38. Be Safe In God's Plan (February 2, 2008)

Hyung Jin Moon
February 2, 2008
Headquarters Church, Chungpadong, Seoul, Korea

Hyung Jin Nim's Welcome Message:

Brothers and sisters, in the book Ideal Family, particularly the chapter on the Value of the Blessed Family, it teaches us that the value of the Blessed Family is greater and more precious than all of the providential figures of history. It says that we are chosen, that we are the fruit of history. It tells us that when God views us He sees those who are tremendous.

I love that. I didn't say those who are trembling. It says tremendous. I love that because when we look at ourselves we have to see with those eyes. It’s so important that we see ourselves with the divine perspective. When True Parents teach us the Principle, they said that we have Ultimate Value. We have Divine Value. We have Unique Value. To see ourselves in that light is so important.

... It doesn't have to be something like meditation or prayer that is exclusively doing God's work. But something that we can see in our day-to-day life, in how we treat people, in how we respect ourselves, and what kind of examples we are for our children.

… It is so easy to go through the day and see ourselves in a not-anointed fashion, but it’s so important that in our blessed life we are able to view ourselves from the same point of view as God. If we look at ourselves with that correct perspective, I believe that our life will always be brighter. In the Biblical scriptures it says that the path of the righteous gets brighter and brighter.

It doesn’t say darker and darker. It doesn’t say worse and worse. It says brighter and brighter, and that’s what we have to expect for ourselves, for our lives and for our families today. We can do that. I know God will bring us to more Victory, Illumination and Peace. I really welcome you all here today.

It’s so important that we see ourselves with the divine perspective. When True Parents teach us the Principle, they said that we have Ultimate Value. We have Divine Value. We have Unique Value. To see ourselves in that light is so important.

Yeon Ah Nim's Message:

Once I had a chance to talk with an American sister. She is blessed with a Japanese brother and has four sons. She's a very smart and accomplished individual. So I got to talk to her and I kind of asked her, "How have you kept your faith so long, in spite of all the difficulties in your life?" She said with a warm smile on her face, "Well, even though we are tired out, I can still see there's a fire in True Father's heart for God. Even at the age of 87, 88, 89 and 90. Just think about that. True Father's mind is tremendous. That's the reason I'm here in the Unification Church."

After I heard that, I was satisfied. It was simple and heartistic; I can really feel her real heart, like True Parents. She uses the True Parents’ example to inspire herself. In her late 40's, she graduated college with high honors. I was so proud of her. Let us also be inspired by our True Parents’ spirit and passion, and be successful with whatever work we are doing. Like True Parents, let’s bring back all the glory to Heavenly Father. Brothers and sisters, we love you so much and we believe in you. AJU!!!

Hyun Jin Nim: Interesting Story

A son asked his father for a car. The father said, "I'll think about it, and I want you to do three things for me. The first thing is I want you to bring your grades up. The second thing is I want you to help around the house, do your chores. And the third thing is to get a hair cut." (Laugh) The son said, "Okay, alright." He came back two months later and said, "Dad, look, my scores are up, I've been doing my chores. Please now can you buy me a car?"

His dad said, "What about the haircut? You haven't cut your hair." The son said, "Well, , Dad, I know you know the Bible quite well. I've been studying the Bible, and I've been searching my heart deeply and, you know what, I realized that in the Bible Moses, Jacob, Samuel and even Jesus had long hair." (Laugh) His father took that in and said, "That's actually a great point; and, you know, another interesting fact about those figures is that they walked around. If you want a car, cut your hair." (Laughing)

Main Sermon by Hyung Jin Nim:

Today I want to talk to you about "Being Safe in God's Plan." In order to live the blessed life, it’s so important to be able to be safe and rest in God's plan. It’s so important that we know that God has a plan for our lives, that He is directing our footsteps, that He is making a way for us in our lives. And remember, while we are proceeding through our life, the purpose of our life is not to try to impress everyone, or even try to have everyone love us, or to have no one criticize us.

Actually, when we look from the Principle perspective, the purpose of creation is for us to return joy to God. Often, when we do that -- if in fact we are doing that -- we can be criticized. We can find people not loving us. But let's keep in mind that it’s important to move forward in building that joyful relationship with God, building those beautiful relationships in the four position foundation with our spouse and our children and really creating a house in which He can dwell.

When we look at our own life, when we assess our own life, it’s important to realize that we have a purpose. We have a real value in our existence. It may be something as simple as being a teacher, an educator, or maybe something as important as being a parent etc. But let us remember that the calling to which God has called us is not always a huge saintly activity.

It may not be saving the world by tomorrow, but it maybe saving a child's life, it maybe educating somebody in our classroom that will go on to do great things. You see, it may be something very small that we encounter in our day-to-day life, in our day-to-day activities or in our work, that will contribute to creating miraculous people, miraculous moments for those people.

I was talking to one sister who is a financial planner, and she really finds it her calling. She feels that God is really calling her to be a financial planner. You know, sometimes we make the very strong divide between the spiritual and secular. But she really feels that God is working through her to help plan people's finances.

Because she does this work, she is able to make very educated decisions for herself and for her own family, and at the same time, she is able to help other blessed families to make good decisions for themselves. She went on to tell me how, from a very young age -- she did not know why -- but she always liked math. She always excelled in mathematics.

She always excelled in wanting to use numbers and help people, and interesting enough,  by keeping true to herself and doing her best, she kind of matched up with what God planned for her. When we see her doing that work, I'm so proud of her. She's really working hard doing her thing. Also, instead of forcing her kids to go and get a job, by her example the children are inspired.

They want to become professional people. They want to contribute in that way. They want to use their talents to help other people in their community, in their families, etc. Even in our own family, and we have a huge family -- we have lots of cousins, I have a lot of siblings, all in different fields -- and in no way can I say, "I’m doing God's work because I'm in ministry." I can’t say that.

All my family members, I believe, are doing things that God is utilizing them in, and I believe that's all part of the plan that He has for us. In the same way, in our own life, it doesn't have to be something like meditation or prayer that is exclusively doing God's work. But we can see in our day-to-day life and how we treat people and how we respect ourselves and what kind of example we are for our children, (in all this) we can see that God is using us to be a miracle in this world.

It’s so important that when God is guiding us to know and to be open to His guidance. So many times people wait until they are hundred percent certain, a hundred percent sure before they take that step of faith or take the next action step.

For example, if we were to wait until we were hundred percent sure before we drove a car, we would never be able to drive, because simply there is always risk, there's always the chance of us getting into an accident, but what do we do? We take that step of faith. We get into the car, we obey traffic rules; we try our best to pay attention to the traffic lights and all those kinds of things. Then we will have a higher chance of succeeding at that kind of activity.

It’s the same in our life. If we wait to be a hundred percent certain before we take that step, before we make the next decision we need to make, many times the decision is too late. Many times we have lost the opportunity. Too many people have so much talent, so much potential residing within them. But because of that hesitation sometimes, maybe the person that God has prepared for them is right in front of them, and they don't take that chance to really connect with that person. Or the opportunity that God has prepared for many years for them is right in front of them, but they are waiting for a hundred percent certainty in their lives until they make the decision.

We have to learn how to move in a more educated fashion. In the leadership field, there's a rule called the "70/30 Rule." I would like to share that rule with you today. That's the rule that many CEOs use, many people in the leadership field use. That 70/30 Rule is a very simple rule. It simply says that we can never wait until a hundred percent certainty before we take our action step.

If we do that, the chance is usually lost. Instead of doing that, when we have about seventy percent certainty, through research, through searching our heart whether this is the right path or not or the right place that God is leading us, when we have seventy percent certainty, then it is now appropriate to take that action step.

It’s now appropriate to move forward and take that leap of faith. Of course, many times it’s hard to say. "I have sixty four percent, so I'm going to wait until I have seventy percent." It’s a rounded number. You have to feel around seventy percent, ok? It’s a feeling. It is not going to be exact all the time, but you have to feel, "Okay, I'm about seventy percent sure that God is leading me in this direction; I want to take that leap of faith."

I heard a wonderful statement: "It is better to have tried and failed than to have never tried at all." Too many people in their lives have so much potential, they have so much God-given talent and innate ability. But because of the waiting, because they are waiting until they are hundred percent sure, many times those chances can be lost. Instead of that, let's take initiative.

If we are seventy percent sure that God is leading us, that this is the right path for us, let’s take that action step. Let's move forward to the victory that God is planning for us. When we do that, when we take that step, then, as we proceed along the way, that is the time to modify, that is the time to adjust.

There are so many things and circumstances that we cannot plan for on the outset. We cannot plan everything; we don't know what’s going to happen in the future. So as we are moving forward with that decision, as we are moving forward with God's purpose, then it is important that along the way we adjust ourselves.

Let me ask you: Is there something in our lives today; is there something in our heart today that requires a decision? Is there something in our lives that we are maybe postponing or procrastinating with a little bit -- something that really requires our attention or decision making? Let’s use this time today to search our hearts to see whether or not now is the time to make that step, to take that next action step into the purpose and plan that God has created for us.

Let's remember that God is going to use us for a certain purpose. He’s going to give us that purpose, but we have to do our part and expect that God will do good things through us. If we are always expecting when we get up that, "Oh my goodness, today is a horrible day, nobody will listen to me, people will just mistreat me, my boss is going to look me over, my children will not listen to me or probably yell at me, or curse at me again,"

If we say such things, then we are almost preparing or setting the condition for such things to occur. Instead of that, we have to get in the habit that, as we get up, we say, "You know, something great is going to happen to me today. Something good will happen to my children. I'm going to be on the lookout for something that God will provide me with today."

Whatever we are looking out for we tend to find. So it’s important that in our lives we keep our minds focused on the good things that God is giving to us, keep our mind focused on the simple pleasures that God is affording us. It may be as simple as being able to breathe, or it may be as simple as my children are healthy. But let’s find something each day -- because it may be our last -- find something that is enriching, find something that is good.

There is really a difference between enjoying life and enduring life. When we are able to find what God is giving even though sometimes the day may not be great, or maybe our kids are not all that perfect today, but still if we look deeper, we may be able to find something that God is trying to communicate to us. He may be telling us, "Have more patience." He may be telling us, "Have more perseverance." He may be telling us, "Take that leap of faith and believe in that child or believe in yourself." He may be saying those kinds of things, so let's be on the lookout for such things.

A sister told me that whenever she went out to witness, she would pray. She would do a three-day condition before she would witness. Interestingly enough, when she made that condition, when she set the right focus in her mind and she started praying to meet that right person, when she started preparing her heart, when she went out she was enthused, she was strong.

And interestingly and almost coincidently, she would meet somebody that was prepared for her. Many times she would recount how the person she met said, "I had a dream that someone is going to come to me today." In other words, when we prepare, when we focus our mind on something, God can allow that, He can use that as a condition to help us to bring that to pass.

When we do our work through our good actions, through our good deeds and all the good works you all are doing, many times not everybody will be pleased. In medieval times there was a big kind of catapult that was called a "trebuchet". This was a very interesting type of catapult, a more advanced type of catapult, and it was not used necessarily to throw rocks or to throw other types of projectile items.

It was actually used to throw -- I don't know how to say this nicely -- dead bodies, rotting carcasses. So it was actually an early form of biological warfare. What they would do, if there was a fortified city, they would throw dead animals in there, and then allow disease to spread inside the castle or inside the fortified walls. The purpose was to destroy that city or fortified area from the inside out. So essentially they would go down and try to make an unhealthy environment within.

It’s just like that in our lives. Many times in our lives when we are trying to do good things, when we try to excel in our work, when we try to put in our best at work, in educational institutions or whatever, there will be those archangels that will try to use "trebuchets" on you. There will be those people that will try to put into you unhealthy things. They may tell you bad things, they may speak behind your back, and they may spread rumors about you.

But it is important to not lose your energy to such static. It’s so important that if we are going to be blessed, to know how to focus, to not let such weapons affect our insides. Whenever those negative things come to us, we should be in the habit of letting them go, letting them pass right by. Whenever you hear something about you, don't call your friend and try to find out what it’s about, don’t call five friends and tell them, "Did you hear that what this person just said about me?"

The more you dwell on it, the more it’s going to take root, the more it goes into your system, just like this weapon. It’s going to affect your internal mind. The better things to do, whenever we hear such static, are to just simply change the channel, let that static pass. Don’t let those things affect you.

In the Biblical tradition, there was the figure of Nehemiah who was a cupbearer to King Artaxerxes. He was working very hard with the king; and God gave him a plan. He gave him a purpose. He said, "Nehemiah, I want you to go back to Jerusalem and build the walls back up." But Nehemiah could not see how he could do that. He did not have the resources, he did not have the ability; he was confined within the work that he was doing for the king.

There was no way possible that he would be able to go back and rebuild the walls around Jerusalem. But interesting enough, the scriptures said that because of the favor of God he was able to get favor with the king; and somehow the king agreed to give him permission to safely travel to Jerusalem. But not only that, but he could use the king's timber to build those walls.

When he went back to the walls, all the people in area began to oppose him. Sanbal'lat, Tobi'ah, the Ammonites, the men of Arshad, they all started to oppose him. They all said, "Nehemiah, you're crazy. We’ll never let you build the walls of Jerusalem, you're only ONE person. You will never be able to defeat us." They even plotted to attack and destroy Nehemiah. In Nehemiah 4:16, we see that half of his men had to defend, while half of them worked. Even more specifically, the men who carried materials had to carry a weapon in the other hand.

The builders also wore their swords on their belt. What is the meaning here? It is that when we are doing good things in our life, many times there will be those don't like to acknowledge the good that we are doing. They want to prevent us, to stop us doing such things, maybe even harboring a jealous heart towards us. It’s so important that we stay away from that, to know that we are doing good work and to continue to do our work.

Interesting enough, Nehemiah eventually became the governor of Jerusalem, and even he was able to bring peace to that very unstable area. So let's remember that Nehemiah's people, his men and the people that where working with him, stayed true to God's purpose. They knew that they had to rebuild and raise the dignity of the Israelite people. They knew that, although it was tough and although they would face opposition, they knew that they were involved in a very holy work.

And so even in our lives, let us remember that we are involved in a very holy work. All of you are involved in such precious work with whatever you're doing. In your own respective field, in your own respective profession, you are contributing to helping people, and God, I believe, is using each one of you for those respective purposes.

I often asked myself, "Why is it that I have chosen to be a Unificationist?" I've studied other world religions. I've studied Buddhism; I’ve studied Christianity; I've studied a little bit of Islam; I've studied other traditions. Then, why is it I chose to become Unificationist? Of course the answer is very complex. But in my own view, I feel that our theology is quite compelling.

One of the things that I really enjoy about our tradition is that we believe that God is in other religions as well. We acknowledge other religions as being sacred and holy. We believe, for example from the Principle perspective, that Christianity does provide spiritual salvation to those who are believers of Christ. At the same time we believe that True Parents, through their blessings, are able not only to help us individually, but they are able to actually bring us closer as families to God.

I like that because I'm part of a family. My children and my spouse, we are all part of this tradition, this is the legacy, this is the tradition that they all are going to live in, that they are going to have to be proud of. I believe and I feel that there’s important work to be contributed to this field. I feel that there’s too much that has been sacrificed, too much that has been invested in terms of heartistic qualities or spiritual qualities. It’s such a waste if we just simply let it all go. When I look at this tradition, as we move forward, we will become more blessed, as we move forward we will become more prosperous, as we move forward we will shine more in this world.

We are really teaching that True Parents are trying to save families and, in that sense, bring families back to God, not only our individual selves or individual salvation, but also our descendants, our ancestry that we are all one family, a tribe that is trying to connect back to God. I believe that is theologically compelling. Father said that each one of you, each one of our family members who have received the Blessing, stand in the position of the original ancestor, that you are the beginning of your tribe. You are the original ancestor. That position is so precious.

I believe that as we move forward, we will rise to better heights. I believe that we are maturing as a movement, and our families are becoming stronger. Of course we have obstacles; we have challenges like any other tradition, like any other institution. But I believe that we are overcoming such things with maturity, with strength and with wisdom.

