Testimony…
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Li Guangping is a well-known Chinese music producer, lyricist, expert in the planning, commenting, and promotion of music culture and music activities, a member of the Chinese Musicians Association, a director of the China Pop Music Society, and a well-known music producer in China. 1. The first trial was born in a remote town in the mountainous areas of northern Guangdong, Guangdong Province. In 1982, when I was 18 years old, I was lucky enough to be one of the six people in the county who were admitted to university that year and went to Guangzhou to study at university. As far as I am concerned, the most tragic memories that the “cultural life” has given me are the inexhaustible examination materials of my father and mother and the discriminatory youth; at that time, I did not know whether I would “go to the mountains and go to the countryside” after graduating from middle school; Culturally, I belonged to the “small-town youth” with relatively pure nature and a relatively narrow cultural vision; when I was a teenager, I knew nothing about Christianity as a world view or as a cultural phenomenon, and some of them were only in the “post-××× era” or “reform and opening up” In the early days, I made an instinctive enthusiastic embrace of the changes of the times and liked it. Because, if the “literacy” continues, a child like me, who was born into a so-called “landlord” family, no matter how good my cultural performance is, can only be a “young intellectual” or a small-town salesman and other imaginable jobs.
The college students of the 80s had a crazy desire for Chinese and foreign cultures, just like the crazy desire for power, money, and sex now! I am grateful that the 80s was an era of poetic lyricism, an era of vigorous cultural development, an era of innocence and romance, and an era of humanism. In my four years at university, I read a lot of books on aesthetics, literature, philosophy, and psychology, wrote a lot of poetry and prose, and began to publish articles in newspapers and magazines. In 1986, I had just finished my college days. To study English and get into graduate school, I started attending some university teachers’ and students’ gatherings.
The first time I went to Sun Yat-sen University to attend a family gathering of foreign teachers, I found that they all talked about learning the words of the Bible, and I actively joined them in learning English with the attitude of learning English. At that time, some Hong Kong pastors began to come to Guangzhou to preach the gospel. I didn’t know they were evangelizing.
One day, I remember very well that it was at the Sanyu Hotel in Guangzhou, and at first, I thought it was a lecture on learning English, but suddenly a large number of police surrounded the hotel and began to drive away the foreign teachers, saying that they were “illegal missionaries”! They also started to register our identity documents; many of my classmates were frightened, but I was calm, because I felt that we had not done anything bad; in my eyes, these missionaries were quite magical: they were very good, elegant, It is incredible, that they can not only speak standard Mandarin, but also speak fluent Cantonese! The most important thing is that I learned from them for the first time or saw a kind of humility, peace, softness, enthusiasm, and tenacity of personality and life! Is this a legendary Christian? Thank God! What a good test it was, and it made me see a vision of life: in the face of persecution, in the face of absurdity, in the face of disappointment, those missionaries were smiling, and calm I have been thinking about my own life, and I have also read books such as “Desert Sweet Spring” and Liu Xiaofeng’s “Salvation and Escape”, so it can be said that the Lord has sown the seeds of grace in my heart at that time, and I am just waiting for the opportunity to take root and sprout. I began to read the Bible and began to think about the way forward. Although there were years of hesitation and wait-and-see, I continued to read the Bible.
Including the period when I graduated from university and was assigned to teach at Guangzhou Xinghai Conservatory of Music, I have been looking for a way out in the study of aesthetics and literature, of course, most of the time I am at a loss. As you know, I’m working in pop music, not cultural studies and academic criticism. In the eyes of many, pop music is associated with frivolity, shallowness, fashion, and decay, but I believe that under the Lord’s arrangement, all work is equally important and equal, because all things and the world are entrusted by God the Father, because “there is no authority in heaven and on earth that is not from God” (Romans 13-1).We are just instruments in the hands of our Heavenly Father. So, as long as we have a humble and obedient heart, we can use the work at hand to do the work that glorifies the Lord! So I feel fortunate today to sing the Lord’s grace with the songs I have written!
