Good morning. In the process of our coming together and of your learning to include Me in your communication, you’ll go through many experiences, and I urge you to be patient with one another and open to Me at the same time.

As you can see, in your moment of conflict you forget Me and you tend to just recognize each other and not remember that the three of us can work things out. So, it’s good that beyond that we can come back together and have communication. Ultimately, it’s always the most important thing (as people say) to come to Me in prayer -- beyond any human conflict or the upset of the moment -- and I am always here. Over and over again you need to learn, and I’ll say to H [husband] that you need to understand more the depth and immediacy of our relationship beyond any difficulty.

This morning I want to speak a little bit about Jesus, because this is the week you celebrate Easter. Jesus’ relationship with Me was profound and exemplary. In all of human history there was not another human being who understood Me so fully or deeply or related with Me to the extent that he did. His heart was so fully for Me, I had very little trouble denying him anything. I wanted to give him everything he needed.

Truly, when your heart can reflect that heart of Jesus, then it’s very hard for Me to deny you anything that you ask. At the same time, when your heart is constantly reaching out for My heart, the things that you ask of Me will never be just for selfish or impure reasons, because in that very reaching toward Me you purify your own motive, your own desire, and your own goals. That reaching heart is so important.

The person who feels that I live within his heart and is content feeling that I am with him and forgets that constant reaching out, that constant breaking of his own conceptual limits, is an unfortunate person. While he has a sense of his own security with Me, his relationship with Me is largely conceptual. So, as I said, when you reach out, you break the walls of your conceptual limits and come into that living relationship with Me, and we bond together in that living presence of our communication. Do you understand? This morning, H, you had a certain concept that you weren’t connecting because of this medication you are taking for your cold, but I say that’s ridiculous. Our relationship should be the most powerful thing of all.

Yesterday you celebrated so-called Good Friday, the day that Jesus gave his life on the cross, and I want to remind you that even in those moments when his physical body was undergoing torture beyond belief (the nails in the hands and feet, the breaking down of the inner part of the body, the terrible pain, the mockery of many people standing at the foot of the cross and attending as if it were a circus), still he could cry out to Me for the forgiveness of the people.

I would ask you, then, as you are so affected by your physical condition, to think about Jesus’ situation and how in crying out for the forgiveness of the people, that was really his voice blending with Mine. He didn’t worry that he couldn’t connect with Me in that moment of physical extremity, but through all of that, his relationship with Me was confirmed in the most supreme way. And that was the greatest moment of his ministry, because the outer did not overcome the inner. When you think of the temptations that he was given at the beginning of his ministry out in the desert, the wilderness, still he always overcame them by reconfirming his relationship with Me. This is the greatness of Jesus.

It has been the weakness of Jesus’ followers, time and again, that the physical situation (not only of the body but of the surroundings in which one finds one’s self), opinions coming back and forth between people, concepts about what is good and what is not -- all of these things influence the ones who would reach out for Me. And, at a certain point, they retreat and feel that they can’t have an effective relationship with God unless they go alone to a mountain top or a place where there is no influence from anyone.

I do recognize that those kinds of retreats are important in your life. You need to take the time in the early morning, by yourself, when no one’s around, to communicate with Me, to put yourself on track. But again I have to say that if your social situation, or your physical situation, or your family situation is adverse or is not absolutely optimistic or perfectly smooth, and if this becomes the reason for your losing connection with Me, then in essence (in the religious sense) you could say this is the triumph of Satan, the triumph of My adversary, because he has pulled you away from Me.

And what is sin? It is separation from Me. Sin is not just an act or a crime in the active sense. It is, first of all, losing the connection in the heart. I want you to realize the value of always affirming in your hearts our relationship and, as I’ve said, reaching out, reaching out, reaching out.

This morning you both could go away because you had a conflict before we began. But if you’ll simply take one very small step and reach out to Me in the middle of that moment of anger with each other, you’ll find that the anger can melt as soon as we touch, and suddenly we’re a trinity rather than just two people arguing. That puts a whole new dimension on our relationship.

I’m not interested in scolding you for not being ready this morning, H. I’m just interested in helping you understand that it is because of your own concepts that you say to yourself, "I can’t do this," or, "This isn’t a good enough moment," and the ease with which you say those words to yourself is alarming to Me. I want you to be able to reconfirm in our relationship the strength of that relationship to overcome any kind of adversity.

I would say to you, also, imagine that you are attacked by a hundred people who tell you that our communication is completely your imagination and that it is wrong, that you are doing something bad. How will you be affected? If the whole world comes against you and says, "That’s not our teaching," "You’re just trying to exercise your own ego," and, "This kind of activity with you and your wife is wrong," what will you say?