It’s interesting, once I visited a Christian church out here in Korea, a big church. They were handing out these wonderful books, very nicely wrapped and with a nice cover design. But the title was "A List of Heretical Movements." I happened to pick one up and I said, "Thank you for the book of the List of Heretical Movements."

I looked through and there we were in one of the sections, a very prominent section, Unification Movement. And of course, I saw True Father's face and True Mother's face. I read, "Be very wary of this tradition. Do not get involved with this tradition, etc, etc." But when I saw it, I said "You know what, the biggest Church in Korea, the Yoeido Full Gospel Church, when that began they were also called heretics. But now they have over 180,000 members and no one calls them heretics anymore." In the same way, I said, "You know what; I want to take True Parents’ out of this book. And I don't want to get into this book. I know I’m going to be in there soon (laugh). I don't want to be in there for long."

So in terms of our own tradition, I really believe this tradition has so much value. We have so many resources. We have so much talent. We have so much potential that God has prepared. From a scholarly perspective, I've studied other religions; I've seen the new movements: the Ba’hai tradition, the Hare Krishna tradition, and the Mormon tradition -- in the time of their founder, no other religion has come to our level of success. None other. There is no other new religion, and also ancient religion, that has come to our level of success.

What I'm saying is that we have come enormously far and enormously fast. I believe that as we progress forward we will rise to new heights. We will become even more influential in a good way. We will spread the message of family, of marriage, of fidelity, of respect, of True Parents’ Blessing. I believe that such things are important to people, and they are very important to me.

So if there any lessons that we can learn today, let's remember that God has given us a purpose. He has designed a specific plan for us. Of course, He has done His 95%. With our 5%, if we stay true to ourselves, if we continue to believe in the person that God made us to be, that we have the capabilities and talents to fulfill that purpose, I believe (that) God will bring us to that goal and to that achievement.

As we are progressing along the way, let's remember: don't heed the archangels that are trying to bring you down, that are trying to make you disbelieve or doubt yourself. Don’t listen to that static. Keep focused on your purpose, keep focused on your good works. Just like Nehemiah, stay true to what God is calling you to do. One hand can be building the walls of the kingdom while the other hand can be fending off the enemies. But do it nicely, do it nicely, keep protected, ok?

In the same way, with our purpose, when God is leading us in our purpose, let's remember we can't always be 100% sure. Let's remember the 70/30 rule: When we are 70% sure, around 70% sure, let's take that action step, let's make that decision. Let's not procrastinate. Let’s make the right decision to do. It can be something as simple as, "I can start treating my wife better. I'm going to start to drive a friend to work." It can be something as simple as that. But let's remember to continue to make good decisions in our life.

As we are doing that let’s adjust, let’s modify along the way and lets expect good things. Don't walk around your life and saying, "Oh, nothing good happens to me; oh, its always raining for me, there's always a cloud chasing me." Don't live like that. That's not the way to live.

Know that you have brightness in your future. Know that you have sunshine on your face. Your smile is radiant; use it! You have a great gift inside of you. You have a champion inside of you. God has placed all that you need within your heart.

So as you move forward, let us remember to stay true to God's purpose, in our church, in our families and in our hearts. Let's continue to spread that message. Let's continue to spread our message -- not through force, but through our examples -- that message of love, of hope, that message of diligence, that message of friendship and strong relationships, of maturity; let’s spread those things.

If we can do that, I do believe that not only we, ourselves, but also our church will rise to more victory, more illumination and more peace.

Brothers and sisters, can you accept this message today?

Yes (answered by audience).

Thank you so much.

Simple Prayer to True Parents:

Before we end our service, we always like to give all our brothers and sisters around the world the chance to rededicate themselves to True Parents, and those who are not in our tradition to start their hearts again fresh with our True Parents. Let’s just simply say a prayer in our hearts:

"True Parents thank you for this day. We repent for our wrong actions. We pray that you can come into our midst, and make us a holy palace of your peace. Make our families the holy palace of your love, of your lineage, Father. Thank you so much for this. I pray all of these things. AJU!"

Family, if you pray this simple prayer, we believe that you are now spiritually connected back to True Parents and God, and we believe that you are now in your home, welcomed to your rightful place. Let’s keep True Parents in our hearts, and if we do that, we know they will raise us to more victory, more illumination and more peace than we can ever possibly imagine.

37. Regain Your Subjectivity (January 26, 2008)

Hyung Jin Moon
January 26, 2008
Headquarters Church, Chungpadong, Seoul, Korea

Yeon Ah Moon:

About a week ago, we got a letter from a Japanese brother. It was a letter about his decision to go back to Japan. He was originally planning to stay in Korea for 4 or 5 years in order to learn Korean, while his family was in Japan. But he said, after attending our services regularly, he realized that most important thing he needs to take care of is his family and we were happy for his decision.

He said, according to researchers, a child who does not get enough attention from his / her parents before at the age of 6, will try to get attention. That is a lack in their early stage of life will make them want attention. So they do anything to get attention back even though it is a negative attention.

Another interesting thing I always remind myself of when I feel very frustrated about my children, which can happen sometimes, honestly speaking, frequently can happen, I always remind myself that is we are living in the time to build the relationship with my children. Somebody once told me that after the age of 12 it is very hard to rebuild the relationship back with our own children. But what if my children are already teenagers or they already grown up and they're blessed already.

Well, how about just like writing letters or e-mails regularly that emphasizes why they are blessings to your life. And how you want be a bigger blessing and change yourself in bigger blessing into other people. What I believe about parenting is that there is no flowers formula. So brothers and sisters please love your children. Don't spoil them but love them so much and tell them how precious they are in your eyes and God's eyes. Because you're the only one in this entire universe who can teach your children about God's love.

Brothers and Sisters always remember that Heavenly Father loves our children. We love you so much and we believe in you... AJU!!!

Hyung Jin Moon:

I heard an interesting story that I came across and it was about a young man. His mother came to him, it was a Sunday morning, she shook him and she said, "Hurry up, Tony it's time to go to church! Hurry and Get up." and he said, "Mom, I'm not going to go to church." She tried to convince him, try to get him get out of a bed and he kept on, you know, go under his blanket.

She said, "Tony you better get up, we have to go to church." So Tony got up and he said, "Mom, I'm going to give you two reasons why I'm not going to go to church. Number one nobody likes me and I don't like them." (laugh from audience) And mom said, "Well let me give you two reasons why you are going to Church, number one you're 53 and number two you're the pastor!"(Laugh)

Today I want to talk about Regaining our Subjectivity in our lives. You know when we look at the Principles, such a wonderful systems of the whole notion of Give and Take or being with the subject and having an object. We see in the Principles of course that notion of the Three Objective Purpose that depending on who is the subject and in a giving time there different object.

It is important in our life, where we are going to live the wonderful life that our True Parents bless to live to understand that we have to continue to regain and re-claim our subjectivity or the subject position in our life. If we look at from the perspective of a Principle or Principle Perspective it's interesting to know that subject is actually the first to give, it's not that the subject is waiting to receive from the object. The subject actually has to give first. So husbands, if you're out there, if you're wishing to receive love from your wife, what you have to do? You've got to give it first. Wives if you want to receive love from your husband and be subject, you have to give it first in advance. Ok!?

So in our lives as well, to regain that subject position of our minds, of our mind life and to live free in that mind, it's very important. It's so easy to fall into temptations but it's very hard to live with a guilt that we receive from such actions -- knowing that our conscience knows what is right -- a stinging conscience. It's very hard to live like that. Let us see like this, almost as if our mind is like an internal environment.

You know True Father describes it like this, "Sok Saram and Kut Saram" that basically means, your internal self and you external self, the person outside and the person inside. Person outside of is course the person that everybody sees but from the inside, internally, we have to really attend to that person. It's almost as if there's a certain environment in our minds. And then we are rearing or raising a little child at first in that environment.

Now just like any parents would want to surround their child with good environment, healthy foods, and positive words of encouragement. It's very important in our mind life, in our own mind environment to protect that inner-self within, to be able to shield it with good nurturing, you know encouragements, to know that we need to feed it the right things for it to grow, to mature in to what God wants it to become.

In the same way, if we are filling our minds with negative thoughts about ourselves, if we are filling up with, "Oh, I'm never good with this. I'm not qualified. I'm not really that talented. You know I can't really do anything right. Nothing really good happens to me." If we’re doing such things in our minds, we are feeding that child, that inner-self, with those kind of elements.

And thus our lives will take that in, just like a child that can become sick, so it is with our minds. We can also become more and more, as we can make things increase, but we can also decrease. We don't want to do that. It is just like if you are a parent, one of the initial practices of a parent that you have to learn quickly is to learn how to change diapers.

All parents have done that, we have 5 kids, we change a lot of diapers, or we did, they're bigger now, none of them are wearing diapers now. But it is same in our minds, sometimes our minds can allow thoughts to come in that harm the child, things that are not good for then, not a clean enough for them.

Maybe someone the spoke negative words over in lives. Maybe they told us that we're going to fail. We have no chance to succeed and if we let that in, that will poison in the environment in our lives. And in just the same way it will start negatively affecting the inner-self that True Father is talking about. Whenever we have that situation we can not change the dirty diapers and put on another dirty diaper -- that is not the way to provide cleanliness for our inner-self.

In the same way when we receive bad things, maybe somebody spoke to us that very same negative way. We have to get that out of that bad environment. We have to learn how to objectify that and get out of the environment. And then we can continue to learn to nurture a good environment for the child, the person or our inner-selves.

There's a very simple practice, and that is the practice of objectification. And that practice is a very simple mind practice. You can all utilize it in your lives right now, today. But the whole notion is that we need to re-claim our subjectivity over our mind life, and our mind environment. And to do that we have to learn the practice of objectification; that is to remove this things from our mind environment.

Every time we say, "Nothing right happens to me. I'm dumb. I'm not attractive," or "Nobody likes me," or "I can’t do it right," or "I always fail." When we say such things we have to immediately notice them, objectify them, separate them and rid them from our mind environment. In the same way God never created us to be this person who is always criticizing ourselves, telling other people they cant do anything right, telling ourselves that we can’t do things right or we have no talents, we have no ability. That is not our destiny. That is not what God intends us to do. Instead we are made in his image. We're supposed to be creative. We are filled with wisdom, power. We're filled with the ability to overcome obstacles. To remain focused.

We have all these wonderful blessings in our lives. It's so important that we're able to cultivate those things and rid ourselves and all the things in our environment that may be hurting us. When we look the story of Jesus, in Matthew 4:1-11, we see the whole story of the temptation of Christ. Where Satan is tempting Jesus, and as you remember that third temptation when Jesus was taken by Satan, he took him up to the highest mountain and said, "I will give all the kingdoms of the world if you bow down and worship me." And we can see there Christ overcame that temptation.

He was able to protect his God given destiny. In the same way it is important that when we are given temptations in our lives, that we are able to overcome them and continue to rise to be the best person that we can become.

It's interesting also to know that in the Buddhist tradition in the, Bada Na Sutta Nipata and this it the Pali Pali kind of old tradition of Telibana Tradition. But it is interesting to know that Jesus had temptation and the Buddha also had temptations in his own life. Because many people, when they study Buddhism, and I study Buddhism quite a bit, but many people will know that Buddhism is a very peaceful art, it doesn't talk about any… you know, it's very peace, loving, etc.

But when you look at the actual phraseology here, we see that Buddha took on a very strong stand against temptation. In the Buddhist Tradition Satan is a Mara, it’s the same kind of figure. But it is known as Mara. And the Buddha utters such things like this, "None but the brave will conquer the temptation of a Mara." Very strong words. "Better I die in battle now then choose to live in defeat, for I have faith, energy and wisdom too." But the interesting thing to know is that both Jesus and Buddha are saints and in our tradition they are saints as well.

But that they have both had to take a very strong stance against things that are coming in to their minds, to their environment and to their hearts. They have really had a strong stance, "Better that I die in battle now." And when we are overcome and when we are being hit with the temptations of things that are around us, or even things in our minds.

You know, being tempted to think that we are incapable, or being tempted to think that we have no value. When we are tempted by such things; when we are tempted to believe that we have no right to be happy or to be the blessed people; that we don't deserve what True Parents have given us... When we are tempted to do such things, we have to take a strong stands in our minds. We have to protect our minds, shield them from such things entering in.

We can do a very simple practice here, it's a very simple meditative mind practice. And it's the practice of objectification and will do a just couple of minutes. I'd like to invite you to just close your eyes now and let us now start now objectifying the thoughts in your mind. What will we do is… any thought that you have in your minds, we will simply give it a name.

We will objectify it and label it we will name it. Just in our mind, it may be anything, just where you mind goes, we may thinking about thought or we may call it, "I'm thinking now" and just objectify it to you. Look at the thought as a separate entity from your mind. Your mind may, you know, be paying attention to your arm, or your leg. If that is the case you simply say "My focus is on my leg or my arm." Just continue to objectify everything that your mind is doing. It is a simple, very simple practice, just the practice of objectification.

Almost like you're describing what your mind is doing as if you're watching it from the third person perspective and describing what it is doing. It's going over here; it goes to that sound; this goes to the sensation of my body. It's going to this thought. Just almost describe what is happening.(finish meditating), As you notice, I may ask you now to open your eyes and see very quickly you can start seeing that as you objectify things in your minds you have distances from them.

You have actually more control over such things. You know they have less ability to control you. As it's very important just like of Jesus, as Christ did, when we are being tempted by such things in our lives, that we can separate them from ourselves and we can know that we are in the subject role and that we can regain and restore and remain in our subject position.

There are many brothers and sisters who write us and are very concerned about their negative pasts. They ask us a lot of questions on how to deal with such things, or maybe negative circumstances in our lives right now. And it's very important when we look at this practice, to objectify. In our lives we may have negative memories or afflictions. We may have, you know certain experiences in our lives but it's very important to learn how to objectify those things.

Then we can use them, not to harm us or to harm anybody else, but to use them almost as fuel for your rocket ship. So that they can propel you forward. But you are not free too hurt other people. Use your experiences as fuel to give you energy. People have done this consistently through history.

Let's take the example of anger. Martin Luther King took the energy of anger, he took that holy anger with in him and he changed that into his dream. He changed that into his dream of seeing his brothers and sisters, white and black being able to stand side by side in harmony in happiness, etc.

He wanted a place where we are equal, where we are fully brothers. He took that anger and changed it into a dream. In the same way to objectify, he had to not to allow that poison into his internal mind environment and use it as power to propel him into a great vision and a great work.

In the same way Nelson Mandela talked about, "Resentment is like drinking a poison and hoping that it will kill your enemy." He talked about this and he said that, "Resentment needs to be transformed into blessing." And in the same way when we are dealing with issues, you know when we resent somebody, who said something bad to us or whatever circumstances.

Let us use that experience as something that gives us power that we can declare in our lives "I'm never going to let myself do what that other person did to me and I'm going to be a blessing to every single person that I meet. I'll do that instead of speaking negatives words to them. I will not do that, I will encourage people. I will try to support people, lift them up. I'll try to help them see their God given destiny."

In a same way we can start changing was we learn by objectifying these mind states, we have to learn transform them into power and into fuel. It's very interesting, my wife gave me an example: Oprah Winfrey said that she could make the excuse that she had a negative childhood and thus she should never be successful. But Oprah Winfrey said that "Because I had a negative childhood, I will succeed."

You see how she turned that around and she didn’t use that as a justification to say, "I'm going to be defeated, I'm not going to rise higher. I'm not going to try any more." But she said because I have that "I'm stronger, I'm going to rise up higher. I'm going to even more successful." In the same way, when we learn how to objectify our minds we regain the subject position in our hearts. We start regaining power in our lives, control in our lives.

And then we start lessening the power of the Archangel in our lives, the people who are trying to curse us; the people who are trying to bring you down; or the circumstances that make you not believe in yourself anymore. So it's very important to learn how to regain our subjectivity in our lives. You know I really find this practice very important because when we are raising our children the learning how to objectify is very important for them as well.

