Jesus frees entrepreneur from lies
V sought to build his significance through his career and nearly lost his soul in the process. After a sudden sickness and painful divorce, God gently guided him back on a path to identify the lies in his heart, heal his fears and emotional wounds, and set him in a new direction. Praise God!
(See Chinese versions: 简体中文 > 耶稣使企业家摆脱谎言 | 繁體中文 > 耶穌使企業家擺脫謊言)
Fear and anxiety ate my family away.
Despite calling ourselves Christian, my family’s day-to-day decisions are primarily made out of fear and anxiety; financial anxiety and the anxiety of getting sick.
When your subconscious mind is filled with anxiety, you tend to focus on your issues and neglect the love of the people surrounding you, including your family.
I grew up as a lonely kid because of neglect at home and school bullying.
My teacher gave me an unkind nickname, tofu, which means soft and tender. For my entire school life, everyone called me by that nickname. To prove to others that I am not “tofu”, my primary motivation in life was to gain approval and respect from others.
After graduating from college in the US, I met my ex-wife at a fellowship in a local Cantonese church. We had a pretty stable life in California as a software engineer and an accountant. We lived in a very good neighborhood that was ranked as the safest place in the US for many years. We had a home church where we attended service and fellowship.
But deep inside me, my inner child still had unfinished business.
I still wanted to prove to others that I am not weak and insignificant.
Inspired by a series of movements in Silicon Valley to create companies that improve human lives, I decided to take a role in Hong Kong that I believed would impact lives, or actually make me significant, without even asking God.
After one and a half years of hard work and preparation, that project failed without launching due to circumstances that were out of my control. I was greatly disappointed and even verbally made a vow that I would “cut off my hand to be successful in my next project.”
After the failure of the first project, I spent countless nights sleeplessly working on a new product to “make something great.”
But my life was put on “pause” when I suddenly suffered double vision while traveling in South East Asia with my ex-wife. After spending two weeks in hospital with a suspected mild stroke, I suddenly felt that it is not important to prove how great I am to others, especially after I saw a few patients of stroke who were very young now incapable of moving.
The most important things are eternal life after death and my family.
My life changed drastically afterward; from countless hours working on something that I thought would make me significant to countless hours praying, fasting, reading the Bible, and serving in many church ministries. This was when I felt I am really saved by Jesus. Before that, I had some doubts.
Also at this time, I began experiencing a lot of nerve issues that the doctors couldn’t diagnose. I spent countless hours googling for answers. This made me more worried and drove me to have great fear about my unknown illness.
Not being able to surrender my fears to God caused me to be extremely self-focused.
I greatly neglected my ex-wife’s needs. Our marriage eventually didn’t work out and we separated. I became upset with God. My ex-wife and I served a lot together, prayed every night, and read the Bible every night. Why was this happening to us? Hence, there was another pause to my spiritual life due to great disappointment and depression.
In 2019, I joined the Love the Lord course with a friend. I learnt that I needed to surrender to God, be still, wait for the Lord’s command, and forgive others even if they are not kind to me. Because of the many amazing testimonies I heard from previous class members, I decided to go for a renewal prayer. During my renewal prayer, we prayed to repent of the bad influences in my life and to cut ties with the occult and witchcraft.
It was revealed that I need to cut soul ties with all the video games I played, most of which glorified witchcraft, darkness, and violence.
I played a lot of those video games when I was young and was pretty good at it; Street Fighter, King of Fighter, Starcraft, Half Life, Resident Evil, Mortal Combat, Final Fantasy, Age of Empires, Diablo etc. Playing with others felt great because it made me feel powerful.
At the end of the prayer session, God spoke to me through the prayer counsellor. He said that He is despairing that I still rely on myself and told me that He is kind and gentle. Before the renewal prayer, I was fearful about a lot of things. I would expect God to punish me if I sinned against him. The image of God in my mind was always strict and authoritative.
Even though I still have a lot of fear, the fact that God is kind and gentle brought me peace.
After the renewal prayer, I actually forgave my father. I grew up listening to my mother complaining about my father. My sister and brother complained a lot about him too. My dad didn’t take responsibility for our home and behaved somewhat selfishly. I too had been wounded by him.
A few weeks ago, I went back home to visit my father. Just recently, he can barely walk and is very confused, probably due to the side effects of his medicine for Parkinson’s disease. Usually, I would yell at him when I got annoyed. I didn’t this time and even helped him take a shower, which I think is a great breakthrough.
After the renewal prayer, I am also more sensitive to the devil’s lies that make me fall back into being fearful and prideful.
I am still tempted to be judgmental, unforgiving, self-seeking, self-dependent, and to think of myself more highly than others, but I now constantly reflect and repent if I fall into these traps.
Recently, I quit my job in an industry that I have somehow gained significant respect in. I saw an enormous amount of scamming activities by other people and so I decided to leave the industry for good. Seeking approval or respect by others is no longer that important.
While waiting for God to open His door to a new career, I am constantly reminded that He is gentle and kind.
This brings me inner peace. I try not to rely on myself in difficult situations like this, even though I have anxiety about my career and finance every day.
As someone who grew up in church with a lot of wounds from family, friends, and society, I now see that God’s teachings can be easily misused as a weapon to judge or attack others, as a way to justify ourselves and to build our self-importance. We can even unconsciously think that this is goodwill but this is not God’s love.
I did not experience any supernatural phenomena throughout my renewal prayer session but everyone has their own journey. Renewal prayer is the beginning of a journey of healing my wounds and turning away from the devil’s lies in my heart.
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