don’t they suffer too much loss? Doesn’t that mean gaining profit at others’ expense? I can’t cheat others like that, or else I’ll have an uneasy conscience. Though the friend taught us a “good method” of making money, I still did business honestly.
A Dull Business Swayed My Heart
After another period of time, people selling scrap to us complained that our price was low, so they all went to where a high price was given. Seeing customers left one after another, I felt very desolated and thought: What have you done? The recycling stations offering a high price are all cheating you. How come you still go there? Gradually, people who sold scrap to us became ever fewer. We could only collect several orders of scrap a day and make little money. Seeing our business became bad, I was very worried, thinking: If this goes on, not to mention buying a house and a car, it will be even difficult for us to pay our rent and living expense. Then how shall we live on? …
Just when I was worrying about our livelihood, I suddenly thought of the friend’s words, “These years, if you don’t cheat, you can’t make money and can’t survive….” Right. If I still follow my conscience to honestly make money, I’m afraid that I can’t stand firm in this society. It seems that I have to play some tricks like them—offering a high price to attract my lost customers. Otherwise, our business will close down. But at the idea of that, I felt a bit uneasy in my heart: No. That’s too conscienceless. But I thought again: Now this society is too realistic. If I don’t play some tricks but still do business honestly, when can I buy a house and a car? And how can I gain status in this society? Like this, I thought this matter over and over in my heart. Finally, I had no choice but to make up my mind: As long as I can make money, I don’t care about conscience. How much is the conscience worth? As the saying goes, “Money makes the mare go” and “Money is not everything, but without it, you can do nothing.” Others can play tricks and so can I. It’s not merely us doing so.
Going With the Tide and Cheating On the Platform Balance
Later, we bought a false weigh-beam and set it on our platform balance, and started to learn giving short weight. Once, a customer carried a load of scrap to us. I thought: This customer comes with so much scrap; even if I give him short weight, he can’t perceive it. So, when the customer was unloading the scrap, I intentionally put an iron weight on the weigh-beam and then began to pull that weigh-beam. I thought: In no way my trick can be found by him. Otherwise my business will be ruined. With this thought, I tried to cheat on the balance. I didn’t want to decrease the weight much, so I adjusted the weigh-beam to decrease by thirty percent. But my hands kept trembling uncontrollably. The more nervous I was, the more I couldn’t find the balance point. And more than that, I had to cast a sidelong look at the customer, afraid of being seen by him. In order not to let him find the trick, I had to converse with him to divert his attention when I weighed his scrap. At this time, I was so nervous that I even couldn’t bring my mouth under control, trembling all over and not knowing what to say. Not until I weighed the customer’s scrap, paid money to him and saw he left, did my nervous tension relax. This was how I gave the customer thirty percent short weight for the first time. I had a guilty conscience and my heart thumped violently, because I thought: Once my trick was seen through, not only would my face be ashamed, but the customers’ confidence level of us would also decrease. In that case, we would ruin our livelihood. But for the sake of our business, I had to do so.
Afterward, every time I gave short weight, I was haunted with fear and had an uneasy conscience. I was afraid that when I was giving them short weight, customers would find my tricks and catch my wrist to settle accounts with me. I was also afraid that after I gave them short weight, they would be aware of it later and produce suspicion so that they would come to get even with us and take revenge on us…. These scenes often replayed in my mind like a movie. As time passed, I always had a sense of fright in my spirit. However, every night when I did accounts and found that we could make double what we did before, the sense of fright in my heart would be entirely cast to the winds. Holding the money I “made,” I would calculate in my heart: If our business can go on like this, it won’t be long before we can buy a house and a car. Thinking of this, I felt sweet in my heart, as if seeing the wonderful life appeared before my eyes. Gradually, the uneasy feeling in my conscience disappeared. Instead, I felt that if I didn’t cheat every day, it seemed that I didn’t make money that day. In order to buy a house and a car early and live the life admired by others, my husband and I felt it was still too little even if we made four or five hundred yuan a day.