Second, the desperate place to survive
After the successful group photo of my daughter’s gospel concert in 1989, because I was “punished”, I was no longer suitable to stay on the university campus to be a “glorious people’s teacher”, and I left the conservatory to enter the business sea and become a music producer. Looking back at my songwriting trajectory for more than 20 years, my works before I became a Christian mainly stayed on personal joys, sorrows, and sorrows, expressing love from my perspective. “Is Your Other Country Okay” and “Wet Heart” are sung on the streets and alleys, reflecting people’s desire for love and helplessness from the side; if some works still have some value, they are nothing more than expressing the emotional experience of Chinese in the transition period in finding a new home and new life value, and I have always felt powerless, lacking, light, and depressed in terms of touching people’s hearts, especially in the renewal of soul life. Whether we listen to Bob Dylan, listen to the U2 band, or listen to Handel, Mozart, and Beethoven, we find that their profundity and pure poetry make us feel the coldness, rigor and integrity of the soul, because there are the melancholy feelings and sufferings and dreams of Christ in them.
It can be said that the biggest difference between Chinese and Western music, whether it is pop music or classical music, is the difference between life feelings and religious feelings: we do not touch the soul, what we pursue is beautiful and light, the beauty of words and melody and the pleasure of the body; what they pursue is majestic and heavy, it is the cry and catharsis that go straight to the soul, and it is the accusation and pathos that face suffering and despair. Recognizing this, I saw hope in despair at the same time, and I had to inject more soul into my benevolent pop music creations.
But it wasn’t until the year 2000 that God used affliction to make our family trust Him completely. That year, a singer that my couple had worked so hard to train was rewarded with false accusations after gaining our complete trust and the initial results of the production. This makes us sad. Although both courts ruled in favor of us, the lawsuit showed me the vileness and greed of the human heart, the disappointment of our careers, the exhaustion of our husband and wife, and the disappointment of humanity. At this moment, God sent his handmaid to lead us to a meeting, and when we heard that Jesus’ disciples, who had also been raised with love, had betrayed the Lord for thirty taels of silver, we were comforted in our hearts, and we were born in desperation and ushered in new life in Christ. Christ used the blood of his cross to awaken our numb hearts!
What is this frustration for us to be betrayed by his beloved disciples for doing so righteous and loving so much? I am very grateful to Sister Wang Die, who led our husband and wife to study the Bible, she is a good preacher with rich spiritual experience, and we are also deeply grateful to Brother Yuan and Brother Zhang, whose preaching on the other side of the ocean has added tremendous strength to our faith!
Jesus said in Matthew 6:44-45, “But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you.” so that you may be the Son of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes the sun shine on the good and the wicked and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. So, our feelings of pain and resentment are relieved and our hearts are healed, which is just a small ditch in the course of life. Later, in the process of studying, I saw more stories of forgiveness of enemies because of faith in Jesus and my Lord, and in those heart-wrenching stories, countless people’s hearts were healed! For example, Lin Yixiong, former chairman of Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party, and his daughter Lin Wanjun were broken into Lin’s house by gangsters in 1980, wielding a knife to kill Lin’s mother and twin daughters, and the eldest daughter Lin Huanjun was stabbed several times and did not die In 2003, my wife and I were baptized in Dongshan Church, Guangzhou.