I'll give you an example, my kids were -- I have lots of boys in my house, we have 4 boys -- and you know boys are, they get very loud and make a big ruckus. I remember one episode were my older boy was on a chair and he was about to throw a toy, a very hard toy, you know truck, and my other boy, because they are arguing about something, and my other boy on the floor was swinging a sword at him saying, "You want to throw that truck?" (Laughter in audience)

I saw that circumstance and normally how a parent would deal with that circumstance would be to say, "You children what are you doing? You're bad, bad, bad children. Stop that!" But we use the practice of objectification, when that situation was playing out we said, "Ooohhh, wait! I see a boy, a very angry boy on the chair about to throw a truck. And I see a boy on the ground swinging a sword."

See, once we objectify that, they will realize, they drew pictures in their minds of what was happening. They caught up with their emotions. Without objectification they couldn't see themselves, but when we objectified for them and said, "Hey, I see a very angry boy on the chair about to throw a red truck and I see another guy swinging a sword at him saying, 'Come on, come on.'"

Once we did that, they were able to see themselves and think, "Wait a minute, we don't like that, that's not us. We will quit that." Once we did that we allowed them to objectify, allowed them see themselves once more from a third party perspective sort of. And then of course, at that time we asked them, "Hey, do you think this is what the loving brothers would do to each other?" and they said "No, we had a nice time out." (Laughter) And all things came back to peace.

You know in our lives it's so important that we learn this practice. We need it in your lives if you’re a husband or wife or if you're a spouse, I heard a story from a man -- he told me a story that every husband has and he calls it, "The terror of the red shoes". Now let me describe that to you a little bit. This husband was describing to me, "Hey, we're preparing some event and my wife is trying on different shoes or a different outfit she's wearing and she’ll ask me, "Hey which shoes I should wear, the black ones or the red ones?"

And for a man this is very a hard question. (Laugh from the audience). We don't know how to answer! So he said, "Err, honey the red one is good." And she said, "What's wrong with the black ones?" (Laughter) And he said, "Well, ok, the black one’s are good then." And she said, "You just said the red one were good!" (More laughter) And they got into a fight, an argument. That is not what he intended. But that's not how we’re supposed to approach that situation. See we learn to objectify, we will be able to deal with the situation in a better manner.

So let’s say we are in that situation. I practice on myself so I can testify to its effectiveness. So if my wife will asked me, "Ok, we have this big occasion and True Parents will be there and all of the member’s of the True Families will be there, so which one should I wear?" So well, I practice in my mind, objectifying, describing the situation, "Well I see a beautiful women, I see her with a black skirt on and a blue top, I see this kind of earrings, and I see that red lips so if you want to match the red you got to the red shoes. But if you want the black shoes to pick up your beautiful black hair and your bag then do the black shoes." (Laughter)

And then I’ll ask her too, "What do you think yobo?" And I said, "Well I was leaning toward the black shoes." And I say "Well that's a great choice." (Much laughter in the audience) "Black shoes are great choice." You see we've got to learn how to use the practice in our day to day lives. And it's very important that we learn to objectify such things. Learn the practice of objectification -- it gives you more control in your life and it to allows you the ability to describe your situation so that we can actually make better decisions.

I was at the plane and going to Japan. And right next to me, we always ride in economy -- so we were sitting there, right next to me, these young couples, young Korean couples came, traveling to Japan and they were in 20's. And they were hugging and focusing with each other the whole trip! The whole trip they were holding hands and in their blankets, you know and whatever. So I'm sitting there trying to focus on my book reading.

And you know I objectified this picture. You know ok, I'm going to start to see this from a heavenly perspective. I’m going to see this from the top perspective. And I thought, "Ok I see a loving couples," and one thing surprised me quite a lot, when, to such an extent that, I really had to look at myself. When meal came out, as you all know, as the meal time comes there is a little package in which your silverware is in. You have to open it, you have to open it up, and set your table.

So when the stewardess brought the meal, the young man proceeded to open his wife's or girlfriend’s package and lay out her silverware. I look it and said, "Come on! She’s not going to melt if she touches her silverware." (Laughter) So I was sitting there and thinking, "Ok. maybe when they are together focusing on each other, actually when I travel with my wife we're pretty much focused on each other, we're talking to each other the whole trip.

But I realized that I don't set the table for her. (Laugh) When the food comes I don't open the packet and set her table for her. So I let that moment be an inspirational moment. And I tried to say ok, "You know God is trying to tell me something. He is trying to ask me to rise higher. He's trying to ask me to become a better husband." So the next time we flew to Japan I was thinking, "Ok, when I get back home I'm going to set my wife's table. (Laughter) I'm going to set a feast before her!" (Laughter and applause)

Father said, we have to honor our wife like a queen and she will then honor us back as a king. So let's do that and our honor God as blessed couples. So I talked to her, "Yobo, I'm going to honor you when I get back. I was inspired by the young couple in the plane. I'm going to set the table when I go back." (Laugh) I did. I got home and did that and she said a really wonderful encouraging thing, she didn't hear the sermon but she said, "Yobo, you are my king and I'm you're queen."(Laughter and applause)

You know it's so important because in life, there’s many opportunities for us to miss what are we suppose to see. I was also in the airport when I was standing in this really long line. There were about hundred people, the line was moving so slowly and I was getting frustrated, it was just so frustrating. And I realized, I looked up a read the sign and I noticed that it was the connections line and not the arrival line. I'm in Japan and I had to get off in that airport to arrive and I have to get out, and I'm standing in the wrong line.

I was getting frustrated because the line was long. I was aggravated because the people there didn't understand a word I was saying. But I realized, wait a minute I'm in the wrong line. And the same way I try to use that as an example, God was trying to speak to me and he said, you know, we have the same problem, we have to learn how to arrive where God is trying to get us. You know sometimes we're trying to get to the arrival line but we're standing in the connection line. It's important to know where we are. We know where our environment is. What is in our environment. The real problem here was that I was not aware of my environment.

I was just following people to where they are going and I was not paying attention the general environment where the sign was said this is the connections and this is the arrivals. In the same way in our mind, it is so important that we learn to be aware of the environment of our mind. So that we will know that we are not in the connection line. We will know that we are arriving every moment, where God wants us to be. Every moment we need to know where God wants us. Wherever it is, whatever the circumstance or obstacle -- or things with our kids -- or things with our spouse -- or whatever we need to be where God wants us.

We can rise to higher level. There are so many opportunities if take advantage of so that we can rise higher in our lives. You know, if we learn anything from today. Let's remember that it is so important to regain subjectivity in our lives. It's so important that we learn how to protect our internal self. Remember that ‘Sok Saram’ the internal self and ‘Kut Saram’ the internal self. Let's protect ourselves. Don't let any person who opposes you or any circumstance take you down. Feed your environment because otherwise your inner-self will start being nourished by that negative environment.

It's very important that we protect our environment. We fill our mind-environment with life filling words, life filling thoughts, fill them with faithful words. We fill them with practice so that our lives can become greater and greater. Just like Jesus and the Buddha, let's learn to objectify, lets learn to rid ourselves of things that are negative.

Take ourselves out of negative environments so we can have a strong and healthy environment where our inner-self can grow. If we learn how to objectify situations we will create more peace. We will learn how to see things from a better perspective. We will not always get caught in the emotions of events. But learn how to see things from a little bit of a distance, so we can step back, notice them and be able to make positive decisions in our lives.

Let's make sure that we don’t stand in that connections line, be aware of our mind environment. Know where your mind is. Stay aware of arriving where God wants us to arrive. If we can do that, I do believe that we will always rise higher. To more Victory, to more Illuminations and to more Peace.

Brother and sisters, can you receive this message today?

Yes (from the audience)

Thank you so much!!!

Let's recite today:

"True Parents I have repented for my wrong doings. Make me a holy palace of your peace, your love and your lineage."

36. Let's Not Lose Our Joy and Laughter (January 19, 2008)

Hyung Jin Moon
January 19, 2008
Headquarters Church, Chungpadong, Seoul, Korea

Yeon Ah Moon:

One day when True Father was sitting in at Hannam-dong house. As he was sitting a couple of leaders came in to report something to True Father with a lot of hesitation. They said "True Father, Well, there was a fire and the Pavilion you paid for, for decades has been burned down." There was pin-drop silence. Everybody in the room waited for True Father's reaction.

Will he be so angry? How did they let Satan invades the Pavilion sanctuary? Will he be mad like that? Or will he scold them how about reckless they were? Will he punish the person who was in charge of the Pavilion? Without a word True Father looked around and tilted his body a little bit and then he let out his thunder "boom".

So after hearing the holy guests "thunder" (laugh from audience) everybody in the room laughed so hard. Then True Father said, "Come on, Come down people. Things happen in life. Don’t take everything too seriously. As long as nobody got hurt from the incident, it is ok."

Brothers and Sisters let us learn also how to laugh. Let us also learn let go of things and circumstances that are holding us back. Let us also move forward with joy, laughter and courage. Brothers and Sisters we love you so much and we believe in you.. AJU!!!

Hyung Jin Moon:

I heard an interesting story about a blessed couple and there was, you know, a brother there he got matched to a sister of Jewish Heritage. So one day they decided that they had to go and see their parents-in-law. So the young man took his wife to see his parents-in-law. So the father came to him and said "Young man, how will you provide for my daughter? How will you put a roof over head like the one she is accustomed too?"

And the young man said, "Well, God will provide." And the Father-in-law asked him, "Then how will you buy her a diamond ring like she deserves?" And the young man said, "Well, God will provide." At that his father-in-law left him and went back to his living room. There was the mother. So she asked her husband, "So how did it go with the new son-in-law?" And the father-in-law said, "Well, he has no job, he has no money, but the good news is, he thinks I'm God." (Laugh from the audience)

Today I would like to talk you about Not Losing Our Joy and Our Laughter.

You know if we are really to live the blessed life that True Parents have blessed us to live, it is so important that we don't lose our joy and our laughter. That's always just an important thing in our lives. You know, life is full of inconveniences, aggravating people, negative circumstances, negative environments that can really take away that power in our life. But if we are really going to live a life of blessing then it is important to always hold on to our joy and our laughter.

You know, I heard in doing this kind sermon, this kind of service -- I often hear critical voices which are good sometimes, which are nice sometimes, which are not nice sometimes. Many times we get asked, "Why we are presenting such a service? Why aren't there jokes? Why isn't there any laughter? Why is there such an environment?

Why are the members reminded that they are not precious. They should be reminded that they are sinners; unworthy before True Parents. And in my heart whenever I hear such things, I'm at peace because I know, in my heart I keep the joy and laughter and I say "I know what, these criticisms will not take away my joy, and it will not prevent me from doing what we do at our service."

Of course, if Father asks me to stop doing services then that's another story but until that day we will continue to make the best services and the most positive environments we can, for our families and our children. You know, when True Parents look at us, I really am encouraged because it is for me, the real message of True Parents. The real message is that they love us, and that True Parents are proud of us.

It is a message that Father wished to create a real home, a real church, a home of happiness of joy and laughter. It is not so much that because there are no more tears in our movement and that's why our movement can’t grow. I don't believe this because the joy and laughter has been long lost in our movement. So let us remember who we are. Let's remember that we are precious.

That True Parents teach us that we will be mighty filial sons and daughter in this land. They tell us that we will be blessed wherever we will go. And let us hold on to such things, such words of faith in our hearts and let them fill us with joy and at hard times, sometimes, laughter so that we can overcome our obstacles more readily.

You know a little bit of science, laughter is a part of human behavior and helps humans clarify intentions, and you may know that the study of laughter is actually, there is an actual study of laughter, which is called Gelotology and what you will notice that physiologists say that with deep heart felt laughter it appears that ‘serum cortisol’, which is a hormone that secreted when we're under stress is decreased. That means, that when we laugh, when we able to laugh even thought we're under stress, our stress is decreased the serum cortisol in our blood is decreased.

More interesting, more science facts, that when we laugh natural killer cells which destroy tumors and viruses increase along with gamma Interferon, that's a disease by a protein. Those guys are living in you, there very well. We want them to be healed at the service T-cells are important to our immune systems. B-cells are good for curing disease by adding anti-bodies.

All the things are increased when were able to laugh at circumstances that usually stress us. Very interesting to know that in other religious traditions there are actually systems and technology that implement and utilize laughter as a form of practice. You may not know it, but for example in the Hindu Tradition, there is something known as laughter Yoga. In Buddhist Tradition, there is something known as Buddhist force laughter practice, even laughter practice, even smile, a sauna or postures.

You may have seen statues of the Buddha. He's doing a nice little smile, that’s called as half smile, it’s actually a meditative posture. So in these traditions, religious traditions have always seen that laughter, that joy, that happiness, that smiles are very important for our being. In the Biblical tradition, we see that when Abraham was 100 years old, God said that his descendants would be as many as the stars in the sky.

He promised Abraham and his wife Sarah, Sarah was at age of 90 years old and he said, "You will have a son. I will give you a child." This was, in normal ways of thinking, absolutely impossible. Sarah was no way, that she was way beyond child bearer years. There was no way that this would be possible at 90 years old.

But when God gave them Isaac at the age of 100, and Sarah a 90; In Genesis 21:6, Sarah says "God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me." Notice that here, in biblical tradition children are associated with laughter. And as our associate pastor who always says, "What is the purpose of life? It is joy." When ever he says he is glowing with laughter. So we know that he has that child like spirit.

Laughter also in this passage is contagious that everyone who hears of it shall also laugh. And the most important passage that I love in scripture is that God has brought me laughter, that God brings us laughter. God brings us laughter and joy. In this particular episode, Sarah was able to look at the situation. She was able to laugh to herself and all the people around who heard of her giving birth to Isaac, that precious son, all them also could laugh of joy.

You know young kids also spontaneous. We have a lot of young blessed children here today with us at service. And really, even in my own family, our youngest boy, he is really still young boy right now. He's just past one and a half years old. My youngest boy he laughs so happily when he sees me.

I mean his whole face glows, his eyes become up side down smiles, his smile become a huge glow and especially when I come back home, he was ready waiting there at the door. And as soon as I walk in he's scream with his radiant smile on his face and he says "Appa!" and I really feel I’m in heaven at that moment. I really believe that because of that, I feel that God does bring laughter through our children.

You know when I was young; I was such a prankster, if my brother Kook Jin Nim was here he can tell you, he could really testify to that, I was such a prankster. I was annoying, I was used to stand in front of the TV for no reason and bothered my brothers and stand next to them. You know, and do some bothering stuff.

And when I was at times, running for my life when they were chasing me I would say, they will ask me "Why are you so annoying?" and I said "I'm just trying to actualize True Parents’ teachings.(laugh from audience) I'm just trying to bring you joy and laughter, that’s all I’m trying to do." And of course, you know I would have to say that, while they're behind me and running at me, but it is so important that in our lives that we could continue to learn to laugh, in our lives, with our children, in our homes; even when we have circumstances that look impossible.

You know, I may have this circumstance. I can't just overcome this disease or I can't overcome this particular circumstance that is really weighing me down and I know I should be down. I know I should be giving up, but I'm going to have smile on my face. I'm going to have joy in my heart. I may have laughter in my spirit.

But so many people forget to laugh, continue to laugh with their kids as they grow up. Maybe they say "It's not my personality" or maybe "I can't really laugh on purpose" but it is important to know that we don’t have to be bellowing with laughter all the time. We don't have to be always, you know, laughing with huge sound. But in order to create an environment, where joy, where laughter is allowed, where we can relax.

You know scientist say that when we laugh, we're able to reduce the stress hormones and also the fight or flight mechanism in our body. So when we're able to create an environment where joy, where laughter is allowed to happen. And we know that that fight or flight mechanism that environment is much more conducive to nurturing our children. As children become more complex, doing simple things like tickling them or chasing them around and trying to catch them, won’t often get the same response. Just as with the other days with my boys, 10 years old, 8 years old, and we were looking through a whole bunch of religious jokes.

You know, the ones that we do every service, and they really enjoyed that, they love going through the little jokes going to them and me explaining them. Sometimes they don't get it and sometimes they do. And my children really love it when we make fun of ourselves in front of them. So, one of the things that they really enjoy is when we tell them about or past experiences which are very embarrassing. Maybe that one time when we're eating ice cream in front of people and it fell in our face, or something like that, and the kids really love that.

