Raising Children in God's Will

by Rev. Sun Myung Moon

Section 4. Education of Love from the Parents

Where does love come from? There is no such thing as love originating within oneself. Love comes from the object. You have to know this. So where does love come from? [From the object] If you don't have an object partner to love, then you cannot experience love.

If you look at God from the point of view of man, He is in a relative position. A man needs a woman and parents need children. We are all in a relative position. Love cannot be realized without an object partner to love. This is what we call in the Unification Church, "Triple Objective Love." A person who has not experienced three object love cannot stand in the position of saying that he has experienced God's complete love in place of Him. This is how it is. Do you understand? [Yes] It is the teaching of the Unification Church's Divine Principle, that in the same way that God felt joy when he made Adam and Eve, we too should feel the same joy when we have our own children.

God felt so much joy when he created Adam and Eve. Don't you think He would have been full of hope, saying, "Let's start ruling the world together. Our family will become the central family of the world. Hurry up and grow up. Hurry up and grow up." Adam and Eve were raised under the loving protection of God who felt so much joy and satisfaction when He saw His children and whose only hope was for them to see the day of their marriage.

Who is the best friend? It is not the neighborhood youth with thick bushy hair who is friends with your children. Your real friends are your father and mother. This is how it should be. You have to know this. That is why, if I have the chance, I try to take my children with me in the car when I go to Chung-Pyung. Some people complain about me. They say, "That person takes his children with him whenever and wherever he goes." But that is the way it is. You have to be parents that your children like better than their own friends. Isn't that so? You have to think like this.

You have to be the friend of friends and the teacher of teachers. Who does? [Mother and father] The mother and father have to become their children's best friend and best teacher. The mother and father shouldn't make their children cry. They shouldn't say, "Hey, don't do that or I'll give you a beating." That's not so good. You have to educate with love. "Hey, that's not the right thing to do, is it? If you do that, Mommy and Daddy will be sad and you don't want that, do you?" You have to educate your children in this way.

Did Adam and Eve have any friends in the Garden of Eden? The only friend Adam had was Eve, then God. Isn't that so? God hoped that Adam and Eve wouldn't become friends with the Archangel. The Archangel was a servant. But they made the wrong kind of friend and were ruined. So the parents have to become the children's greatest teachers, their best friends, and their most beloved of loves. Don't you agree?

Love starts from God. So in the end, relative love is realized through the parents. So when the parents say, "The things you like are not because of you but because of your parents" the children will think, "I dread to think what might have happened if my parents hadn't raised me up as they did and hadn't found a good object partner for me." Marriages based on dating are not good. Do you understand? [Yes] The parents have to be responsible for the education of love. When the children see their parents come together and love each other like cooing pigeons, they will be able to inherit that love. They will say, "Wow. Seeing my Mom and Dad love each other so much, I'm beginning to feel lonely myself. I need an object partner with whom to love and coo together, just like my Mom and Dad."

Parents have to raise their children in this way. Then the children will do what they saw their parents do and the world will become a world of good and human history will become a history of goodness. This is what we are trying to do in the Unification Church. Do you understand? [Yes] (57-119)

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