In Order to Make More Money, I Racked My Brain
Later on, I saw that my business colleagues all associated with the steel mills and then went there to carry scrap. In that way, they could make more money. After I talked over with my husband, we also associated with a regular customer and went to carry scrap at a fixed time. However, after a period of time, the iron price began to drop. We had expected to make money from them through carrying scrap, but we lost money instead. Facing such situation, both my husband and I frowned and pondered over trying to find some ways out. At that time, a business colleague provided us with a trick: Buying over weighmasters to help us decrease the weight and paying one thousand yuan to them for decreasing each ton’s weight; loading several bags of sand on the truck to increase its weight before weighing the empty truck on the weighbridge…. My husband and I thought twice about it, and in order to make more money, we finally decided to negotiate with the weighmasters. Pretty soon, we reached an agreement with them. After that, I became more certain of these sayings such as “How much is a conscience worth” and “Money makes the mare go,” feeling that as long as I could have money, who would care about whether I have conscience. Thereafter, each time we carried five tons of scrap from the mill, we would ask the weighmasters to decrease one and a half tons’ weight, and then we would only pay the mill for three and a half tons of scrap. In this way, we could make four or five thousand yuan or even more through carrying each load of scrap. Not long after, we bought a house and a car, becoming rich in the eyes of others.
Though I lived the life that I had dreamed of, I always had an inexpressible sense of fright in the depths of my heart: I was not merely afraid that our tricks would be found and get us into trouble, but also feared that my husband would run into an accident when he carried scrap alone…. I wanted to give up the tricks but couldn’t resist the temptation of money. If we went on, I always didn’t have peace in my heart. Just like this, I lived under a state of fear and anxiety and mental pressure all day long, feeling that my life was very tiresome.
Salvation Came Upon Me and I Came Before God
Once, I went to visit a friend and talked to her about my latest trouble. Hearing that, my friend gave me a book on belief in God and said its content could solve my trouble. And she testified God’s work to me. Back home, I read these words in the book, “The eyes of the Almighty look around the severely afflicted mankind, hearing the wailing of those suffering, seeing the shamelessness of those afflicted, and feeling the helplessness and dread of the mankind who has lost salvation. Mankind rejects His care, walks their own path, and avoids the searching of His eyes. They would rather taste all the bitterness of the deep sea, along with the enemy.” “He desires to seek, seek your heart and your spirit. He wants to bring you food and water and to awaken you, so you are no longer thirsty, no longer hungry. When you are weary and when you begin to feel the desolation of this world, do not be perplexed, do not cry. Almighty God, the Watcher, will embrace your arrival any time.”
These words deeply touched my heart. I felt what they said was just my present situation. When I didn’t have money, I looked forward to having it. In order to make money, I did too many deceitful things so that my conscience was accused. When I had money, I still didn’t feel how happy and cheerful I was, but instead I lived in fright and fear all day, afraid that my doings would be uncovered or I would suffer retribution. … I felt my life was so exhausted. Now I knew: It turns out that I keep away from God. Conversely, God watches over me by my side, and waits for my return so that I can come before God and receive His salvation. God’s words gave me comfort and warmth. Later on, I accepted God’s work of the last days.
Awakened by God’s Words, I Resolved to Be an Honest Person
I read God’s words: “You ought to know that God likes an honest man. God has the substance of faithfulness, and so His word can always be trusted. Furthermore, His actions are faultless and unquestionable. This is why God likes those who are absolutely honest with Him. Honesty means to give your heart to God; never to play Him false in anything; to be open with Him in all things, never hiding the truth; never to do that which deceives those above and deludes those below; and never to do that which merely ingratiates yourself with God. In short, to be honest is to refrain from impurity in your actions and words, and to deceive neither God nor man.” After reading God’s words, I was very brightened in my heart: God is faithful; He likes honest people and requires that we be frank in our behavior and conduct, not play tricks, and cheat neither God nor people. I wanted to practice to be an honest person according to God’s words, but I thought: The social competition is so fierce. If I practice to be an honest person in this trade, I won’t make too much money. If I don’t cheat customers, they will be attracted by others. Then how will I survive in this trade? And how will my whole family go on living? At the thought of this, I hesitated. …
One day, the mill called us to carry scrap. Before my husband left, we loaded two bags of sand and two big stones. Then I calculated in my heart: Two bags of sand and two big stones totally weigh 150 kilograms. After they are weighed, we will be able to net six hundred yuan, and plus the price difference of selling iron, we can make over one thousand yuan. After calculating, I sweetly waited for my husband’s return. That afternoon, he came back. Seeing that his look was abnormal, my heart sank: Can it be that something happened? Then my husband said in dejection, “Today I was discovered by the mill to give short weight and was fined two thousand yuan.” After hearing that, I had a blackout, thinking: How could this happen? Today we not only didn’t make money, but lost two thousand yuan instead….
