I am glad that tonight we can be together, and I look forward to this very regular time this coming year. As you discipline yourselves to meet Me very regularly, you'll find that not only will you feel My presence more and more strongly during that time, but throughout the week. Because, in essence, you are taking spiritual control of your physical situation. How many times have you been governed by your tired bodies or by your worries or by tension between the two of you? And I want to say tonight that this is one killer of the faith of many blessed couples, because they struggle with so many different issues all the way from their relationship with one another, perhaps raising their children, paying the bills, and literally all the things that you two struggle with in your life, but because of this they lose control of their physical situation and discipline and then the spiritual becomes just whenever they can do it.

And unless the spiritual can take the subject position, in terms of making our time to meet of primary importance, then everything becomes reversed. And this is a big problem. That's why prayer life becomes very dull, and after awhile no one wants to pray anymore because nothing is happening. So when you set a certain time aside during the week and really make that important, then that opens you up to a deeper communication with Me. Because I take it very seriously, and the more you take it seriously then the more we can be close together.

So when you are random about it, you cannot meet Me easily. It's interesting that always your pattern is to come to a rather critical point and then realize how much you need this communication. So last night you had a very serious discussion; all of the deepest issues that the two of you are challenged with came out. And I want you to know that it's the three of us who can work through them together.

That's why I wanted to share what I did this morning. If only more of our blessed couples could see the importance of this communication, beyond just what they learned to do in the church, beyond simply a habit they learned through their religious training, but simply because they want to communicate deeply with their Divine Parent, as I do with you. I want to communicate with you, not because that's what we're supposed to do in the church. No.

From My side, I passionately love you, and I passionately want to talk with you. And I want to hear your hearts. That is the most flavorful and deepest and most delicious part of prayer--what you call prayer. But it's really truly just speaking and sharing together, and that's what gives your life meaning. And that's what gives Me meaning too. It's only in coming to that understanding of Me that all of you can come to really start to savor this life. And as we continue to communicate together, you can begin to put things in greater perspective, because My perspective is central, and I don't lose proportion. My anger when it comes is a very just anger; I don't get carried away and into self-destructive resentment or hatreds.

But it is a righteous and heavenly anger. Your word is anger, My word would be different Again, My perspective of all events is very central, and I don't lose proportion in My judgment. I see things very fairly and, truly, especially in this area of transformation from church to kingdom, you are in such a need to have a central perspective, to grow into that and to be able to be very just in your dealings with each person within the Unification movement and in the world, to be just, to be fair, to be compassionate, and at the same time to be righteous and true.

So you need Me deeply. When you come to the end of knowing how to deal with one another as husband and wife, that's the beginning for the three of us to come together in a trinital way to really work on the inner dimension, because, truly the problems of history, including your own lineal problems and the problems that each of you bring to your blessing, can never be solved unless the three of us work together and that dimension that comes from your Divine connection can be exercised. So this is a good beginning for you. As I told you this morning, and I'll say it again, that whenever you realize the desire and the need to put things into good order, you have to start with the mess.

You can get mad at the mess and scream and shout and get angry just like a child who is seeing his messy room full of toys that his parents asked him to clean up. First he's just angry, "Why do I have to do this; oh this is so terrible!." So much complaint. But he just simply has to begin from where things are, and finally he'll put it in order. And so it is with life, although it's more complex and more internal, that you begin with the mess. And you think to yourself, "We've been alive for half a century and we've been married for a quarter of a century and, somehow, we still have this mess on our hands?

After all this training and education, all of this spiritual work and all of our counseling of others of how to live a better life? And yet that's where it begins. Again, truly, the reality is asking you to stay with Me. I never ask you to stay with Me out of My egotistical point of view--some kind of power issue on My part. I ask you to stay with Me because together we can solve the individual, the marital, the family, the social, the world problem. I know sometimes you may feel you can't even deal with the world problem in a real way because there are so many struggles at your home. But I want you to know that it is the quality of the solution that is important.

You see, what was being talked about tonight between you and the two missionaries who came for dinner was really the issue of the quality of the solution. The Unification movement has Divine Principle, it has True Parents, it has so many profound answers for humanity. And yet there is a greater and a lesser quality of solution that can be applied through what you know and what you've been taught. The quality of the solution refers to the inner working of heart in the process of restoration.

When those who have been missionaries for so long, and have had the experience of nurturing the person into life, see, rather than that, the effort to simply get people to move in, by the hundreds or the thousands, rushing them through the Principle, rushing them through signing applications, striving for a certain quota or number of members, and all this without a real investment of the heart, without really bringing the inner dimension to the education of each individual, this creates real conflict, especially in those missionaries who have experienced that dimension of caring for each person. And someone says, "Yes, but if you take so much time for each person, then you can't get the big numbers and we can't make the big change." Ah, here is a very important issue. And that is why I say to you the quality of the solution is so important.

Because when you have the working of heart, the inner quality of heart, in bringing even one person to the true path of life, the true way toward God, then, indeed, that person can become a very powerful testimony in their lives, and they'll never lose that investment because that's My direct investment through you and that connection will be made. But when there is only the effort to bring big numbers or bring the external result without that inner investment, again, the quality of the solution is not deep. Even though the words of Divine Principle have been spoken and all of the actions look good, still the inner heart and the inner investment is not enough. As they say, easy come and easy go. And this can be very destructive.