But the deeper principle is that when they learn how to laugh when the parents teach them, that the parents can laugh at themselves. We also teach the children, that it’s healthy to learn to laugh at yourself at times, to have the confidence and ability to know that you can be, you can put your guard down and let other people come into our sphere and environment and create a good place for people to thrive. Of course, for people who are negative or kids who are rebellious and maybe even are deliberately set on harming or saying hurtful things to you. Make sure you take a right approach. Let's keep our cool, let’s keep our positive attitude.

Let's not give up on them. Let's remember that with one touch, God can change the situation instantly. We have just to really keep continuing along, doing our best, keeping dominion of our mind and body and over our own selves.

Of course it is important not to laugh inappropriately, there are times when laughter is not conducive in the best environment, to people who are negative or people who are trying to intermediate you, if there is such people in your life, and then many times they can give you the wrong reactions or give you the opposite reaction. Laughter can, at times, insight anger.

So it’s important to keep that inside of you, allow that to come into our heart and approach with positivity, rather than negativity. You know, there is a very interesting meditative tradition which is scrambling meditation. And I would like to share this with you today because I’m sure that each and every one of us can actually use this in our lives today.

And this is particularly useful when we're dealing with somebody in our past, or some experience in our past that creates a great deal emotional negativity in our minds. When we think about that person, we may become stressed, we may really get angry and feel anxiety, and we may really feel their negativity on us.

But when we are playing them in our minds, when we are playing those images in our mind they really take the energy life out of us. So it’s very important to learn how to work and have dominion over those mind states, over our mind life. It's very important to learn to have dominion over mind and body. I'd like to show this simple practice to you.

Let simply close our eyes right now. Let's think of a person or experience that has been negative towards us. You can visualize that person very vividly. Maybe he or she is screaming, it could be a child, it could be a boss, it could be a sibling, co-workers, it could be a teacher who did not believe in you, it could be any person. But feel that negativity. You can see them screaming at you. But right now is, from now in that visualization, we will take control of that visualization. Now let’s turn that image into a cartoon, almost like a cartoon; where you now have the power to rewind, and replay.

So let's now see them screaming us, and let’s rewind it and we see those words go back into their mouth in reverse action, going backwards and we play it again. And let's go rewind again, and let's replay again. Let's see them move back and fourth in almost like we’re watching a video. Now is the part where we going to add the special effects.

Now you will see maybe their ears grow big like Mickey Mouse. Their nose may grow long like Pinocchio. Maybe they grow a tail, a monkey's tail. But you will see that you have control over this visualization, this memory. As what I like to do now is see those sorts of ridiculous sound effects and ridiculous special effects happening and then let us rewind that. So you can see the ears back in, you can see the nose back in, you can see the monkey's tail back in and then replay it again. See the ears grow big again. See the nose grow big again.

See the monkey's tail grow big and repeat that. Try to repeat it about five times. Just rewind and replay. You are in control of the mind life. You're in control of this memory life. You're control of this memory. So replay it and rewind it just getting it. Just replay it and rewind it. See those special effecting occurring. See you controlling your mind state.

Let’s do that couple of times, and now let's open our eyes. You are now in control of that memory, what you have to realize is that, that memory is an emotion memory. It is tied to you with emotions. When you are able to control that memory, and really make a funny scene, kind of a joyful scene, a funny laughter scene…

You would be able to control that emotional feeling that you have in that memory. Whenever that memory is trying to steal that joy, our laughter, just in our mind, just what we did. Use the dominion of your mind. Just see those things happening, put in new sound effects, put in these special effects.

You can do those things and you will start changing the way those memories, those emotional feelings, feel with that kind of person. We know that we can live with freedom from such negativity. We can live with freedom from negative people from those negative circumstances, from the environments as long as we take dominion of our mind.

You know in the Buddhist Tradition, when ever I go to Chinatown. Whenever I go to a place where they sell Chinese items, you may have all seen them too; you will see a small little very, very fat Buddha. They're very fat. They're very round. They're very fat and smiling and these guys are known as the Happy Buddha or the Laughing Buddha.

But its interesting to know that this is actually the figure of Maitreya. In Buddhism that is the second coming of the messiah. Ok, so, in the Divine Principle we see that True Parents, or the Christian tradition, is in the messianic role. And in Buddhism tradition fills the role of Maitreya. And it’s very interesting that this Buddha is always laughing. He always smiling and it is through this joy that he connects to all beings, he fosters realization, generosity and contentment, and brings heaven to earth.

And you know, when I think of that, I am really reminded that, that is my image of Father. Of course Father is not that big (laugh from audience), but Father, well when I think of Father I don't think of Father who is bleeding and full of sweat and tears, of course that is part of his history, that is part of the major obstacles -- those he had overcome. But when I view Father, when I recall Father in my memory, I see him just glowing with laughter.

I see him smiling with Mother I see them holding hands; I see pictures that inspire me that remind me that True Parents love me. Remind me that True Parents love us; that they are proud of us. That they are happy for us, and they wish for us to be happy. It's very important to know that whatever we focus on we will become greater. We will see more things than we have in our lives. It's important that when we view True Parents, even when we view God for that matter that we understand that in this age of liberation and complete release, God is no longer suffering.

He is no longer the God of blood, sweat and tears. But He is now a God that can be joyful, that can be happy, that can smile like this very corpulent fellow. But let us remember if we can learn anything today, just like Sarah that God brings laughter into our lives. That it is a blessing into our lives. If we receive such things as blessings, we will be able to share laughter in our life. Let's remember that scientific laughter is good for our stress and, it is healthy. And remember let's not laugh inappropriately at people.

We don't have to be spiteful. We don't have to harm others in order to feel good. But whenever we feel affected by negative memories, negative people, negative words that are cursing our lives; negative words which affecting our minds; let us use the scrambling practice. Use that practice in your mind to regain dominion, to regain freedom from that memory from that experience.

Let’s choose to see Father and God as not the God that has continued to suffer, that continued to be full of blood, sweat and tears, but now a God that is liberated, a God that can rejoice. That can be happy with His children. That can create a true home where we can be free. Let us keep joy and laughter in our hearts, in our homes, and in our church.

Brothers and Sisters can you receive this message today?

Yes (reply from audience)

Thank you so much!!!

Simple Declaration / Prayer:

"True Parents I have repented for my wrong doings. Make me your palace of your peace, of your love and of your lineage."

35. God's Invaluable Peace (January 12, 2008)

Hyung Jin Moon
January 12, 2008
Headquarter Church, Seoul, Korea

Yeon Ah Nim's Message:

We often heard how intense the early stage of our church was. People literally threatened True Father and True Parents. At times our members even physically fought back to overcome persecution. We Unificationists have overcome; have been through all these hardships -- through all these real issues.

However, when we think of our Church now, we face new bigger invisible enemies that lie within us. The only one who prevents us from achieving our God given gift is ourselves. Our God given gift is to be victorious, to illuminate this world and have peace in our hearts. I sometimes ask myself, "Am I really proud of being a Unificationist? Do I really have peace as an Unificationist?

When somebody asked me, "What tradition are you from?" Did I want to avoid that question -- was I embarrassed to tell the truth? If I don't have peace in my heart as Unificationist, if I don't teach peace as an Unificationist to our children, they also will not have peace in their hearts. When True Parents were persecuted, they did not physically fight back, but they had peace in their hearts.

They knew that they were good. Brothers and sisters, Blessed Families, we Unificationists are good people. That I firmly I believe and we are blessed to know True Parents. From today I choose to live the blessed life that True Parents blessed us to live and have peace in our hearts and peace in our minds. Aju.

Interesting Story by Rev. Hyung Jin Nim:

We like to start with something interesting. I heard about this very interesting story about a Sunday school event. During Sunday school, the teacher asked the students, "Well, kids, where is Jesus?" Some of the kids answered: "Jesus is in Heaven." Another answered: "Jesus is in my heart." Another answered: "Jesus is always with us at all times." Another child, Joey, answered: "Jesus is in the bathroom." The Sunday school teacher asked little Joey: "How do you know that Jesus is in the bathroom?" Joey answered, well, every morning, my Father bangs on the bathroom door and says: "Jesus Christ... Are you still in there?" [Laughter]

Hyung Jin Nim's Sermon:

Today I'd like to talk to you about our God's Invaluable Peace and how important it is to have peace in our lives. In order to live the blessed life it is important that we are at peace with ourselves. Remember, in life there are always going to be inconveniences that we're going to have to deal with. Life doesn't always work out according to our plans.

There are always, you know, some things that may aggravate us, some people in our life that may really bother us. But in order to live a blessed life -- if we truly want to live that kind of life -- it's important that we learn to secure and to protect the peace that we can have within our hearts. It's so important that whenever we are tempted by somebody who is aggravating -- when somebody is trying to take away our peace -- it's important to keep that peace with you and not let your peace be stolen.

The more you can hold on to your peace, the more you can move through obstacles, move through challenges with calmness, with peace of mind and with fortitude. It's also important to know that God has a plan for our lives and that when we look at ourselves, that we recognize that we are originals. We are totally original. We are totally unique. We are valuable, we are victorious, and we have peace in our hearts.

You know in the Native American tradition, there's a story of two wolves that never die. And those two wolves are not somewhere else, but it is said that those two wolves live within every single person. Now remember, within the Native American tradition wolves are sacred animals, they are holy. Many times they carry very important information.

They carry secrets about the mystical nature, nature that surrounds the tribes, etc. But the story is that we have two wolves within us and whether we know it or not we are feeding one of those wolves. One wolf is a selfish wolf and that wolf wants to feed on our anger, he wants to feed on negativity. He wants to feed on revenge or jealousy, resentment, maybe spite.

The other wolf that is within us is one that is fed by goodness, by compassion, love, mercy and forgiveness, patience, honor and peace. Whether or not we know we are inadvertently feeding one of these wolves. And it's important that we learn to feed the good one and learn to not feed the selfish wolf. The reason why is because in this tradition they say that these wolves can never die.

But if the selfish wolf is fed too much it will overpower the one that is good. And for that good one to recuperate and heal will take a long process. They said to practice feeding the good wolf, the wolf that is fed by goodness, by acts of kindness, by compassion, and by patience. When we do that, the good wolf is able to lead the other wolf. It is able to naturally subjugate the other wolf and that other wolf will then follow it in the good wolf's tracks. Then those two wolves will help move our lives in the right direction.

When we look at the original meaning of peace, we see that… Of course you might have heard shalom in Hebrew. But really what the original meaning of peace is, is safety, welfare, and prosperity. So it's important in our own lives that when we have peace, it's not just that we have calmness in our mind. It's really that we are safe in ourselves.

We have a certain safety in our minds, we have a certain protection around us. We feel safe in our minds. Also we know that we have plenty of wellbeing inside and that there's prosperousness inside, that we are abundant in our life, that we are full of uniqueness and value, and we can continue to unfold and reveal all those precious treasures to those around us and for our own edification.

You know, let's remember that God has guided each and every one of you until this point. It's important of course to know how far we have to go and many times to outline the goals we have to accomplish. But it's also equally important to acknowledge how far we've come and how many trials we've been through, how many challenges we've overcome.

Giving ourselves credit is very important for improving peace within ourselves. Let us feel safe and secure and know that we are original, that I am one of a kind. Get into the habit telling yourself that. When we wake up in the morning, and see ourselves in the mirror, don't say, "Oh my God, I gained 5 pounds. What's wrong with me?" Don't say that.

Look at yourself and say, "You know, I'm original, I have unique value." Learn to get into a habit of seeing your victories as under your belt, not your defeat, not your failures. Start seeing yourself in a different way. And let's have welfare for ourselves. Let's give ourselves a break sometimes. Sometimes we're overly critical with ourselves.

Many times there are two modes that we operate in. To other people, we can be less critical, but to ourselves we can be overly critical. And that of course can impact and influence the level of peace that we have in our hearts. Have a prosperous mindset in your minds and know that we are precious and that we are prosperous in what we do.

You know, just a couple of years back, my wife told me about, when she was in middle school. She had a younger student next to her in class. And this girl, she recalled how one time, they took a test and this girl got 93 and she was so devastated, she was crying and, "How can I get 93, it's terrible, it's terrible, I came on 2nd place. That other girl got 95."

And my wife was sitting there and said, "Honey, you've just got a 93, you know, that's not bad, that's a quite good score." She couldn't understand her. But it was very important. When this girl saw herself, instead of saying, "You know, I got a 93, I did pretty well, I got an A this time." Instead of saying that, she immediately saw the other, "Oh, she got 95."

And so, that stole her peace away in her mind. Instead of saying, "Hey, I did a great job this time. And if I want to get 95 next time I can improve. I can just do better on the next test. It's so important that -- looking at this story objectively -- 93 was a very good score and even though it is not 100. She could have given herself a break, she could have felt secure and safe in the person that she was, and really, there's not a huge difference between 93 and 95. She put effort into the test, and should be saying, "This time I got 93 but next time, I'll do better."

It's important, friends and brothers and sisters, that we don't live like this. It is so important that we learn to give ourselves credit when we get the 93, not look over our shoulder and see other person who got a 95 and say, "Oh my goodness, how could that be?" That will steal our peace away. It's so important that we hold on to our peace.

"You know what, I've got 95 this time". I used to say, "You know what, I got 62 this time but it is better than 60." (Laugh) But you know, don't worry about it. When we are moving in a right direction -- that's the key, that's the key. Make sure that you hold on to your peace and you don't just give it away to people or situations.

You know when we look at the story of God, when He created Adam and Eve, and Adam and Eve fell, God was very disappointed. You know He could have beaten Himself up, He could have said, "Oh, you, you're so dumb, why did you give them free will? That was a terrible decision. That was really, that was not wise. I thought you are omnipotent, I thought you know all things. You could not see that come?"

He could have started beating Himself up, looked in the mirror and said, "You are terrible, why did you make such a bad decision?" But you know, God had to have peace with what he did. He had to know that in the long run it was the right thing -- to give the children the freedom to be able to move to Him in a way that they would be naturally surrender to His love.

And when He looked at humanity he had to say, "You know what, I'm good, I'm a good being, and these children are made in my image, so they are good. And I won't give up on them. I'm going to continue to move and I will not give up on these children." And He did that. In the Principle it teaches us that God did that, that He had to maintain peace within His heart, and the restorational process began.

But there are many people that live life saying, "You know, I would love to have peace, but you know, these people, they aggravate me, they really bother me." Or, " My boss is always passing me over, they never give me any credit", or maybe, "My spouse never shares with me" or," She doesn't talk to me enough," or," My plans didn't go as I the way I thought, it didn't come out as I wanted."

Too many people are living in that mindset. And even at the same time requesting God, "God, if you will change the people, if you will send my boss to a different company, or if you make my wife or make my husband talk to me more, then I'll have some peace in my heart."

Brothers and sisters we cannot live that way. If we live that way, we will always be waiting for the circumstances to determine our level of peace and that's not the right way. When we approach the situation, it's important that in our hearts we learn to have peace, whether or not our plans work out the way we wanted them to.

Whether or not somebody will curse at me today, whether or not somebody calls me this or that today, that doesn't matter, that bounces right off me. I have peace in my heart. If we can do that, we can go through; we can overcome challenges quicker. We can overcome obstacles more readily; we can gain insight more speedily as well. So let's remember that God doesn't change, He doesn't solve our problems for us. God doesn't eradicate our problems.

Remember the Apostle Paul in Corinthians, spoke and said, "God", he didn't ask God, "Take away my problems," instead he said, "Give me the strength, give me the courage to overcome these problems." And is the same way (with us). God doesn't take away our problems. He is not going to move our boss; He may not move that very aggravating person that always gets on my nerves. He might not move that person at all. But it's important that when we are walking through life, that we know that He is giving us the strength. Instead of taking away the problems He's giving us the strength to move through them, the courage to be able to overcome them.

90% of all doctor's visits are stress related. That means in the modern day more than cancer, more than anything else, it is stress that is not only killing people but it is making them sick. It's very important that in your life we know how to have peace as opposed to stress. You know the feeling of constriction, the feeling of really being oppressed, don't let any of these things steal your peace.

