The Words of Won Pil Kim
|
|
The Words of Won Pil Kim |
First of all I would like to thank you for praying for me while I was undergoing therapy at Isshin Hospital in Japan.
As you prayed for me, I recovered; my health is now very good. Please accept my gratitude.
While I was staying with True Parents in Korea, Father gave me a new mission in Europe. At first I felt that I should return to America to settle my previous responsibilities. However, through prayer I began to reflect on Father's life 40 years ago. At that time, the situation in Korea was so difficult that Father could not even find any food for his first son. He went out to the countryside to search for food, and while he was there, he received a revelation from God to go directly to North Korea. He left immediately. Through my prayer and reflection I began to have the same kind of urgent feeling concerning my mission work in Europe. I repented and determined to leave for Europe right away.
Father had told me that I should go to Europe with a pioneering spirit, and build up our church on the foundation which had already been laid. However, what is the definition of "pioneering"? It means going to a place that no one has previously explored. For example, the first person to stand on the moon, where no one had ever been before, was pioneering.
Centering on this definition, I really had to think about what Father meant by my "pioneering:' The European countries have a long history and are already well developed, and the people have created nice living environments. Even so, these nations were not pioneered in the true sense until our members began working there 20 years ago, because at that time, for the first time in history, people went to those countries to serve others with the heart and truth of the True Parents.
Here was a continent where people had already built up countries and cities, and where our own missionaries had already labored for 20 years. How could I pioneer in a place where such external and internal foundations had already been laid?
Our members have shed sweat and tears and loved the people a certain amount. However, even more effort and love are possible. That area of greater effort and love is the realm that I can open up and pioneer. This means that if I can serve and love a country more than anyone in the past, then I am indeed a pioneer. Thus I realized what Father's direction meant. I had to serve and love the European people even more than brothers and sisters had until now.
Whenever Father goes to a certain country, he always researches who the religious, political, or other national leaders are who have loved that country the most. Using their accomplishments as a standard, he always deter- mines to exceed them. Therefore, wherever he has gone, he has lived according to the Principle and pioneered the realm of love. When he sent missionaries overseas he said, "You must love your assigned country more than anyone in that country has ever loved it." This is the attitude a pioneer must have.
All existing beings -- individuals, families, tribes, nations, and even the world -- have one tendency: they want to belong to the one who loves them most. If you were to ask, even a flower would tell you, "I want to belong to whoever loves me the most:' According to this standard, if you love a country more than any- one else, you become the master or subject of that country, establishing the true dominion centered on love. We should always have the attitude and determination to love all people and all things wherever we go. Then we will become a true owner of the place where we are living, and a beloved master of the people whom we serve.
Thus if you love your home church area more than anyone else, you will be elevated as the owner or master of that area. "Master" really means "messiah" to the people living there. Through love you will become the messiah of your own home church area.
Those of you who have reached a certain age automatically become concerned about starting your families. Before you start, how- ever, you have to consider where you will start. You my rent an apartment and start living there, but the Cain-type tribe living all around you is bigger than your family. Even though you are in the Abel position, unless you restore them, they will not help you. They can even destroy your family, so you must build a tribal foundation to protect yourselves. Where should you fulfill that task? In home church. I urge you to make that foundation and begin your family there.
Your home church area is in the Cain position. All Cain tribes and the entire Cain world are established not on the basis of God's love but on the basis of satanic love. How can you change the Cain-type families living in your area into a tribe that can stand on God's side?
God's love is higher than satanic love. Satanic love is self-centered and has nothing to do with sacrifice. If Satan became sacrificial, he would cease to be Satan. However, God's love is sacrificial and centered on others. When you share God's love with your home church families, and they feel that you are truly loving them for their sake, they will be receiving a kind of love that is higher than any other they have ever experienced before. They will feel new joy in their hearts and want to come closer and closer to you. As I said, it is the tendency of all existing beings to want to be owned by the one who loves them most, so your families will want to belong to you. That is how this principle can be applied.
When the families in your home church are: come to you, you can count them as your tribe. Beginning with two, three, four, or five families, you can then expand on their foundation. Once your tribe is restored by uniting with you as their Abel, you can begin your family. If you start your family in the midst of a community without that foundation, everyone will try to destroy you; but once you love the people, make a foundation among them and restore them as your own Abel-type tribe, then whenever you have any difficulty, they will want very much to help you.
Let's examine the situation here in the World Mission Center. This is not your home. It is the headquarters for the world missions of the Unification Church. Our national headquarters building is also not a home. Opting to move out to an apartment means living in the midst of a satanic tribe. When you want to shelter your family you will be confronted by a landlord who will demand a security deposit and a down payment made in advance. If you have financial trouble and can't pay the rent on time he will just say, "Sorry, you'd better get out of here However, if you have served and loved the people of the community, they will say, "You and your family have no place to stay? Please come to our house and stay with us:'
Let's say that your couple is expecting a baby, but you don't have any money and can't prepare anything. If you have served the people in your tribe and loved them, can they just watch you suffer? No. They will all prepare something for your baby, and after the baby is born, they will offer to babysit. Isn't this a better idea?