It can be very destructive in the long run. And that's why there is a need for that kind of inner solution. And this is an issue that has to be taken really deeply by your leadership throughout the world, this true investment. I know that there is pressure to bring many people, but that will always be there given the size of the earth.

However, you can never sell out the true heart in restoration. Are you understanding My point? This is so critical. And as I say too, bringing it back to your relationship, you can go through all the actions of a blessed couple, you can counsel others and do wonderful things, but if, in your own relationship with one another there is not an inner solution occurring, a communion of the heart, really working through the process of your marriage and restoration course with Me deeply, then, again, easy come-easy go and the tension builds. So with the best of intentions, even though you worked so hard, you come to a point of almost hating one another sometimes.

It's possible. Human beings are not simple beings like animals.

They are very complex and, ultimately, they are spiritual. Even if they don't believe in Me, they are spiritual. Therefore, that spiritual dimension, and the center of that spiritual dimension being heart, has to be worked with most sincerely. You cannot reach the heart with methods or techniques. The heart will see if it's not right or not true. Therefore, the true dimension of heart can only be reached by the true dimension of sincerity. This is such an important issue right now for all the way from the individual blessed marriage on up to the world movement. And if that investment will come, you will see a change in the dimension and the whole spirit of what the Unification movement is working on. It will change profoundly. Your church as it is today will no longer be, but there will be something far more important, far more profound in its place.

And this will be a major factor in changing the world. This is especially important as you come toward the end of your leader's life on the earth. If this lesson is not learned, there will not be a very long life for your movement. This is sure and it's undeniable.

Whether I speak of one marriage and how you relate to each other and what kind of dimension you relate centered on (whether your marriage or whether a movement of a million or ten million people) it's basically the same dynamic. How you relate to your children, whether they be your physical children or spiritual children, is also very important. As I told you, you can also take your own physical children and make them do the pledge every Sunday and go through all the motions with them of the faithful life and spiritual life, but if your heart is not invested and if truly your sincerity is not there, they only end up resenting you sooner or later. Or if they follow, it's a rather empty following and something is not fulfilled.

So, there is no substitute for sincerity, there is no substitute for the genuineness of heart. You think that you have to teach them, but actually your whole life is a learning process itself, and so it's your great privilege to be working in this way because it's your opportunity to learn and grow. Too often My religious crusaders have the concept that they are teachers and the world is full of students who need to be taught. But in truth you need to become a humble student yourself on the path, even after 30-40 years of doing this work. So please understand. My point is simple tonight. I want to express more and I will, but please understand this simple point, this most basic and important point. W [wife], do you have anything you want to add?

W says, "As I was listening to You last week, You were speaking about constantly checking my heart, to make sure it is really in line with Yours, and that self-reflection is something for which each person has to take total initiative and truly take dominion, let's say, and take responsibility. So I was really thinking about that as I was listening to You tonight."

You know, when the time comes for you to pass into the spiritual world you will realize that the physical world is just like an outer skin for the spiritual world, which is an immense, immense world of meaning and reality. And without the education of the heart in this physical world, people go into the spiritual world, in the original sense; so they're without a physical body any longer, and they have to struggle and struggle because of the ignorance in the realm of the heart. Listen, you don't have to have a Ph.D. to go to heaven.

You don't have to have a high technical education or whatever. There are many so-called stupid people in very high places in this spiritual world, people who never got their college degree. But their hearts opened at some point, and it was the development of the heart that determined their path. If you look at someone like a Mother Theresa, she may seem to many like an uneducated woman in some sense, but this woman knows the key to love, knows the key to connecting Me to My people. And so you will see her someday in the spiritual world shining very brightly. It is this realm of heart, and please understand that that's the most vital place. And if you have this connection and if you are building on this connection, there's nothing that you can't do, there's nothing that you cannot achieve.

It's an opening up for you of every secret. I am so sad when I hear My people say God is a mystery. Well, in some sense it's true, yes; I have infinite dimensions beyond what My children know, and we can explore them together. So ultimately I don't want to be a mystery.

I want to be known by you. You said last night to your husband you want to be known. This is the nature of anyone I created who is called a human being. You want to be understood and known. You can't be happy if you hear your husband say, "My wife is this wonderful mystery to me." Maybe it sounds rather romantic but, in the deepest sense finally, it's the words of ignorance. And so I too am sorry when My children say such romantic words which really boil down to ignorance of My heart.

I want to be known by you and I want to know you fully. You may think I don't need you to explain yourself to Me because I know you already, but, listen, when a child can really open his heart to his parent, even though the parent may already know what's in the child's heart, it's so meaningful when the child can express those things to the parent. It makes a bond that is never forgotten, is never forgotten. Anyway, as I say, this is a key to going forward in your life. This is a key to solving so many problems. Let's close. We'll meet regularly. Once a week is good, but whenever you feel like it, please...

I'll say goodnight.