Your peace is more valuable, is valuable to you, is valuable to your family, is valuable to God. So let's make the choice to choose in advance. Don't start your day and then as you go along you say, "I don't have peace." As soon as you wake up make the commitment, make the declaration, announce to yourself, "You know what, I'm going to have a great day. No matter what happens to me, no matter what situation hits me, no matter what circumstances I may run into, I'm going to have peace in my heart. I'm going to move through this with calmness. I'm going to move this with maturity. I'm going to be wise in my decisions and God will give me the strength that I need this day."

Let's choose to start that process early, as soon as you wake up, in advance of your problems… Not when your problems arise. After the problem occurs, don't say, "Oh, now I need peace in my heart." No, no, let's start as soon as we get up to have peace. Let's know that we will have the peace of mind to overcome any obstacle in our path, now and forever.

The commitment that we make to ourselves is so important. That declaration that we make to ourselves is important. "I will be at peace, no matter what. At times it will be hard, at times there will be obstacles I have to face, there will be challenges that I have to meet, but I will have peace. I commit myself to keeping my peace, not letting anybody steal that away from me."

You know when I was young we had an onni who took care of me, because our parents were away all the time. Her name is was Halanie. And she made quite a radical decision when I was young. She made the decision not to push me hard in school. And if you know, in our family we have a lot of high performing individuals.

We have a lot of people who go to excellent schools, so the pressure in our family to do well in school was quite intense. My brother above me was always getting A's in school. There was pressure; we always had to do well at school. But my onni made a very bold decision that, "I am not going to push this guy to study all day, to study until two in the morning, even though he's only eight years old and continues to go to hagwons (Korean evening classes) and all of these kind of things."

She decided, "I want him to have space to allow him to grow without that kind of pressure." She told me, at times she doubted herself heavily, "Why did I make that decision, look at him," especially when I was not doing well at school. Oh she was totally stressing out, you know, and everybody around her saying, "Look at you, you're not raising him right." In her mind she was saying, "What if it doesn't happen, what if he fails? What if my theory does not work out, and he doesn't do well in of school?"

But she chose, she actively chose to remain at peace with her decision. She said, "Even though I'm encountering these circumstances, even though people are criticizing me for making the choice, to not push him in school, I'm going to continue to keep my peace, I'm going to continue to hold on to my peace."

I remember when I went back to East Garden this time -- we went back to the States when True Parents where there -- I remember being in the kitchen and all the onnis where there, there were sisters who raised my sister and my other brothers, and they were all talking to my onni and they were telling her, what a great decision she made.

Well, these were the same people of course, a couple years back who were saying, "Oh, what a terrible decision!" But they were telling her, "You made the right decision, it was good." And objectively I can say, "Hey, I got out of Harvard with the most out of my entire family." I can say, "Hey look, I'm not scared even if I didn't do well at school. I still was able to do well in school later."

But because of her decision to allow me to have a little peace in that very intense circle, in that very intense kind of pressure, I believe that she allowed me to naturally find my own calling in school. Of course I'm not encouraging you to tell your children not to study, "You know what? They don't need to study," he said during the sermon. He said, "don't push your kids to study."

I'm not saying that. You have to understand our circumstances. We were in a very pressured environment. We had to perform and do well at school. But in that environment my onni Halani, gave me a space where I could just relax, take a break. When I was around her, she wasn't nagging me about doing my homework.

When I was around her I could just kind of hang out, just kind of chill out with her a little bit, you know, just be at peace in her space. And because I had that little pocket of peace, because she allowed for space in that pressure, I believe that really helped me in my own life to find my own academic path, the place that I want to go.

You know when I had dinner with a good friend of mine, this Monday evening, he was telling me how he was such a terrible student. He's introduced to our tradition but he is not Unificationist. But he was telling me how, you know, when he was young he was just a bad student. He couldn't get into college. He applied four times and he was dropped, four times.

His mother, in high school, you know she was so stressed. But my friend told me how, whenever he was at home, maybe he was just watching TV, he couldn't get into college and now his mother could have been on his case. She could have said, "What's wrong with you, why are you so lazy? Why are you not making anything of your life?"

She could have done that. But he was telling how his mother would just come back and he was there in front of TV, he was sleeping, you know, sleeping and he was totally drooling and something like that, she would just come and hug him and say, " Son, I love you, I'm proud of you. You know, you are doing it. Most of the time you did the right thing."

So she was speaking very gently, very peaceful encouragement. And he told how at the time he didn't understand. He didn't feel that this was doing anything. But when he became about 35, he went into acting. He went to acting, and he actually made it, now he is one of the top stars in Korea. But he started very late. He started at 35.

His mother had to wait literally 35 years for him to get into the right calling. But he told me how, she was able to be at peace, the whole peace in her heart, even though it was tough. Many times, he told me, how the peace in her heart was, oh my goodness, was right about to come out, because she would hold him and say, "Son, I love you" and she would go to the bathroom and he would hear the screaming in the bathroom.

She would be screaming in the mirror, "My God what are you doing with this boy?" He would hear that kind of thing. So he knew she was stressed, but she always maintained her peace, especially when she was in front of him and he told how grateful he was to her for that. That at the time it was so impossible. If he was in that situation, he doesn't know if he could do it. But if he reflects on his mother and the fact that whenever she encouraged him, she did it with peace, he said, that really was the thing that helped him in his career and made him a star. I told him, "Hey look! Jesus was over 31, when he blossomed. The Buddha was 36, you go at 35, a good age." I told him, "Don't lose your hope, keep going."

You know, peace in your heart has the potential to create safety. It has the potential to create wellbeing in your heart. It has the potential to create prosperity in your heart and also extends that to others. Peace in yourself and with people close to you allows for a feeling of trust to occur naturally, not by force, but naturally subjugates those around you.

Then your peace extends and expands and influences other people. When people know that you are at peace with them even though they are disappointing you, even though they are disappointing you, that you continue to maintain peace with them, naturally, over time, they are subjugated and naturally want to be in a position to bring you joy.

You know when I was at Harvard, my closest professor, his name was Professor Jomelo and he was a scholar of East Asian Buddhism. He was an expert; he was recognized in the field. And I took a class with him at one time. I had a totally shaven head. I was wearing my robes and he thought I was a Buddhist monk sitting in his class.

So he was teaching about Chinese Buddhism and Japanese Buddhism, Korean Buddhism etc. And I remember I wrote this one paper for him about the saint in the Buddhist tradition and I wrote that paper and when I got it back it was a straight A, it was an A and it had a comment "brilliant" written right next to it.

I had that framed to put on my wall, I don't, I don't (Laughs). But I remember that comment and you know what? I was so pleased, "Yes I'm doing so well in this class" and at some point I had a chance to stop by in his office and I remember one time, and he asked me, "So you're a monk? And what tradition are you from?"

I said, "Well I'm actually not a monk. And actually I have 5 children." And of course his jaw dropped (Laugh) and of course when I told him about who I was etc. Immediately I could see his whole expression just totally change. The person that was like my biggest fan and writing "brilliant" on my papers was now, literally, I felt, totally against me.

He was totally opposed to me. So as soon as I wrote my next paper it was a C and I thought "Hey, wait a minute; that was a pretty good paper, it was equal to the one that got an A. This is discrimination," I was thinking that in my heart. I ended that semester with a B in his class.

But I had to keep my peace in my heart and I just said, "You know what", looking at myself, I had to remind myself, "I'm a good person, I'm not here to hurt any official, I'm not here to fool him. I am going to have peace in myself."

There was one event when the 15 monks of the Jogyo of Korean Buddhism came to Harvard. They came for a visit and I was there and my other monk friend was there. He is doctoral student. And when they were greeting the monks and the monks were coming and when they found out who I was, they wanted to take pictures with me and something like that.

That professor was sitting there watching the scene of all these monks in the grey gray robes chasing after Rev. Moon's son to take a picture. And he was sitting there completely baffled at this situation. (Little laugh) And I remember, how after that point, semester after semester, class after class, slowly something began to change, slowly our relationship became a lot better.

Over time, more and more, every time I went to visit him, every time I wrote another paper, it became better and better. And then when I ended my master's career in Harvard, I ended up with straight A's in every single class that I took with him. But I remember that it was so important for me to maintain peace in my heart.

I could have said, "Professor Jomelo is racist, he doesn't like me because I'm Asian" or you know maybe, "he is discriminating against a Unificationist because I'm from Unificationism" or, "he doesn't like Rev. Moon, so you know maybe he's discriminating." I could have made those judgments and this kind of condemnations.

But keeping the peace in my heart, you know, "One day he's going to know. One day we're going to be friends. You know, even if I feel that negativity, I'm not going to let it affect me. I'm going to keep my peace. I'm not going to let him steal my peace." And when I did that I really feel it's because I was practicing what I believed.

It was hard at times, because I was very frustrated with him at times. But when I practiced, when I tried to intentionally make myself practice, "Have peace in your heart, don't judge him, just have peace, it's going to get better." When I was able to do that in the long run, I was able to become one of his closest friends. He ended up being my adviser and he really helped me along the way when I was in Harvard. He really helped me a lot.

You know, if there's anything that we can learn today it is that peace in our life is so valuable, it is invaluable to your life. It's so important that you don't let other people steal your peace. It is so important that you know how to keep that peace within you. Even if people treat you badly, even if people disappoint you, even though if all the things seem like they are against you, it's so important that you hold on to your peace that you have in your heart.

If you can do that you can be like God in the beginning. He knew in His heart "I'm a good being, I'm a good God. My creation is good. My children are good. I believe in them and I believe in myself. That's why I will not give up on them." Learn to be just like that. It's important that we keep that peace in our hearts. We know that we're good people. Even though people may not understand our tradition we are good people. We are proud of it. When we look at ourselves we know with confidence that we can make a good impact on people's lives.

So let's have peace in our hearts. Let's have peace in the decisions that we make and let's see the decisions that we make as a process of continual improvement. We are improving. Every time we make a decision we're improving. Whether or not the decision becomes good or bad, the decision making process that you are involved in is making you a better decision maker.

So have peace in your heart. Don't beat yourself up all the time over the wrong decisions of the past or 2007. See 2008 with fresh eyes. See yourself with a new vision and look at yourself as the victorious person that God sees. You know, if we have peace in our heart, if we learn to feed members, learn to feed that good wolf inside then the other wolf will follow. And we can use the strength of those wolves inside to help us improve, to have victory in our lives.

Remember when we see Father's life course we see that, whenever he was persecuted, and at times, you may recall -- some of you were probably alive that time when we were really being persecuted -- and as was my wife said, you know, we don't have those outside enemies anymore really attacking us.

Remember at the time when, you know, Kyle, my brothers and sisters, a first generation came joining our movement, they were physically assaulted at times, and physically were challenged and these kind of things. Of course, we don't have these kinds of enemies on the outside, but now the enemy is inside.

It's so important to learn to protect ourselves, that we know that we can keep that peace within ourselves with the people around us. Let's remember, when my father was persecuted, he always stayed at peace. He didn't attack back. Father knew that the only way to change the enemy, the only way to change another person was not by force, not by collision, but by natural subjugation.

By keeping that peace in his heart and letting that extend and creating that space. Then that person can also be naturally subjugated and move to fulfill the dreams that God has placed within them. So let's keep the peace in our hearts. If we can do that I, believe, until next week, continuously in our life we will have more Victory, more Illumination, and more Peace.

Remember it is important to know that we don't have to get all done by next week. I don't expect you to come in here completely perfect and floating on a cloud by next week. But remember, just a little bit, let's have little more victory. Let's protect our peace a little more. Let us be a little more illuminating to this world. If we can do that we will live that life of blessing that True Parents have blessed us to live.

Brothers and sisters if you can receive this, can you say AJU?

Audience: AJU!!!

Thank you so much

34. Have Internal Confidence Through Overcoming Obstacles (January 6, 2008)

Hyung Jin Moon
January 6, 2008

Some members say that they cannot make time for the family because they are so busy working. I want to ask you, did you see the TV drama "Chumon?" Many of you say that you have seen it. Then, is there any excuse for not making time for your family?

We need to succeed in every part of our life. Not so that we can boast about it, but because God blessed us to live a life of victory. God did not give a life of failure to blessed families but a life of victory. On the way to success there is only one obstacle, myself.

Therefore, it is very important to manage myself’ Father said that I might become the biggest devil, Satan, and enemy. It is important to train myself’ and make myself strong to prevent it from becoming the enemy. I have to give power to me, become a friend of mine, and inspire me. When we live our lives, we desire to be encouraged by others. However, we can not expect other people to always encourage us. So we have to learn how to encourage ourselves.

People usually want to speak about how many difficulties there were in their lives, or how many mountains of hardships they overcame. However, instead of talking about my difficulties, we should talk about God who was together with me and who overcame the mountains of difficulties. We should tell how great God was, and then how big I became by overcoming those difficulties. However big the adversity we confront, we should always overcome the adversity. I have to see such determination in myself and have confidence internally.

Everyone encounters obstacles in his or her life. Everyone has pains. Whatever you may do, there may be a painful time spiritually and physically. However, through your time of endurance, your victory will become more valuable. A real victor can overcome adversities. If we escape from the difficulties, making excuses it actually kills our future and our blessing. To give up might be easier in a sense.

The farther you go, the more obstacles you encounter. There will be many challenges. There will be many mountains you have to climb. Such is life. When you overcome these challenges you become wise and train your mind.

Have you ever climbed a mountain? It might be difficult during the climb. But once we stand on top, we feel good. "I conquered this mountain!" We can feel the joy of achievement.

By the way, after reaching a mountain summit, we have to go down. It is easy to praise God on top of a mountain; but it is not as easy to praise God while going down or when we look up at the next big mountain. Everyone can praise God and thank God in the good times of his / her life. Everyone can do it. Even children can do it.

However, in times of trials, when people betray us or take advantage of us, it is more difficult than anything to be thankful. In such moments, we go through trials. When you are betrayed by the person whom you loved and devoted yourself to, it is difficult for you to love and trust others again. However, even in such times, we have to be able to love people.

Everyone! Love does not mean a certain feeling. If we think love is a certain feeling or emotion, we cannot find true love. Love is a practice. Love is not a noun but a verb. Some people tend to say that they cannot feel the love between husband and wife. They tend to doubt the love between husband and wife. However, they do not know what love is. Love does not mean only a certain feeling.

After you have your children, there will surely be a time when you are disappointed with the children. Your children sometimes do not listen to your words. Actually, it is children who give you the hardest trials. In a sense, children make the parents grow. I learned a lot from my children. When we raise our children, our attitude should not change. It is not good if our attitude toward our children is changeable, sometimes good and sometimes bad. We have to love them consistently.

If you want to be blessed in your life, you should start by working on your mind. Listen to this lesson:

Be careful of your thinking. If you are not careful of your thinking, it becomes words. Be careful of your words. If you are not careful of your words, it becomes your action. Be careful of your action. If you are not careful of your action, it becomes your habit. Be careful of your habit. If you are not careful of your habit, it becomes your character. Be careful of your character. If you are not careful of your character, it becomes your life. Be careful of your life. If you are not careful of your life, it becomes your destiny.

In short, everything starts from your mind and thinking.

The longer you walk the public way, the more obstacles the Archangel (Satan) will put in your life. Never give up because of obstacles. In a sense, we can become bigger and better people through the obstacles. If front of the obstacles make us give up who is happy? It is the Archangel (Satan).

You might have an experience like this: When we go to school, there is a kid who bullies us. When the kid bullies us, if we cry timidly, the kid will bully us more -- just for the fun of it. However, if we say to the bully, "It doesn't matter what you do, it is nothing to me. Even though you hit me and make fun of me, you cannot take my joy," the kid will leave you. These bullies may annoy us at first, but if we show them an immovable attitude, they will go in search of a weaker person.

The Archangel (Satan) is the same as the bully. When we aggressively confront the obstacles in our life, saying, "It’s nothing to me. Even though you send me more troubles, I can will still bring victory," then the Archangel (Satan) will surrender. The more you bring victory, the severer Satan’s trial becomes. However, if you were never attacked, you would not get a bigger blessing. You can share the blessing to other people. Everything starts from your mind.

As we can feel during meditation, our minds need to be trained. Our minds are not able to control our bodies. Instead, we are following our bodies. Therefore, we need to train our minds. We need to make our minds strong. Even though other people might try to weaken our minds, we should not be shaken.