After calming myself, I remembered God’s words: “You ought to know that God likes an honest man. … To be honest is to refrain from impurity in your actions and words, and to deceive neither God nor man.” The enlightenment of God’s words made me feel ashamed. God requires me to be a person with conscience and humanity, but I’m unwilling to practice it, feeling that being an honest person is a loss. Now as a believer in God, I don’t practice to be an honest person according to God’s requirement, but still outrage my conscience to cheat others. God examines people’s hearts, and He is reminding me with this matter I encountered today. I can no longer play tricks like this.
On that evening, I saw God’s words say: “My requirements of people are no higher than the saints, it is just that I feel loathing for the evil deeds of the unrighteous and I hope that the unrighteous may be able to cast off their filthiness and escape from their current predicament so that they can be differentiated from those unrighteous ones, and live with and be holy with those who are righteous.” From God’s words, I saw: God’s requirement is not high; He just asks me to be an honest person and not to associate with those unrighteous people. But I even couldn’t reach the fundamental standard of conscience but still made money against my conscience. Thinking of this, I felt much condemned. Then I came before God to confess and repent to God, and made a resolution that I would never cheat others.
Engaging in a Trick Again and Finally Finding the Root Cause
Not knowing the root cause of my sinning, I still couldn’t resist the temptation when I met chances of making much money. One day, as my husband and I carried a load of scrap iron from the mill to weigh it on the weighbridge, my husband said, “How much shall we decrease for this load of scrap? What about decreasing one and a half tons? The iron price has dropped, so we should decrease more weight. Chances never come again. And since we have this chance, we should catch it.” I thought: I have made a resolution before God that I will no longer cheat people, and that I would rather make less money than give customers short weight. But at the thought that once this is the last time of carrying scrap, if I don’t make some more money this time, I won’t have such a chance. Maybe I can decrease less weight. Well, this is the last time of giving short weight, and in the future I will never do it again. Thinking it over, I still didn’t overcome the temptation, so I called the weighmaster, asking him to decrease the weight for us. After making the phone, I was a bit uneasy in my heart, but as soon as I thought I could net over three thousand yuan after decreasing this one ton’s weight, I still had a desire in my heart.
After we had our scrap weighed, I calculated that this load of scrap could make several thousand yuan again. Thinking about it, I got on the truck with my husband. When we were backing our truck to turn it around, I suddenly heard a bang behind. Our truck knocked on the front of a vehicle and broke its door. At the sight, I was immediately dumbfounded. The vehicle owner said, “You’ve pranged my vehicle. You must have it repaired, or don’t want to go away. Now you and your truck must be left.” Hearing what he said, I was very afraid and thought: We have paid over ten thousand yuan for this load of scrap. If it falls into his hand, we will suffer great losses. So I kept calling on God in my heart. At last, we didn’t settle this matter until we paid the owner twelve hundred yuan. After returning home, I recalled what had happened that day and still had a lingering fear. I was really thankful for God’s protection: We only pranged the door of the owner’s vehicle. If we had injured people, then the loss we suffered would be great…. Thinking that I was so rebellious and didn’t obey God’s words but God still had mercy on me, I felt really ashamed and guilty. Thus, I prayed to God and asked Him to lead me to break away from the bandage and restraint of sin.
Then I read God’s words, which say, “People in the past ran their business in a way that cheated neither old nor young, and which sold items at the same price regardless of who was buying. Is a hint of conscience and humanity not conveyed here? When people used this kind of credo when conducting their business, can we say that they still had some conscience, some humanity at that time? (Yes.) But with man’s demand for ever increasing amounts of money, people unknowingly came to love money, love gain and love enjoyment more and more. So did people come to view money as more important? When people view money as more important, they unknowingly neglect their reputation, their renown, prestige, and integrity; they neglect all these things, don’t they? … According to the usual method of making money, cheating neither old nor young and selling things at the same price for all, the money you make is in good conscience, but it cannot get you rich quick. However, under the urge to make a profit, your thinking undergoes a gradual transformation. During this transformation, your principles of conduct also begin to change.” “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. Once someone is mired in fame and gain, they no longer seek that which is bright, that which is righteous or those things that are beautiful and good. This is because the seductive power that fame and gain have over people is too great, and they become things for people to pursue throughout their lives and even for all eternity without end. Is this not true?”
