Cheon Seong Gyeong 331
How shall we describe God’s love?
Imagine a warm spring day with white
clouds floating gently in the sky. The air
shimmers above the ground, insects and
ants scurry about exploring the world.
Beside a flowing stream, catkins blos-
som and frogs sing new songs of spring,
welcoming swarms of bees and butter-
flies. And there you are, enraptured in
the atmosphere, in that twilight state we
experience when drifting peacefully off
to sleep, and yet awake in a happy mood,
rejoicing forever. God’s love has such a
flavor. With your ideal partner given to
you by God, you will feel as if you are
in a flower garden where butterflies and
bees fly around. Are you happy even to
imagine this, or unhappy? These thick-
headed men here will not understand
this very well. (37-29, 1970.12.22)
Cheon Seong Gyeong 51
Does God really exist? Can God be
felt as more real than the pain that makes
you say “ouch” when someone pinches
you, or more real than the experience of
eating when you are hungry? This is the
question. When we know that God truly
exists, all problems will be solved. (89-72,
1976.7.11)
Richard: Sometimes the truth is simple, but profound.
When We Should Stay Awake with Heaven
Sun Myung Moon
April 19, 1959
When I say it is time to wake, I do not mean waking from sleep at night. This word has been given in every age. As there is a world of a certain ideology to be realized in the last days, this word is given in every age to those who seek to find this world.
If you have a desire to advance yourself, to insist on your opinion and rule over the whole, from where did this originate? You are in the midst of sleep. Humankind is asleep today. The individual, the family, the society, country, world, and even spiritual world are in a deep sleep, unable to receive the time of hope. If everyone commonly feels that such a historical relationship should be concluded with something new, then the problem is what is that “something”. Looking back upon history, nations that insisted on traditional customs were swept aside. We should abandon the way of thinking we used to have in antiquated ages. People tend to value historical relics today because they are walking the course of restoration. This means that what has existed in the human world is to be seen as a reflection of God’s heart.
Therefore, we should not rest content with the old antiquated ideology. Rather, we should understand the value of the original ideology through it and receive stimulation, gaining a desire to commit ourselves to this precious ideology. Only such people can restore the ideal that was hidden in God’s Shim Jung from the beginning of the universe.
Thus, in the last days we should not try to find something by looking back at history; rather, we should conclude history and revive the whole ideology hidden in God and show it in a fresh new way. We should know that this time is indeed when God wakes up, and so do the people on the earth.
When the age of restoration passes, we should look for something new. Thus, granting that these are the last days, the young men and women living in this age should reject all that has been valued by people and zealously struggle for something new. Only then can they become wakeful workers of the new age. The people who struggle with eyes open for something new in this final day will closely approach the way to make a relationship with the hope of the future. They will make ties with the future and with the heavenly Shim Jung that appears in the historical age of the last days.
The problem then becomes in what position I am standing. Am I not standing in the fallen world, which is ruled by the power of death, which sucks the blood of goodness and has a history of nations devouring nations, countries preying upon countries? We should know that if this is so, we have no relationship with the hoped-for world of Shim Jung.
Unless you draw a clear line, saying, “You go your way, and I will have to go mine,” the progress of history, which has been engulfed by the current of death, will prevent you from making a tie with the new age and will drive you into the world of death. Although we have had to hold onto the flow of history so far, at the final judgment, we must go beyond it. In other words, when Jesus concluded his thirty or so years of life on earth and gained the victory of resurrection, if he had any resentment about his life, any sense of himself or his importance, he would not have been able to resurrect.
The reason Jesus could resurrect was that he gave up his prior life entirely, without regret, and burned with new hope. It is also because his Shim Jung, situation and hope were exchanged for heavenly, not earthly, ones. At that moment, he could receive the grace of resurrection.
Likewise, you will encounter such a time of exchange. As you see this day approach, you must have a clear determination of heart. When you join a meeting, rather than having a determination because of the leader of the meeting, you must have the standard of Shim Jung on your own. Only then can you be regarded as having a natural environment for being awake.