Actually, those who try to shake our minds are those whose minds are weaker than anyone else's. Therefore, if I am never shaken, they will give up, and go to find a mentally weak person. If our minds are strong, it is impossible for us to fail. Evil people cannot feel evil power and stimulation through attacking us. Instead they just reflect themselves.

Whichever way you go; the way of church leaders, getting other jobs, or becoming teachers, it is important to have internal strength. Everything changes in our lives. Our situations are sometimes good, but sometimes bad. Our relationships with other people are also sometimes good and sometimes bad. Our life is uncertain. Therefore, we need to have solid minds at our center.

It is very difficult to find peace in uncertain circumstances. In the uncertain circumstances, people often feel apprehensive. If we continuously feel fear, we might live our whole lives in fear. We might become anxious about everything, thinking, "I did this, but if it goes wrong, what do I do? What do I do if people laugh at me?"

We need to accept the uncertainty of our lives as they are. We need to accept the uncertainty with a clear mind instead of a fearful one. Please think that your can start a new beginning at any moment. If we can aggressively accept the changing situation coming at us without feeling fearfulness, and if we can lead our lives with internal strength, we can bring victory in any situation. You might have difficult moments in your life, but you will bring victory by overcoming the mountains.

33. Learning to Work with Your God Given Ability (January 5, 2008)

Hyung Jin Moon
January 5, 2008
English Service Headquarter Church, Seoul

Yeon Ah Nim's Message:

When I was young, I really thought that True Father was God. When my father was a minister, I was used to bowing in front of a big picture of True Parents on the wall. After about 10 years of being very close to True Parents, I once again thought, that True Father is not really a human. I thought as a human being, no one can pour that much love to people.

When I think of True Father he truly doesn't have the time for himself. He always shared his time with the public. After the 2008 God's Day Ceremony True Father were eating lunch with the True Children and as we were eating, True Father briefly talked about his ministry life. He said, if he did not make his congregation happy, he feels down and he literally said, he went around crying with guilt until his next time to meet with them comes.

When I heard that, I felt, "Ooh True Father is really human, yes that is right, he's a human, who really tries to actualize God's word." And strangely enough because of that I could appreciate him more deeply as my True Father. Brothers and sisters, they are our True Parents and they love us and they love you and they believe in you...Aju!

Interesting Story (Hyung Jin Nim)

I heard a story about a man who was walking in the forest and he decided to have a conversation with God. He said, "God, what is a million years to you? And God said, "Well a million years is like one second." Ah, that was interesting. "Well God, then what is a million dollars to you?" God said, "Well a million dollars is like kind of a penny to me." And so the man walks in the forest, he said to God. "So God could you give me a million dollars?" And God said, "You just have to wait a second." (Laugh).

Hyung Jin Nim's Sermon:

I'd like to talk to you about today's topic "Learning to Work with Your God Given Abilities." You know, for us to really live a blessed life that the True Parents blessed us to live with, it is important to learn to work with the abilities that we were given. And sometimes we need to understand what we can and can not do.

I heard a very interesting quote by an interesting author that says "The fastest way to failure is to try to do everything and please everyone." You may resonate with that. It is most important in our life to find our God zone, that zone in our life where in God is working through us to actualize what it is he is doing.

And let's remember that in our own life, when we really examine ourselves, that we have a world class person within us. There's something in our life that we are world class at. It maybe some field, it maybe even a subfield within a field, particularly in a discipline. But to find that zone where God can work through us, becomes so important.

We may, for example be adept in biology, but more specifically microbiology as opposed to a marine or business -- marketing as opposed to accounting. It is important to start identify where is it we have our strength zone. Let's remember it is hard to become successful and please everyone and make everybody love you and agree with you and wish for your success.

Unfortunately, the reality is that when we do become more blessed, when we do become more successful there are people who don't wish for us to continue to succeed. And so it's important for us to keep the right focus in our lives. To learn to remember what our work is and our responsibility is. If we are leaders, it's important not to do everybody's job, but to learn to let people try to succeed where they are, allow them to grow and be accomplished with their roles, their respective roles and contribute to the organization.

If we're not a leader, then it's important for us to be the best in what we do and in our position, as well as helping others to do well in their positions. If we do that, we will show real leadership potential and show them we were not only here to compete but where here to complete, to help others, to complete their God given destiny.

There's a story of David, the son of Jessie in Bethlehem and he was the youngest son, he always tending the sheep. And one day while the Israelites were fighting the Philistines, of course as you know, there was a giant, champion within the Philistine camp, his name was Goliath. He was two to three times taller than David.

David was very skinny, he tended the sheep, and he practiced using his sling shot. But when the Israelites were in this battle with the Philistines, David felt something resonate internally in him. He knew that it was time to step up to this task. Everything in him was calling out saying "David you have to step out now; it is your time now; it's time to go forth.

And David went forth, unfortunately in this situation his father didn't believe in him. Even his elder brothers didn't believe in him. They said, "David what are you doing? Stay and tend to the sheep, those sheep need you; there's no way you can face Goliath. He is two to three times bigger than you. He's the champions in all the martial arts, in all the warrior arts.

There's no way you can defeat him." But David had something within him. He had the anointing of God. He picked up a river stone and with that sling shot that he practiced so often, so diligently with it; he tossed that stone, and the scriptures say that it sunk into Goliath's forehead and he collapsed and fell over, dead.

It is that very small inner voice that compelled David to move forward. And he didn't slay the giant based on his own strength but because God had placed that ability, that He had anointed that river stone that flew and directly struck that target.

It is important that in our own life that in this year of 2008 we recognize that maybe there are obstacles we have to face, maybe there's a fear that we have to overcome but just like David on the internal side of us, it's important for us to start getting up and start realizing that. Yes now it's my time, it is now the year of Jubilee; it is the time of celebration and blessing.

If we are parents, it's very important to do unlike David's parents did. It's important to remember to support our kids, to know that we can not do everything for them, to know that we can not actually live through our kids. But to love the kids, empower them, and let them learn to do things more and more on their own. In other words to teach them how to make steps towards independence; to step towards to maturity; to step towards increasing in their own life.

In the Greek tradition whenever young people were being trained there were three different modalities through which the instructor would teach. The first would be to teach intellectually -- to explain it. The second would be, to show how it is accomplished. The third would be, to help the students teach somebody else, so that the lesson will really become embodied in the child; that child would truly understand what they are trying to learn.

It's important to our own life not to do everything for our kids. Sometimes, when we're frustrated and tired and our children can't get their homework done… even this morning my boy was saying "I can't do this math." But it is important to let the kids work through the homework. We can stand there, we can support, we can give them help to do the right thing. But doing their work for them doesn't help them in the long run. It's so important that they learn to build confidence and also to start enjoying having the freedom to start excelling on their own, excelling using their own talents.

Maybe our children want us to buy something for them and maybe instead of just giving it, it is important for them to learn how to earn it, maybe something we do in our family, when my boys come and say "Oh I like this, then Appa can I have it?" -- "Of course you can get it but let's set a goal first." So what we do is to set a goal perhaps, "On three quizzes, get a grade over 90% and then you can have it."

So in the other words, allow the kids to really feel that they earn it, to feel that they really own this, that they are learning to strengthen their independence. Then one day they can really truly find their God zone. It's important that when we're raising them and when we're pushing them and helping them through their time of growth to empower them.

It is important to do such a thing because research has shown that kids who are given the power to do things on their own to learn to be independent; they have more initiative; they have more confidence in their decision making; and they have more self esteem. So it's important that in 2008 as the song said "We are children of God," -- to let our children also realize that they are children of God, to let them excel and give them the right tools that they will need to succeed in their life.

So how is it that I find my God zone? How is it that I will discover such a place? What's important is to ask ourselves such questions as: "What comes naturally to me? What can I that this is exactly what God has designed me to do? What is it that I can excel at? What is it that I'm good at, at first?" Good at in the sense that you loose track of yourself and loose track of time while we're working on it.

It's important to identify what it is we're good at. I've learned that on a scale of 1 to 10 we're only able to move about 2 to 3 points. For example; starting at 4 in a certain field, we might really want to do things in that field or because our friends or our brothers are doing it we want to do it too. So let's say that we start at natural ability of 4.

So we may be able to bring it up from 4 to seven if we give it a lot of effort. But we can take the pressure off ourselves by looking at our lives. We will see what we are good at; see what comes naturally to us. Then we may be able to start at 7 or 8 and naturally through effort and practice and repetition we'll be able to increase that until we reach 10. Then we'll become world class in that field, in that particular zone.

It's important to know that not everyone can be the leader of an organization, not everyone can be the president of a country. And it's important to ask ourselves, "Why am I doing this? Why am I choosing this career? Am I trying to do this because my friends are to do it or because my parents are pushing me to become a doctor when my calling is to be a school teacher?"

Are we doing it because it looks glamorous or maybe just because it's very attractive? It's very important to look into our minds. Look into the silent witness that absorbs our life and sees our internal state, our mind and ask ourselves, "Did God create me for such a career? If I choose this task can I fulfill it with real sincerity? Can I continue on this path for more than 2 years, even for more than 30 years? Can I do it in 40 years? Can I have a longer commitment towards this?"

I really see this embodied in True Father's life. He was anointed at 16 years of age. That was so many, many years ago. I'm afraid to do math because I might get it wrong and I'm doing it on stage, but he continuously presses forward doing his mission, even at the age of 89. He is keeping is promise. When he made the promise at 16, he didn't say I'm going to do this for 2 months or maybe I'll do it for 2 years and I'll see how it turns out. No. He said "I'm going to do this continuously, I'm going to do this for the rest of my life."

And it's important in our life, when we ask such questions; we may not get a verbal answer from God. But we may start to feel that it is the right choice. Now we may say, "But you know if I do the same work for the rest of my life, when I get bored, I'm loosing my potential." And let's remember that any career or work we do has constant change.

We can not anticipate everything that will happen in the future. But it's important to take the pressure off ourselves and say "You know what? That's Okay, I'm going to leave that up to God. I'm not going to figure out everything at this instant." And you know, we maybe asked to do something else in the future. But right now "Am I making the right decision? Am I making the right commitment, the right promise?" It's so important in our lives that we reflect and listen to our inner voice about such important questions.

I was speaking to the CEO of a construction company and he told me how he teaches the people under him to do construction. He was saying, "You know when I instruct them I tell them, 'don't have a temporary mind set.'" In construction they do a work for a day on a project that will last for years. He gave that kind of guidance. For me that really was important; especially when we move to Headquarters from Mapo Church.

It was important for us not to continue to say: "You know what? We have one or two services left, and then it's over. And we going to move to a bigger church, we have to prepare for the new church in Old Headquarter now." We could have said that. But we have to constantly train our minds to do what is right. We are here for the next two weeks we have to act as if Mapo is our permanent place. We have give everything. I felt, because we were able to do that, we were able to end at Mapo with such a good spirit.

Personally when I started ministry, I really had to sit and reflect for many days. I said, "Is this really right for me? Is this the thing that I have to do? Can I do this for 20 or 30 years? Can I do this for the rest of my life? Can I improve from this dimension continuously?" And I had to ask myself and honestly I didn't get a verbal answer from God -- boom from the heaven -- that told me "Yes this is correct."

But everything in me said, "Yeah I think this is right, this is right for me. I look back on my life and see how it is moving along and see. I studied religion and have friends within different traditions, Buddhist tradition, Catholic tradition, that are also ministers, pastors, or monks. And it felt natural to me, to reflect a lot on spiritually on such things, religion, etc.

I really came to the affirmation that ministry -- that one does not choose ministry, but that ministry chooses the person. And I feel that, that's the same way in our career, the same way in our lives; that we don't necessarily choose our work but naturally that work chooses us. That it somehow attracts us into it. I feel that God is leading us and helping us to be His hands in the world.

When I was on the plane I saw a documentary on extra sensory perception and the abilities that humans have that we're not aware of. Princeton University and Stanford University were doing continuing research on such things. I saw one very interesting experiment that they did which really got me thinking.

The experiment was that on a computer screen they flash images, they flash two different types of images. One image was very peaceful, it was very calming or maybe beach or beautiful sunset, this kind of thing. But the other images, other type of images were very disturbing, maybe an image of the Holocaust, or images that were really illicit.

Their findings were very remarkable. Whenever the participants saw a negative image, a very scary image, emotionally charged image -- of course as you can imagine their heartbeat would rise, their brain waves changed, and their skin temperature changed. All these things happened. But what's fascinating is that all these changes did not happen after they saw the negative images.

They happened before they saw the negative image. And what's very striking about this is that the images appeared randomly, which means that the participants have no way of telling whether the next image would be a negative or positive image. But somehow within the people, the thousands and thousands of participants in this experiment, somehow every single person was able to sense prior to negative images that a negative image was coming.

They didn't know in their mind that their body temperature was rising, their heart beat was rising, almost as if they could see into the future. And what the researchers are showing is that, this is statistically significant. They are able to show that people have the ability to feel into the future. It sounds very hi-tech and very mystical but what researcher have shown in this particular field was that we can do much more than that meets the eye.

When I saw these, I thought about the Principle model. In the Principle it says there are four human dimensions or elements. We have a heartistic element, an emotion element, an intellectual element and we have a will element. Because we are made in the image of God, often we may begin to think that there are reasons that our intellect guides our will and action.

What such research is showing is that human beings have the ability to feel, to know that something is coming even before the intellect knows. It actually shows that the Principle Model is more correct than today's science in understanding the ideal world. Our emotional sense has the ability to feel the almost super senses and is be able educate us about God and the ideal world.

When I thought about that, I thought that in our life, when we're making decisions as that are critical... when God is preparing these decisions that really change the destiny of our life, it is very important to learn how to be in tune with such super senses -- to learn, to really start going inside and ask is this right for me? Is this the right way? When we do that, we start trying to listen to that very small voice inside, that inner witness that guides us through our lives.

Let us remember, that our career, is not just the salary thing, it is somewhere we can actualize our God given ability. It is somewhere we can actualize God's light into this world. If our career matches God's plan, then it will turn out okay, we'll be happy, we'll be rich, we will help others through our career. But unfortunately, if it doesn't match what God wants us to do, no matter how much we want to pursue that, it will eventually come to a close.

I can speak personally about this. I wanted to play college football when I was in the university. I was playing with a team. We were playing football and I hadn't played football in high school, so there was no way that I could compete on the college football level. But I was really passionate. Well, you know I really wanted to play college football.

I really wanted to pursue this dream that I had. And I remember I continued to pursue it and then one day the coach called me and said, "You know what?, I don't want you to pursue it anymore, I don't want you to come out into our practice." I said "You know I'm devastated, this is terrible. I gave all my heart. I was training so much. I was eating so much. I was almost 235 pounds."

I tried to really work for the team, but God decided to close that door on me. I remember, feeling totally defeated, totally devastated, I thought that my dream was shattered before my eyes. I will never be able to play college football now. But as I reflected it inside of me, I realized it was one of the greatest blessings of my life, because what I realized was I didn't want to play college football because I really WANTED to do it.

I was trying to impress my brother who played football, who always was a good football player, etc. in middle school or whatever. I realized that I actually didn't want to play football. I just wanted to impress my brother. I really realized that I was so free and I really thank God for closing this door because now I'm free. I'm liberated. Now I can move on and find my own path in my life.

Remember that in every job, even in one that God has called us to do, we will have our up and down days. But in total, when we absorb that work, when we see it, we can say "it's good, it's a good sign. I'm happy I'm doing this work." It's important to feel really right with what you're doing. It's almost like an antenna.

An antenna is a device that is able to gather many various frequencies and collect them into cohesive bits of information. And so in the same way when we feel out our future, when we feel the right way -- more than an intellectual design or plan which changes all the time... It's important to learn to get in touch with that gut feeling, the inner witness; the inner compass inside that points us to God's way.

To learn to feel, "Yes this is my God zone. This is the place where I can excel" If we can do that, I do believe that we will have more victory, more illumination, and more peace. If there's something we can learn today let us remember that in finding our God zone, the place that we're given the ability to know which way to go, we will be able to actualize God's work in this world.