3. The Light of Faith
After Li Guangping, his wife Lin Jing, and their daughter Li Silin came to Christ, I felt that the biggest change in myself was that I knew that I was a sinner, a sick person, a weak person, a corrupt person, and a person who was never perfect. From the point of view of creation, before I believed in the Lord, I was very proud and proud because I had written a lot of popular songs that were popular for a while, and I was never happy to be proposed by others to make any suggestions, and I thought that my songs were the best in the world, the most beautiful songs; now I look back and listen to them, how pale the feelings of many songs are, how shallow the lyrics are, how narrow the creative perspective is, and how straightforward the way of expression is, which makes me feel ashamed! Thank you, Lord, now I am not only with “sympathetic understanding” I listen to other people’s songs, and I no longer get angry at other people’s criticisms of me, but revise, adjust, tear down, and rewrite, and have no regrets! Even if someone rejects the manuscript and doesn’t use it, I don’t get angry, thinking that maybe this is the Lord’s will, and be relieved. The second change is that when our family’s life is completely renewed, our musical compositions also reflect the dazzling light of faith.
“The eyes are the lamps on the body. If your eyes are bright, your whole body will be light, and if your eyes are dim, your whole body will be dark. (Matthew 6:22), Pastor Yuan said, before we believed in the Lord, we were on the ground, focusing on some small livelihoods on the earth, but after believing in the Lord, our eyes were polished, our hearts were lit, and our works were filled with God-given love and warmth! After believing in the Lord, whether we listen to other people’s works, masterpieces, or new works, we have a pair of God-given ears and eyes, and we can hear and see many details and feelings that have been overlooked before, and in terms of creation, we have leaped to a new height! For example, in the song “Happiness”, we express a family’s “concept of happiness” in words that can be understood by children very clearly, that is: happiness is a family, happiness is love, and happiness is that parents love each other!
After this song was sung on CCTV, it touched the hearts of countless family audiences! Another example is the song “101 Blessings,” many people have heard blessings, heard warm and beautiful human feelings, heard the call for peace, and heard the awareness of environmental protection, and almost no one knows that this is a “corporate song”! It can be said that after believing in the Lord, his creative vision has been greatly broadened, he has a new goal and direction, and he is no longer confused and confused. The third change is that we no longer need “inspiration” for our creations. Because the Lord is beside us, in our hearts, and in our heads! Because “in the beginning was the Word”, “The Word”, “Immanuel”, and “Hallelujah”, you have finished these four sentences, and the Holy Spirit has come down on you, what else do you need to do besides praise?
In the choice of song themes, Christianity has completely illuminated our eyes, making us pay more attention to the life stories of love and compassion, suffering and redemption, suffering and salvation, and the suffering of the people at the bottom of the world! The spirit of God runs in our hearts, and the songs are therefore thick and deep, more powerful and full of emotions, more durable and worth remembering; for example, there is a song in “Amazing Grace” Love Defeats Hate” is my creative passion after reading a piece of news. The girl with folded wings, who learned to love and fly by the grace of the Lord, touched me deeply, and I was convinced that only love from God can overcome hatred.
Being a musician who cares about the soul is my ultimate pursuit! The devastating earthquake in May last year touched the hearts of countless people, and I kept watching live TV, buying newspapers and magazines, and browsing websites every day to pay attention to the disaster area. The dripping blood and brutal images kept me at peace for a long time. Jesus said, “Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who mourn.” Be of one heart with one another, and do not be ambitious, but bow down to the lowly. (Romans 12-15), I fasted and prayed in the face of suffering, and wrote inspirational songs to pray for the rest of the deceased, and for the living to be strong and healthy.
On the second day of the earthquake, I composed the song “Pray with Love”, which was used as the theme song for the earthquake relief gala jointly organized by Guangdong Province and Sichuan Province, and a series of musical works such as “Love is a Miracle” and “Choose to Be Strong” all expressed our love, encouragement, and blessings to the people in the disaster area, as well as our good wishes to participate in the earthquake relief and spiritual reconstruction with songs. Later, I learned that in Shifang City, Sichuan, the hardest-hit area, the song “Pray with Love” became the most comforting and inspiring song during the disaster relief period, which was a gift from the Father of Heaven, and it was not something that we humble people could do! Later, this song entered the church and was well received by the brothers and sisters, which was the most gratifying result for us. 4. Sing for the Lord