After reading God’s words, I came to know the reason why I could hardly extricate myself from the mire of sin. It was because these satanic laws of survival such as “Money is not everything, but without it, you can do nothing” and “How much is a conscience worth” had long since become the root of my existence. I always wrongly believed that having money meant having everything. Therefore, in order to make more money to become rich in the eyes of others and be admired by them, I cheated people unscrupulously, tampered with the platform balance, and bought over the weighmasters to play tricks together with us; I even felt that I would make no money if I didn’t cheat others. Living by Satan’s principles, I had long ago lost conscience and reason, becoming a selfish, crafty, and covetous person. I clearly knew that God likes the honest and hates the deceitful, but I still couldn’t help making dirty money against my conscience, without slightest reverence for God. I had long since been a slave and puppet of money. Satan just wants to use money to control and corrupt me so that in my pursuit of money, I would be led astray, fall into the mire of sin, and eventually go to hell with it to receive punishment. Hadn’t God used the people, matters, and things to remind me repeatedly, I would still be in the abyss of sin and didn’t know to what extent I would become degenerate. Thinking of this, I prostrated myself and prayed to God, “O God! I’ve seen that I’m so afflicted by Satan that I’ve lost the human likeness and have done many things against my conscience. Today if I were not saved by You, I still wouldn’t know the root cause of my being corrupted by Satan, nor would I see through Satan’s schemes forever. God! I’m willing to sincerely repent to You. Never will I cheat people. Amen!”
Practicing to Be an Honest Person and Joyfully Getting God’s Blessing
One day, a regular customer carried a load of scrap iron to us. In the past, I gave him the highest price and it made him very happy, so he sold scrap to us every time. But he never knew that we always gave him short weight. Each time we collected his scrap, we could make over one thousand yuan. Today, he came to sell scrap again. Facing this load of scrap, I thought: The iron price has considerably dropped now. If I don’t give him short weight and still give him the highest price, I will suffer loss. If I give him normal price, he will think the price is too low and refuse to sell scrap here, so I will lose a regular customer. Perhaps I can give him a high price and short weight? Just as I was in a dither, God’s words occurred to me, “To be honest is to refrain from impurity in your actions and words, and to deceive neither God nor man.” God’s words reminded me once more: Right. God requires me to be an honest person. Can it be that I would rather go to hell than be an honest person? Now God gives me another chance to amend my ways. I can no longer do anything against my conscience. Then, I silently prayed to God, “O God! My nature is too greedy. May You keep my heart so that I will be able to forsake my flesh and satisfy Your will! Today even if I can’t make a penny, I must practice to be an honest person.” After praying, I felt very secure in my heart. So I said to the customer, “Now the iron price has dropped much further; if I still give you the former price, we will suffer loss. If you want to sell here, I can only give a lower price.” The customer said, “The price is too low and I can’t make money.” I said, “Sorry, you can go to somewhere else to sell it.” After he left, I was very secure and peaceful in my heart, without slightest feeling of regret.
Since then, we have collected scrap according to the actual weight. I would never give customers short weight. If I could make money, I would collect it; if I could not, I wouldn’t collect their scrap and would ask them to sell it somewhere else. When we carried scrap from the mill, I would no longer give short weight and I would only make the money that came within my reach. Now, no matter whether in the big or small business, I don’t play tricks anymore. Every day my life is peaceful and secure and I am very happy in my heart. The money we make is enough to cover my whole family’s living expense, which contents me very much. Since I didn’t play tricks to make money, our business has become better than before due to God’s blessing. Not only do we not lose regular customers, but we also have more new customers. Even the former customers who didn’t sell their scrap to us also called us to carry their scrap. They said, “We haven’t sold scrap to you for a long time. We contacted many people collecting scrap. They gave us higher price than you, but they aren’t as honest as you. You can come to carry our scrap in the future.” Hearing that, I remembered God’s words say, “However much He allows you, that is how much you shall have: If God gives you a little, then you shall never have a lot, and if God gives you a lot, it is no use you resent how much you have. Is this not the case? All of this is up to God, not man! Man is ruled by God, and no one is exempt!” From God’s words, I realized: God has authority and rules over everything. No matter how much money we can make, God has the final say. It’s not that we can get by playing tricks.
From my experience, I deeply tasted: It is miserable to be crafty people and live by Satan’s laws of survival. Instead, it is happiest to be honest people and live according to God’s words. Thank be to God! It was God’s salvation that allowed me to retrieve my lost conscience and live out a bit human likeness.
All the glory be to God!