Remember our talents will not always be the same as somebody else's. Our close friend might have a totally different talent -- something totally different. But that's something that we have to find out, that maybe there is a path that God has designed for us to walk, for us to excel at, for us to be world class at.

So let's learn to empower those people around us, to learn to give our children the steps towards independence, so that in the future they can become interdependent with us. In the future they can be successful. They can return back what we have given, and like David, in this year 2008, if there's an obstacle, maybe there's that fear, maybe there's that decision that you have to make, maybe there is a new change that you have to go towards. In 2008, let's step up like David, really let's turn in and ask ourselves, "Is it the right path?"

Try to sense like an antenna. Know that this is your time. This is your moment to slay that giant obstacle in front of you. If we do that and keep an eternal mind set, like Father's -- we keep that life; we keep a fulltime that kind of a permanent mind set in whatever we do, I'm going to give it my all. Even in these two months at Mapo I'm going to live it as I'll be here for 88 years. I'm going to do that as if it's a 100 years. I'm going to give everything.

If you do that, I do believe that we'll have more VIP -- more Victory, more Illumination and more Peace.

Brothers and Sisters can you receive this today?

Thank you very much!

32. Having The Right Relationship With Your Past (December 29, 2007)

Hyung Jin Moon
January 5, 2008
English Service Headquarter Church, Seoul

Yeon Ah Nim's Message:

When I was young, I really thought that True Father was God. When my father was a minister, I was used to bowing in front of a big picture of True Parents on the wall. After about 10 years of being very close to True Parents, I once again thought, that True Father is not really a human. I thought as a human being, no one can pour that much love to people.

When I think of True Father he truly doesn't have the time for himself. He always shared his time with the public. After the 2008 God's Day Ceremony True Father were eating lunch with the True Children and as we were eating, True Father briefly talked about his ministry life. He said, if he did not make his congregation happy, he feels down and he literally said, he went around crying with guilt until his next time to meet with them comes.

When I heard that, I felt, "Ooh True Father is really human, yes that is right, he's a human, who really tries to actualize God's word." And strangely enough because of that I could appreciate him more deeply as my True Father. Brothers and sisters, they are our True Parents and they love us and they love you and they believe in you...Aju!

Interesting Story (Hyung Jin Nim)

I heard a story about a man who was walking in the forest and he decided to have a conversation with God. He said, "God, what is a million years to you? And God said, "Well a million years is like one second." Ah, that was interesting. "Well God, then what is a million dollars to you?" God said, "Well a million dollars is like kind of a penny to me." And so the man walks in the forest, he said to God. "So God could you give me a million dollars?" And God said, "You just have to wait a second." (Laugh).

Hyung Jin Nim's Sermon:

I'd like to talk to you about today's topic "Learning to Work with Your God Given Abilities." You know, for us to really live a blessed life that the True Parents blessed us to live with, it is important to learn to work with the abilities that we were given. And sometimes we need to understand what we can and can not do.

I heard a very interesting quote by an interesting author that says "The fastest way to failure is to try to do everything and please everyone." You may resonate with that. It is most important in our life to find our God zone, that zone in our life where in God is working through us to actualize what it is he is doing.

And let's remember that in our own life, when we really examine ourselves, that we have a world class person within us. There's something in our life that we are world class at. It maybe some field, it maybe even a subfield within a field, particularly in a discipline. But to find that zone where God can work through us, becomes so important.

We may, for example be adept in biology, but more specifically microbiology as opposed to a marine or business -- marketing as opposed to accounting. It is important to start identify where is it we have our strength zone. Let's remember it is hard to become successful and please everyone and make everybody love you and agree with you and wish for your success.

Unfortunately, the reality is that when we do become more blessed, when we do become more successful there are people who don't wish for us to continue to succeed. And so it's important for us to keep the right focus in our lives. To learn to remember what our work is and our responsibility is. If we are leaders, it's important not to do everybody's job, but to learn to let people try to succeed where they are, allow them to grow and be accomplished with their roles, their respective roles and contribute to the organization.

If we're not a leader, then it's important for us to be the best in what we do and in our position, as well as helping others to do well in their positions. If we do that, we will show real leadership potential and show them we were not only here to compete but where here to complete, to help others, to complete their God given destiny.

There's a story of David, the son of Jessie in Bethlehem and he was the youngest son, he always tending the sheep. And one day while the Israelites were fighting the Philistines, of course as you know, there was a giant, champion within the Philistine camp, his name was Goliath. He was two to three times taller than David.

David was very skinny, he tended the sheep, and he practiced using his sling shot. But when the Israelites were in this battle with the Philistines, David felt something resonate internally in him. He knew that it was time to step up to this task. Everything in him was calling out saying "David you have to step out now; it is your time now; it's time to go forth.

And David went forth, unfortunately in this situation his father didn't believe in him. Even his elder brothers didn't believe in him. They said, "David what are you doing? Stay and tend to the sheep, those sheep need you; there's no way you can face Goliath. He is two to three times bigger than you. He's the champions in all the martial arts, in all the warrior arts.

There's no way you can defeat him." But David had something within him. He had the anointing of God. He picked up a river stone and with that sling shot that he practiced so often, so diligently with it; he tossed that stone, and the scriptures say that it sunk into Goliath's forehead and he collapsed and fell over, dead.

It is that very small inner voice that compelled David to move forward. And he didn't slay the giant based on his own strength but because God had placed that ability, that He had anointed that river stone that flew and directly struck that target.

It is important that in our own life that in this year of 2008 we recognize that maybe there are obstacles we have to face, maybe there's a fear that we have to overcome but just like David on the internal side of us, it's important for us to start getting up and start realizing that. Yes now it's my time, it is now the year of Jubilee; it is the time of celebration and blessing.

If we are parents, it's very important to do unlike David's parents did. It's important to remember to support our kids, to know that we can not do everything for them, to know that we can not actually live through our kids. But to love the kids, empower them, and let them learn to do things more and more on their own. In other words to teach them how to make steps towards independence; to step towards to maturity; to step towards increasing in their own life.

In the Greek tradition whenever young people were being trained there were three different modalities through which the instructor would teach. The first would be to teach intellectually -- to explain it. The second would be, to show how it is accomplished. The third would be, to help the students teach somebody else, so that the lesson will really become embodied in the child; that child would truly understand what they are trying to learn.

It's important to our own life not to do everything for our kids. Sometimes, when we're frustrated and tired and our children can't get their homework done… even this morning my boy was saying "I can't do this math." But it is important to let the kids work through the homework. We can stand there, we can support, we can give them help to do the right thing. But doing their work for them doesn't help them in the long run. It's so important that they learn to build confidence and also to start enjoying having the freedom to start excelling on their own, excelling using their own talents.

Maybe our children want us to buy something for them and maybe instead of just giving it, it is important for them to learn how to earn it, maybe something we do in our family, when my boys come and say "Oh I like this, then Appa can I have it?" -- "Of course you can get it but let's set a goal first." So what we do is to set a goal perhaps, "On three quizzes, get a grade over 90% and then you can have it."

So in the other words, allow the kids to really feel that they earn it, to feel that they really own this, that they are learning to strengthen their independence. Then one day they can really truly find their God zone. It's important that when we're raising them and when we're pushing them and helping them through their time of growth to empower them.

It is important to do such a thing because research has shown that kids who are given the power to do things on their own to learn to be independent; they have more initiative; they have more confidence in their decision making; and they have more self esteem. So it's important that in 2008 as the song said "We are children of God," -- to let our children also realize that they are children of God, to let them excel and give them the right tools that they will need to succeed in their life.

So how is it that I find my God zone? How is it that I will discover such a place? What's important is to ask ourselves such questions as: "What comes naturally to me? What can I that this is exactly what God has designed me to do? What is it that I can excel at? What is it that I'm good at, at first?" Good at in the sense that you loose track of yourself and loose track of time while we're working on it.

It's important to identify what it is we're good at. I've learned that on a scale of 1 to 10 we're only able to move about 2 to 3 points. For example; starting at 4 in a certain field, we might really want to do things in that field or because our friends or our brothers are doing it we want to do it too. So let's say that we start at natural ability of 4.

So we may be able to bring it up from 4 to seven if we give it a lot of effort. But we can take the pressure off ourselves by looking at our lives. We will see what we are good at; see what comes naturally to us. Then we may be able to start at 7 or 8 and naturally through effort and practice and repetition we'll be able to increase that until we reach 10. Then we'll become world class in that field, in that particular zone.

It's important to know that not everyone can be the leader of an organization, not everyone can be the president of a country. And it's important to ask ourselves, "Why am I doing this? Why am I choosing this career? Am I trying to do this because my friends are to do it or because my parents are pushing me to become a doctor when my calling is to be a school teacher?"

Are we doing it because it looks glamorous or maybe just because it's very attractive? It's very important to look into our minds. Look into the silent witness that absorbs our life and sees our internal state, our mind and ask ourselves, "Did God create me for such a career? If I choose this task can I fulfill it with real sincerity? Can I continue on this path for more than 2 years, even for more than 30 years? Can I do it in 40 years? Can I have a longer commitment towards this?"

I really see this embodied in True Father's life. He was anointed at 16 years of age. That was so many, many years ago. I'm afraid to do math because I might get it wrong and I'm doing it on stage, but he continuously presses forward doing his mission, even at the age of 89. He is keeping is promise. When he made the promise at 16, he didn't say I'm going to do this for 2 months or maybe I'll do it for 2 years and I'll see how it turns out. No. He said "I'm going to do this continuously, I'm going to do this for the rest of my life."

And it's important in our life, when we ask such questions; we may not get a verbal answer from God. But we may start to feel that it is the right choice. Now we may say, "But you know if I do the same work for the rest of my life, when I get bored, I'm loosing my potential." And let's remember that any career or work we do has constant change.

We can not anticipate everything that will happen in the future. But it's important to take the pressure off ourselves and say "You know what? That's Okay, I'm going to leave that up to God. I'm not going to figure out everything at this instant." And you know, we maybe asked to do something else in the future. But right now "Am I making the right decision? Am I making the right commitment, the right promise?" It's so important in our lives that we reflect and listen to our inner voice about such important questions.

I was speaking to the CEO of a construction company and he told me how he teaches the people under him to do construction. He was saying, "You know when I instruct them I tell them, 'don't have a temporary mind set.'" In construction they do a work for a day on a project that will last for years. He gave that kind of guidance. For me that really was important; especially when we move to Headquarters from Mapo Church.

It was important for us not to continue to say: "You know what? We have one or two services left, and then it's over. And we going to move to a bigger church, we have to prepare for the new church in Old Headquarter now." We could have said that. But we have to constantly train our minds to do what is right. We are here for the next two weeks we have to act as if Mapo is our permanent place. We have give everything. I felt, because we were able to do that, we were able to end at Mapo with such a good spirit.

Personally when I started ministry, I really had to sit and reflect for many days. I said, "Is this really right for me? Is this the thing that I have to do? Can I do this for 20 or 30 years? Can I do this for the rest of my life? Can I improve from this dimension continuously?" And I had to ask myself and honestly I didn't get a verbal answer from God -- boom from the heaven -- that told me "Yes this is correct."

But everything in me said, "Yeah I think this is right, this is right for me. I look back on my life and see how it is moving along and see. I studied religion and have friends within different traditions, Buddhist tradition, Catholic tradition, that are also ministers, pastors, or monks. And it felt natural to me, to reflect a lot on spiritually on such things, religion, etc.

I really came to the affirmation that ministry -- that one does not choose ministry, but that ministry chooses the person. And I feel that, that's the same way in our career, the same way in our lives; that we don't necessarily choose our work but naturally that work chooses us. That it somehow attracts us into it. I feel that God is leading us and helping us to be His hands in the world.

When I was on the plane I saw a documentary on extra sensory perception and the abilities that humans have that we're not aware of. Princeton University and Stanford University were doing continuing research on such things. I saw one very interesting experiment that they did which really got me thinking.

The experiment was that on a computer screen they flash images, they flash two different types of images. One image was very peaceful, it was very calming or maybe beach or beautiful sunset, this kind of thing. But the other images, other type of images were very disturbing, maybe an image of the Holocaust, or images that were really illicit.

Their findings were very remarkable. Whenever the participants saw a negative image, a very scary image, emotionally charged image -- of course as you can imagine their heartbeat would rise, their brain waves changed, and their skin temperature changed. All these things happened. But what's fascinating is that all these changes did not happen after they saw the negative images.

They happened before they saw the negative image. And what's very striking about this is that the images appeared randomly, which means that the participants have no way of telling whether the next image would be a negative or positive image. But somehow within the people, the thousands and thousands of participants in this experiment, somehow every single person was able to sense prior to negative images that a negative image was coming.

They didn't know in their mind that their body temperature was rising, their heart beat was rising, almost as if they could see into the future. And what the researchers are showing is that, this is statistically significant. They are able to show that people have the ability to feel into the future. It sounds very hi-tech and very mystical but what researcher have shown in this particular field was that we can do much more than that meets the eye.

When I saw these, I thought about the Principle model. In the Principle it says there are four human dimensions or elements. We have a heartistic element, an emotion element, an intellectual element and we have a will element. Because we are made in the image of God, often we may begin to think that there are reasons that our intellect guides our will and action.

What such research is showing is that human beings have the ability to feel, to know that something is coming even before the intellect knows. It actually shows that the Principle Model is more correct than today's science in understanding the ideal world. Our emotional sense has the ability to feel the almost super senses and is be able educate us about God and the ideal world.

When I thought about that, I thought that in our life, when we're making decisions as that are critical... when God is preparing these decisions that really change the destiny of our life, it is very important to learn how to be in tune with such super senses -- to learn, to really start going inside and ask is this right for me? Is this the right way? When we do that, we start trying to listen to that very small voice inside, that inner witness that guides us through our lives.

Let us remember, that our career, is not just the salary thing, it is somewhere we can actualize our God given ability. It is somewhere we can actualize God's light into this world. If our career matches God's plan, then it will turn out okay, we'll be happy, we'll be rich, we will help others through our career. But unfortunately, if it doesn't match what God wants us to do, no matter how much we want to pursue that, it will eventually come to a close.

I can speak personally about this. I wanted to play college football when I was in the university. I was playing with a team. We were playing football and I hadn't played football in high school, so there was no way that I could compete on the college football level. But I was really passionate. Well, you know I really wanted to play college football.

I really wanted to pursue this dream that I had. And I remember I continued to pursue it and then one day the coach called me and said, "You know what?, I don't want you to pursue it anymore, I don't want you to come out into our practice." I said "You know I'm devastated, this is terrible. I gave all my heart. I was training so much. I was eating so much. I was almost 235 pounds."

I tried to really work for the team, but God decided to close that door on me. I remember, feeling totally defeated, totally devastated, I thought that my dream was shattered before my eyes. I will never be able to play college football now. But as I reflected it inside of me, I realized it was one of the greatest blessings of my life, because what I realized was I didn't want to play college football because I really WANTED to do it.

I was trying to impress my brother who played football, who always was a good football player, etc. in middle school or whatever. I realized that I actually didn't want to play football. I just wanted to impress my brother. I really realized that I was so free and I really thank God for closing this door because now I'm free. I'm liberated. Now I can move on and find my own path in my life.

Remember that in every job, even in one that God has called us to do, we will have our up and down days. But in total, when we absorb that work, when we see it, we can say "it's good, it's a good sign. I'm happy I'm doing this work." It's important to feel really right with what you're doing. It's almost like an antenna.

An antenna is a device that is able to gather many various frequencies and collect them into cohesive bits of information. And so in the same way when we feel out our future, when we feel the right way -- more than an intellectual design or plan which changes all the time... It's important to learn to get in touch with that gut feeling, the inner witness; the inner compass inside that points us to God's way.

To learn to feel, "Yes this is my God zone. This is the place where I can excel" If we can do that, I do believe that we will have more victory, more illumination, and more peace. If there's something we can learn today let us remember that in finding our God zone, the place that we're given the ability to know which way to go, we will be able to actualize God's work in this world.

Remember our talents will not always be the same as somebody else's. Our close friend might have a totally different talent -- something totally different. But that's something that we have to find out, that maybe there is a path that God has designed for us to walk, for us to excel at, for us to be world class at.

