BY Xu Qiang, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region
My name is Xu Qiang. I used to work as an engineering contractor, heading up large teams of people in engineering projects every year, and I made a respectable income. In the eyes of my peers, I had a perfect family, a smooth career, and limitless prospects; they must have thought me the luckiest of people. However, at the same time that I was enjoying a materialistic lifestyle, I always had an inexplicable feeling of emptiness. This was especially true in my constant efforts to land projects: I had to curry favor with the leaders of the relevant departments, endeavoring to read their thoughts through their body language and always needing to apply just the right amount of obsequiousness and flattery to get what I wanted; otherwise, I would not make any money. On top of all that, I had to deal with scheming among my colleagues, the guard they always kept up against each other, and their calculations. All this had me wracking my brains even more…. For these reasons, I felt very demoralized and extremely exhausted; I seemed to have turned into a puppet, a money-making machine, and I had completely lost all my dignity and integrity. This went on until 1999, when I accepted Almighty God’s work of the last days. I was deeply moved by the release brought by church life and the simplicity and honesty of my brothers and sisters. I wanted very much to live this life of the church, fellowshiping with my brothers and sisters about God’s word and talking with one another about our individual experiences and knowledge of God’s words. I also cherished times like these very much. As I kept on reading God’s utterances and participating in congregations, I came to understand many truths, and my soul found enormous release. I was especially glad that I had finally found the true way to live, and had found true happiness. My heart was filled with gratitude toward God: Had it not been for God’s having rescued me from the world’s sea of suffering, I would never have had anything to look forward to in life. Later, I began to actively spread the gospel, happily and tirelessly engaging with those people investigating the true way and enabling them, too, to hear God’s voice and gain Almighty God’s salvation.