When you reach a certain age and fulfill certain spiritual conditions, then you start your family and have your own children. The general tendency of many members is to let their families become the center of their concern once these conditions are fulfilled. However, Father also said that when you start your family, you should have your own foundation. Many members forget about this second part of Father's guidance. Now can you understand why Father says we should have our own foundation when we have a family? Please think about this.
Without any foundation in your home church area, the more children you have, the more you will become separated from church activities. Maybe the mother can take care of the first child while the husband continues to work in a public mission, but as more and more children come along, the husband will have to work for an outside company to support his family.
Therefore it is truly good news for us that we can begin to reach ministers and other high-level people through CAUSA. Even though contacting ministers and other important people has become the center of our activities, that is not the end. As you bring ministers to the seminars and they become inspired, you should also bring them to your home church area so that they can give testimony to the people about CAUSA and educate them about Godism. I am asking you to do both, simultaneously. Especially if it is difficult for you to give lectures yourself in people's homes, the ministers in your area can help you. In this way you can continue to build your Abel-type tribe.
After a CAUSA seminar, if the ministers just go back to their own churches and don't participate any further, then they lose their motivation. I'm sure that you sometimes have the same kind of experience when you attend a 21- or 40-day workshop. During the workshop you are filled with grace and inspired by plans of what you can do when it's over. Yet after you graduate, if you wait a month and do nothing, you lose your sense of urgency and excitement and you decline spiritually. Therefore, once the ministers are inspired, you have to bring them to your home church contacts and have them teach and testify about God's words so that they can remain inspired!
I am asking you to follow Father's direction. If you meet difficulty, don't try to escape but follow Father's way right to the end. As long as you are challenging difficulties, inspiration about ways to overcome will be given to you. Just sitting around and waiting for someone to give you answers, or praying for a revelation from God, is not the way.
Father said that once when he was seeking an answer to a question about the Principle, God gave him about 70 different answers. He said that in order to discern the one correct answer to his question, he had to confront Satan; that's when he found it.
God always looks at the front line. If you make effort to overcome the difficulty you meet there, God will work with you. Only when you practice what you believe in the midst of hardship will the answers you need be given to you. God Himself may not always give you the answer directly, but once you make a commitment, He can speak through other people. Of course people who support you can always give you useful advice, but the real answer is found when you are made to confront the most difficult situation and the person who gives you the hardest time. Even that person may be the one to give you an answer.
If you have already started your family and do not have the necessary foundation, it is not too late. Just start right now to build it. No matter how difficult it seems to be, you have to practice what you know.
No matter how much I love another person, I cannot live or die in his place -- in other words, we cannot switch destinies. Can my friend eat for me when I am hungry? No.
Unless I eat food myself, I cannot feel filled and satisfied. None of us can walk Father's course: He alone is the Messiah. Thus your life is the path which you alone must walk, so don't expect anyone else to walk it for you. Don't feel pessimistic and complain that you have to walk it.
No matter what, please don't leave the Unification Church. Sometimes you may feel so terrible that you don't want to do anything, but please feel terrible inside the church. You don't have to do anything but stay. Keep this as your commandment. Once you leave, even if you come back, the scar in your heart will be very difficult to heal. The pain will stay with you for a long, long time. So please stay in the church, okay?
Times have changed. Now is the time when many important people will begin to join the Unification movement. We must prepare ourselves to receive them. As you watch such important people become our members you may feel, "Well, I'm nobody after all. They're much gr eater than I am. I guess I have no value anymore' However, God has a completely different perspective.
We are the ones who received persecution together with our True Parents when they were misunderstood and hated by the whole world. Now that Father is becoming recognized as a great man, important people will join. If you were God, whom would you trust more? The answer is clear: God has to trust us more.
However, we may not have much capability, so even though God can rely upon us, His providence cannot advance quickly enough unless He can work with the people who have a foundation in society. Even though God uses them, trust is quite a different matter: He can- not trust those people on the foundation of their external ability alone. Since God has great trust in us, we must stand behind them as they go to the front line. Therefore, even if we don't have much external capability, we stand in the Abel position to those new members who do. No matter how capable they are, they must go through each one of us to reach True Parents. Please understand how much
In the future our function as Abel will be to teach the heavenly tradition of True Parents. To prepare to do so, we must follow Father's direction and practice what we have learned from him, even though we may face difficulties. Then we will be qualified to teach those who will join after us.
When I go back to Europe I will make the utmost effort to challenge your standard. I may return here to America for a special occasion or celebration, and I will look forward to seeing you. I will see how much you have grown by that time and compare it with how much I have grown myself. I look forward to making that comparison. Let's grade each other on how well we have done.
I also would like to invite those of you who are doing a good job here in America to come to Europe, visit different countries, and give your testimony.
In the meantime, please take care of your health -- and do your very best.