So let's learn to empower those people around us, to learn to give our children the steps towards independence, so that in the future they can become interdependent with us. In the future they can be successful. They can return back what we have given, and like David, in this year 2008, if there's an obstacle, maybe there's that fear, maybe there's that decision that you have to make, maybe there is a new change that you have to go towards. In 2008, let's step up like David, really let's turn in and ask ourselves, "Is it the right path?"

Try to sense like an antenna. Know that this is your time. This is your moment to slay that giant obstacle in front of you. If we do that and keep an eternal mind set, like Father's -- we keep that life; we keep a fulltime that kind of a permanent mind set in whatever we do, I'm going to give it my all. Even in these two months at Mapo I'm going to live it as I'll be here for 88 years. I'm going to do that as if it's a 100 years. I'm going to give everything.

If you do that, I do believe that we'll have more VIP -- more Victory, more Illumination and more Peace.

Brothers and Sisters can you receive this today?

Thank you very much!

31. The Power of Forgiveness (December 15, 2007)

Hyung Jin Moon
December 15, 2007
Headquarters Church, Seoul
Transcribed by; Luz Sofia
Edited by; Beatrice Clyburn

Yeon Ah Nim's Message

True Father forgave people even though they betrayed him. True Father even liberated people who persecuted him tremendously in the early stages of our church. He said it was really difficult, even for him, to forgive those people. But he had to do it because he is our True Father. In my life, when my mother passed away because of illness, no one was physically beside her. She went to the spirit world when no one was around her. Because of that, I blamed myself a lot, or I even told myself that I was selfish or even hypocritical.

By doing that, my memory of my mother was filled with guilt and sorrow. I realized that it is not the way my mother wanted me to live. That is not the way she wants me to live, so I learned to forgive myself, and move on. Now, whenever I think about my mother and offer a prayer, I can wish for her happiness in the spirit world, and I can even say to her that I still love her so much.

Brothers and sisters, sometimes it is important to forgive others, but the most important thing is, I think, to forgive ourselves first. Even though we don't express our pain verbally, it doesn't mean it's not there. When we learn to forgive like True Parents did, God will forgive us of our mistakes.

Interesting Story by Hyung Jin Nim

Last time we met the atheist who was swimming in the ocean. Now I heard another story about that same guy; he had a close call last time. This time he decided "I'm not going to go to the ocean. Instead I am going to go hiking in the mountains, that'll be safer. There won't be any sharks, and probably no bears because this is Korea. So I'll go hiking in the mountains." So he went out, he climbed up the mountain; he was enjoying the beautiful scenery and the beautiful views, and suddenly he slipped on a rock, and began to fall, tumbling down the mountain. In fact, he tumbled off a cliff. And while he was spinning down, he luckily grabbed hold of a vine that was hanging from the cliff. He was holding onto that vine and he yelled up, "Is there anybody up there who can help me? God please save me! Is there anybody who can help me?"

From the top of the cliff came a booming voice that said, "Yes, there's somebody up here." And the atheist said, "Well, can you help me? Could you lower a rope down and save me, please?" And the person up there said, "Yes, but you're going to have to do something for me before I do that." The atheist said, "Well, who are you? What do I have to do in order for you to help me?" and He said, "Well I am Almighty God, and I need you to let go of the vine, and have faith in me and I will save you." And at that moment the atheist pondered; he reflected on those words, and he looked up and said. "Is there another God up there?"

Main Sermon by Hyung Jin Nim:

Today I'd like to talk to you about the power of forgiveness.

When we usually think about forgiveness, we may think that forgiveness has the power to solve even difficult situations. And many times, although it may be the catalyst for the process of change, it may not bring as much as we expect. But let's look at forgiveness and why that may be beneficial to our lives. When we think about forgiveness, forgiving and learning the habit of forgiving is a very important part of living a blessed life. If you want to move forward, if you want to have more victory, more illumination, more peace, the process of learning how to forgive is such a very important practice. Remember that forgiveness does not condone a hurt or a wrong doing in the past, but what it does do, is that it opens up our future.

When we are able to let go of the wrong doings that people have done, that have caused us harm, when we are able to learn to let those go, to forgive, we're able to now open up new paths; new doors can open up in our lives. I heard it is like this "Forgiveness doesn't condone wrong behaviors or wrong actions done in the past, but what it does do is, that it frees that person who caused us harm from the debt that they owe us, and when we free that person from the debt that they owe us, then God can also free us from the debts that we have from our mistakes, wrong actions, etc..."

When I think about the practice of forgiveness, many times this question will arise, "Well, if I forgive, if I practice forgiveness, what if it doesn't turn out right? What if I forgive somebody and the behavior continues? What if they continue to hurt me, to cause harm to me? "

Well, here we have to delve a little deeper into the nature of forgiveness, and when we can see closely, when we look at forgiveness, we will see that when we forgive, forgiveness does not immediately change the situation. In fact, forgiveness may not even change that person that you're forgiving at all.

In fact, forgiveness, instead of changing or transforming something for that person, more often than not, it will help us improve our future; it will help us move on beyond those hurts and start seeing our futures with more light, letting go of the power that those memories have over our lives in the present.

So we have to remember that when a person is forgiven, that person has their own 5% responsibility to build back their trust account, and we can't do that for them. Forgiving them, that's our part. But on their part they have to start building back that trust account; they have to start doing right actions, they have to start changing a certain habit or changing a certain way of behavior etc... And that's how they will build up that account.

But remember that's not our responsibility. When we live a life of blessing it's so important that in our lives we're able to use the power of forgiveness. Because when we look at forgiveness, we can see that it is actually quite different from reconciliation.

Now I'd like to show you this slide here. Modern sociologists have identified five basic strategies that people use to avoid accepting blame when they have caused harm to another person. And these strategies can be:

1. To deny responsibility
2. To deny the harm that was done
3. To deny the worth of the victim
4. To attack the accuser
5. To claim that they are acting in a service of a higher cause.

When we look at forgiveness, we have to sort of understand that forgiveness does not necessarily equal reconciliation. However, if there is to be reconciliation between two parties, some level of forgiveness must exist. It must be present in order for reconciliation to actually happen. So, if we look at forgiveness, then we can say that if I learn to forgive, either way I can win.

Why is that? Because let's say if we're able to gain reconciliation, we all obviously need forgiveness in that process. But if we are not able to gain reconciliation, we still win, because with the practice of forgiveness, even though that past hurt is not reconciled, we free ourselves from the power that that past event has over our lives. And thus, we're able to move forward in a brighter and more inspired way, and start building our future the way that God wants us to.

When I hear the story of the Prodigal Son, as you all have heard in Luke 15:11~32, you remember the story of the young son who squanders his wealth, his inheritance? He comes back, the father totally embraces him, totally forgives him at that moment, and we remember, that the son was totally overwhelmed by the compassion of his father. He expected to come back as a servant, but he was embraced as a king. He was embraced as the son that was lost and now is found, the son that was dead but now is alive. And his father prepared a banquet for him etc...

His father prepared a party and, remember, that the elder son was angry? He said "Dad, how come you do this? This son squandered what you gave him. I toiled for you for years and years. I worked for you, I was loyal to you".

But the father knew the power of forgiveness. He gave his son forgiveness. He was able to let go of the past hurts that he had felt, the disappointments that he may have felt with his son, and was able to forgive him of that debt that he owed him.

In the same way, when we look at this story as well, we do find out that this son did not gain any more inheritance. He did not get any more wealth from his father; so in essence he had to build up his trust account again. He had to work on creating good behavior and good actions once again. He had to fulfill his 5% responsibility.

But the fact that his father forgave him and gave him a fresh start, the fact that his father made such a compassionate gesture, allowed the father to free his heart of the disappointments, of the feeling of failure of raising his children -- maybe he felt like he didn't raise his children so well -- and he was able to let go of that and also move on in rebuilding those relationships.

Let's remember our Pak Hyung Je Nim, who was present when Father left for Danbury prison. He recounted a story in the East Garden living room. When Father was right about to go to Danbury, there were brothers and sisters there in the room. It was a packed room and everybody was crying; everybody was weeping. Father was now being incarcerated, he was going in prison, and Mr. Pak recounted that when all the members were crying and weeping, Father said, "You know what, I am not looking at Danbury; I am looking beyond Danbury, and beyond Danbury there will be great victories".

Quite interestingly, when Father came out of prison -- I think that you've all seen that picture - when he comes out of prison he is not defeated, he is not a victim. When he comes out, he has his hands up, he is smiling; he's a free man, he's a released man. He now is in a victorious step. And quite interestingly, when he did that, when he was able to go into prison, when he was able to forgive the persecutors, when he was able to practice forgiveness, when he came out, quite interestingly, all these Christian ministers came out to support him. Jerry Falwell, other types of ministers, came out to support religious freedom. They had a huge banquet, and in that banquet, True Father reminded them again that he never saw his imprisonment as something that would defeat him, but in fact that he gained victory from that event.

In the same way, when we look at God, our own relationship with Him, let us believe that God is just. Let us believe that He is taking account of our lives. He is taking account of the people that hurt us. He's taking account of the people who've spoken negative words over us, or have harmed us in some way. He's taking account of those things and that's His role, that's His 95%.

It's not our role to go after those people and try to get pay back or try to get revenge on those people. If we do that, we will sour our futures. We will not be able to focus, and we will not be able to live that blessed life that God wants us to live.

So it's important that when we're able to practice the practice of forgiveness, actually we're able to learn how to free ourselves from the past, we're able to not let the past determine the course of our futures. And so it is very important if we are to live a blessed life to know that God is just, that He is keeping the tally, and that it is not necessary for us to get pay back from the person or to get even with the person, etc... Actually we can leave that up to God, and we can move on with the confidence that we have a bright future in front of us.

Jesus spoke in Matthew 18:21~35 about the parable of the unmerciful servant. He was teaching his disciples about this parable. The parable was basically about a master who forgave his servant of a debt that the servant owed him. But when the servant had another person, the servant was not able to forgive another person of the dept that that person owed him. So the master was very angry at this; he said "How can you do such a thing? I forgave you of your debt. You should have forgiven that other person of the debt that they owed you."

And Jesus spoke about this, saying that this is exactly how our Heavenly Father is. He is willing to forgive us our mistakes, so in the same essence, He expects us to forgive others when they commit wrong against us. Since He is compassionate enough to be able to forgive us, He expects us as His children, as those who are made in His image, to also practice that same practice of forgiveness towards people, to let go of the power, that those people may have over our lives.

In that same parable, Peter asked Jesus "How many times should I forgive a person who commits sin against his brother, how many times do I have to forgive him?" It's very interesting! Jesus says, in one translation, "77 times you should forgive" and in another translation he says, "You should forgive up to 490 times." So that's a lot of forgiveness if you think about it. What do we hear here when we see Jesus speaking about forgiving that many times? We can remember the practice, we can be aware of the practice of learning to forgive quickly.

I remember seeing a man literally for 3 hours scream at a stepladder, literally for half the afternoon! He fell off the ladder and here he was, screaming at the stepladder; he was throwing it around. It wasn't helping his situation; but he was not practicing forgiveness to the step ladder.

In our daily lives we know that small things, even in our relationships, even in our marriages, small things can cause great pain. In fact, the more we amplify the small things, the things that are not going right, the more we see more of those things and the more of those things occur in our life. In the same way, we should learn to get into the habit of forgiving quickly.

When I came to Korea for the first time, I was walking down the street and this lady totally banged into me and she just went off on her way. If I were in the United States, they would have said "Oh, excuse me." If I were in Japan it would be "sumimasen"; if I were anywhere else I'm sure they would acknowledge the fact that they almost knocked me off the street.

But it was Korea, so she just walked right through me. At first I said "This is crazy. They should at least acknowledge that they bumped me, acknowledge that you took one arm off " (Audience laughs) I was quite frustrated about that. I remember talking to my wife about that "Yobo, I don't understand these Korean people! I can't understand this. All they have to do is say sorry, that's all".

I remember telling more people about it, and the more I talked about it, the more fruitless it became. Honestly speaking, I really learned this, "I'm going to forgive these people. When they bump into me, so what? I'm going to forgive quickly. I'm going to not let them steal my joy. I'm going to be happy the rest of the day. I'm going to say 'God bless you' and move on."

In the same way, when we have small offenses in our lives, it's important to get into the habit of just letting it go. You know small things, maybe we said a word not right, it's OK. We can let it go. But if things are a little bigger, if the offenses are bigger, sometimes we have to go for help.

I know a family whose son is having a little difficulty in school with some behavior problems. They made the right step in taking him to professionals, seeking counseling and things like that. Many times it is important that if the offense is big, to then take it to the proper educators or authorities etc.

In Korea, maybe it's your mother-in-law whom you are scared of, but Father was able to show God's mercy to Kim Il Sung. He was able to forgive him. Because he did that, it opened the doors in the future.

But for the smaller things in our day to day lives, like small inconveniences that make us a little upset, let's get into the habit of learning how to forgive quickly. Again, when Father was in Danbury, he was there for so many months, he was there really unjustly. We had very famous lawyers write about the inquisition of Rev. Moon, the fact that he was prosecuted in a very unfair manner; but he was able to practice his forgiveness. In fact, really, what that means is that he is able to trust in God; not only trust in God, because when we're able to forgive, we can trust that God is keeping track, that He is in control.

Number 2: when we are able to forgive we can also trust ourselves more, because we now can trust that we have the power to let go, to be able to separate ourselves from the weight or the power that negative influences have in our lives, or the powers that are holding us back; we can separate ourselves from that and move forward into our bright futures.

Also in order to forgive another person, we also fundamentally have to trust people. We have to fundamentally believe that people are good, that they are not fundamentally selfish, that they are not fundamentally ego driven, but that they are fundamentally good and that they were made in the divine image of God, that they are fundamentally good and that they will not continue to stay in their present state forever.

So forgiveness in the end is about trusting God, ourselves and the goodness of people.

Father went to Kim Il Sung in North Korea and really met his arch enemy. This is the man who tried to assassinate Father. He deliberately made a team to try to take Father's life. And Father went and embraced the man. Not only did he embrace him; I think the embrace is somewhat moving, but I think that there is even a more moving moment, and that moment is when he had to actually sit down with this man, Kim Il Sung, and eat dinner with him. He had to eat dinner with the man that tried to kill him.

Now we know it's hard enough to eat with our relatives during Christmas, let alone with the man who is trying to kill you. So when I saw that, I said "That is quite amazing that he is able not only to forgive!" In Korea, maybe it's your mother-in-law whom you are scared of, but Father was able to show God's mercy to Kim Il Sung. He was able to forgive him. Because he did that, it opened the doors in the future.

Why do we continue to have a relationship with North Korea? Why are we continually able to work there and try to make peace and reconciliation between north and south? It's because Father took that step; he took the step of forgiveness to the enemy that tried to literally take his life. If he didn't do that, then of course we would not have the roles that we had until now.

So, when we look at today's sermon, what is it that we can really learn or gain from it? Well, just like in the story of the prodigal son, let's remember that forgiveness doesn't necessary guarantee reconciliation, it does not. But, if there is to be reconciliation, forgiveness must be present in some degree.

Let's say reconciliation does not occur, then still forgiveness has power, in a sense that it frees us from the power that those events have over our lives. It allows us to press forward into our futures with more victory and more illuminations and more peace.

Let's remember the parable of the unmerciful servant, that God forgives us; He forgives us of our mistakes and in the same way He expects us to forgive others of their mistakes. So next time you are in Korea and some lady takes your arm off, just forgive her; let it go, move on. Say, "God bless you, give me my arm back, but God bless you". And let's trust that God is in control.

Like True Father, when he emerged from of Danbury, let's emerge out of our circumstances, out of our situations. Let's emerge as victors, let's not emerge in the bogged down victim mentality. Let's remove that; let's move in the victor mentality.

If we do that, just like Jesus, who said "He who forgives, will be forgiven", if we learn to harness the power of forgiveness, I do believe that it will help us more and more to live that life of blessings that True Parents have blessed us to live.

Brothers and sisters, can you accept my offering today? ("Yes", applause) Thank you so much.