You have to recognize that all of these forces can come against you. And, of course, as with W [wife], and H, you too, what if you had a painful injury that would not leave you? Then, if both of you were writhing in pain on the bed and trying to have this communication, could you do it? I tell you that you can do it, because our relationship is supreme above all things.

So, whether it be physical attack, social attack, or religious attack on what you are doing, I tell you all of that is extremely earthly, extremely external. Our relationship is something which is precious and which is to be in the deepest heart of every individual. If you look deeply and think of the position of historic religion compared with what I am talking about, then you will see how people have been like children and how easily children are convinced of something that is not completely true. So, I’m asking that you keep reaching to establish a greater truth, a truth of being, not just a truth of believing something.

That is not truth. That is believing in a concept that sounds true, perhaps is true. But the only way you ever have to prove the validity of that concept is what you become in your own life. The proof will never be in a conceptual argument or a great presentation, but in whom you become, what you are day by day, and how we can go forward together as parents and children. And remember that I don’t just want to be your eternal Parent, because, as I told you the other day, parents are an agent.

I said to you at that time that earthly parents are an agent to the Divine Parent, to Me. Yet, I’ll tell you something that may shock you: Even I am an agent for you toward something beyond Myself. And I’ll tell you what that is. It is a freedom of relationship. Ultimately, I don’t want to just be only your Parent.

I want to share with you and allow you to be My parent sometimes, through the unique and powerful experiences you have in your life. You can help Me learn through the things that happen to you. That is how I am constantly revitalized by My children. Don’t you recognize that when your child has a profound experience that you never had and they come and share it with you, it’s like having fresh water poured on your heart, and you think deeply? Your child has lifted you and actually become a parent for something inside of you and you have been reborn through that moment. And so, our relationship is to be completely free, finally. Yes, in essence I created you, but our relationship is to be unlimited, finally, and, as the Divine Principle says, spherical in nature, which is 360 degrees in every way.

Once again I say to you this morning: Reach out. Always reach out in every moment. Even if the two of you had knives in your hands this morning and were ready to stab each other [laughter], just in that moment you could have said, "Why don’t we just reach out to God and see if this is the right thing to do?" [much laughter] So, I want to tell you that this step is so small but so important.

Even with the most horrible of hatred, with just a few moments of experiencing that love that wants to be in your heart, the greatest enemy can embrace his enemy and say, "I never knew how much the love of God could change what seemed like an unsolvable situation." Again, just fighting about whose religion is right can never cause the other man to drop his knife; if anything, he’ll hold it even tighter. But one moment of that profound love of God can change everything. And that is where the world must go now. So, you got a very little dose of it while sitting on your bed this morning, and I just want to reaffirm that for both of you.

I celebrate My son, Jesus, because of his willingness to go beyond all of the hatred. His greatest teaching was that greater love hath no man than that he lay down his life for his enemy. It is only My love that can cause a man to reach out to his enemy in that deep sense. It can never be what a man can bring just out of himself, isolated from Me, that can cause him to love his enemy. That’s impossible.

At best he has a very hollow smile toward the enemy and, ultimately, it won’t last. But it is when you reach out deeply, beyond your temptation to spit back at the enemy, and take My hand that you can affirm My love. And even if he plunges a dagger into your stomach, your last word is, "I love you and God loves you." It comes from your deepest heart, and you die with a tear in your eye, praying with your last physical consciousness that the enemy will someday realize the love of God in his life. And then you can die peacefully.

Jesus died on the cross but with great hope that the moment would come when My people could finally realize the true meaning of reaching out for their Divine Parent. His hope was not that they would come to regret what they did to him -- no, that’s a revengeful thought, no, no. He hoped they would come to recognize what he had recognized in his own life. He prayed so deeply for this. This is most important.

Think about these things that I’ve shared this morning, because they have many applications. As you go through your days, you will find so many moments when people will push you to the edge of your patience. And, W, you have a very quick and capable mind to see things and realize a situation, and it’s in this sense that you have a great advantage.

With that quick insight you can quickly make contact with Me, in that moment. Other people don’t always have this kind of quickness that you have and the ability to rapidly evaluate. You can use that for a very good thing. Please be patient. Sometimes your husband can be a bit slower. As you said, he chews a lot longer than you chew. The two of you are very good together, and the three of us working together can be very, very good for each other. So, please be patient with one another and do your best day by day.

We will continue to meet on Friday mornings. If it’s impossible (I am not a dictator), all I want is to see that seriousness in your heart. That’s the most important thing -- whether Friday morning or Saturday -- so please understand this.

I’ll leave you with that. And I ask you to remember the beauty of the heart of My son, Jesus, two thousand years ago, to always reaffirm that relationship with Me and to reach out to those around him with that affirmation moment by moment. That was his greatness beyond any of the hatred that the world gave him. Happy Easter.