Longing for Eden - Genesis 2:1-25
May 24, 1959, Former Church Headquarters
Prayer
Father, please allow us to feel how You lamented over not having had even one original person who could see the original world. Father, please permit us to think about Your sorrow over not having had one day in which You could rejoice with humanity, even though we have inherited Your original nature. Please grant that we may experience Your sorrow directly and personally in this hour. We ask this sincerely.
Please forgive the fault of the human ancestors who brought sorrowful lamentation to You. With great ideals, You dreamed of the joyful garden. We also sincerely ask You to forgive the sin of our ancestors, who caused You to persevere through the historical course of pain and hardship to recover that garden of hope.
We know and believe that You will remove the thousands of years of painful resentment and victoriously fulfill Your ideal. Father, we desire to offer everything we have for that purpose. Please rule that mind and will in us, and guide us to be the sons and daughters who can bring about that victorious standard.
If there was a time when we did not have an earnest heart toward Your will, Your heart, and Your ideal during the past week, please forgive us. Father, please forgive us for not having the unified standard, even though we earnestly desire to be connected to Your heart.
We know Your heart experienced sorrow as You worked with our ancestors in the historical course. Loving Father, we sincerely hope and ask that You allow us to be the true sons and daughters who are willing to take responsibility for the failures of our ancestors and humanity at this time of the last days and who can comfort Your pain-filled heart. Father, please have compassion upon us. We have knelt in front of You to offer our bows, although we are unqualified and unfaithful.
If any of us hold an unrighteous and wrong view or concept in Your presence, please eliminate it totally and allow no such thing. We earnestly hope and desire that You create an inspired and grateful heart in our minds and bodies at this time with which we can share and rejoice together with Your heart. Please make the numerous saints and heavenly angels rejoice together with us and return the glory of that happiness to You.
We hope that this hour of our offering can be a time when we can comfort and liberate You, the one who experienced the sorrow in that original garden. Father, we wish to offer our inadequate prayers and offerings. Father, please protect this hour from beginning to end with Your shield of victory and Your flaming eyes, so that Satan may not invade and You will totally subjugate us.
Please eliminate all unrighteous natures from our hearts and instill instead the original heart that we may work with You and that this hour may be one of happy offering. As we ask all these things, we pray in the name of the Lord. Amen.
Prayer
We feel in our bones that the history of toil by which humanity must regain the land of Zion remains with us. This land has not become a place where true people with original hearts live. You could not establish the remnants of the original heart on this earth. Father, please allow us to be Your children who can comfort Your sorrowful heart of lonely battling on, as You longed for the original world. Father! We cannot help having a fearful mind as we recall the course of Your sorrowful history. We cannot help being overwhelmed every time we face Your suffering, holy presence. Father, please raise these as Your children who can offer their minds and bodies to You, who can lighten the burden from Your shoulder and stop Your suffering.
You have been longing for the victorious day when You could rejoice and sing the song of liberation from a state of happiness. We realize, however, that You are not the one who must bring about the liberation. We must do it, humanity, struggling in the realm of death.
Please forgive us as we struggle in the realm of death, not knowing the value of standing in such an important position. Please stir in us an earnest heart with which we can praise Your glorious heart, as we raise a new banner for the restoration of the original heart. Please make us into true sons and daughters with the original sung sang and hyung sang so that we may sing of Your liberation.
We believe that You already know that is our greatest wish. Father, we pray in front of You, bowing our heads, representing the agonizingly miserable people of this nation. We know that the day of victory will surely come. We sincerely hope and desire that You will guide us to one standard and guide us to be an offering to Your great will which You want to entrust to us.
Now as we are gathered before Your presence, please allow us to dismantle all the situations of our minds and bodies. Please allow us to comfort You with the earnest mind that emerges from a true heart. Please move our hearts in this hour, so that we may bow our heads humbly to You. Please stir in us an earnest mind that repents for our past, reflects about our present reality, and admires Your holy grace. Please personally direct our minds. Father, please make us realize in this hour that we must be touched by a new feeling and take a new direction now.
Father, please allow us to gather our inadequate offerings and prepare a living altar in this hour. We know that each of us must be a victorious offering. Therefore, we ask You to eliminate anything that may not be righteous to You and to exercise Your authority of new creation by spreading Your powerful hands. Father, we sincerely hope and desire that You grant us the sung sang and hyung sang of original re-creation which can wipe out anything other than what is Yours.
Oh, Father! Please awaken the thirty million people who are still asleep. Please guide the billions of people of the world, who are struggling in misery, to Your original garden of goodness, Your ideal. No matter what kind of persecution or difficulties we may face, we earnestly ask that You quickly guide humanity into the midst of Your ideal garden.
Father, we know well that there is a responsibility human beings must fulfill; Father, please command Your loving sons and daughters. Please command them to recover the remaining land of evil and the people. Father, we sincerely hope that this hour can be one in which You can command us and send us out as heavenly soldiers and builders.
Father, please spread Your hands of glory and love to wherever Your lonely sons and daughters are gathered and are pleading with You. Allow them to feel Your touch, so that they may offer their hearts in unison upon one altar in this hour. Please bless the many denominations representing the people of this nation. We sincerely wish that the day of victory will come and that this land can be the place where Your joy is restored.
Please subjugate everything of ours now. If there is anything that is against Your will, we fear it will become a condition for Satan to invade. Father! Please eliminate any condition that may allow Satan's invasion, and please embrace everything with Your powerful grace. Please give Your commands personally.
We ask earnestly that You have dominion over this hour from beginning to end only with what is Yours. I pray all this in the name of the Lord. Amen.
Prayer
Father, if anyone possessed a true mind and true body, he would surely long for life in the original world. After the creation of heaven, earth and all things, You felt so much happiness in seeing the first original human beings, Adam and Eve! They could directly relate to You before the fall. How precious was their position of glory, from which our ancestors should have been able to relate to You! Please grant that this hour be one of admiring the original world. We sincerely hope and long for the heart of goodness which can cause a direct reaction from Your heart. We hope and long for the form of original goodness which can hold Your hands. We long for our original ancestors.
Even on earth, we know that there is no distance or limitation of time or space in the world of the heart. Please allow us to long for our original form, which is the form of our original ancestors, born of the heart of infinite love. We are still asleep, struggling and wandering aimlessly in the realm of death. Please allow us to shed tears of longing for our original form. Allow us to struggle in search of You as our Creator. Father, we earnestly ask You to grant us the experience of beauty in our minds and bodies, which can harmonize with the atmosphere, the environment, and all things of that original world.
All people of the world are proudly asserting themselves, yet they are striving only to make themselves visible and higher without acquiring the original form for which You long. Your words convey the message that Your sorrow in facing humanity has penetrated heaven and earth. Having lost their owner, all things remain in the realm of lamentation. We realize this. Father, please do not permit us to become forgetful of our responsibility to transcend this realm of lamentation and to liberate You.
Father, when we called You, we often called on You as the one who had suffered in the course of fallen history. We did not call You as the original Father who would rejoice in the garden of goodness without the sorrow of the fall. We did not search after that kind of Father. In believing in the true Savior, we believed in Jesus, who died on the cross. Yet we did not believe in the possibility of Jesus appearing as the lord of glory without the suffering of the cross, the pain, and persecution. Please forgive us.
Father, please grant us an overflowing longing for the harmonious world where we can live in the original state with the original ideology and original goodness. My Father, we sincerely hope and ask that You allow us the joyful position where we can call You "Father" with the original heart.
We know that the historical sorrow has been accumulating since the day the first sin stained this earth through the six-thousand-year history. This reality was caused by the mistake of our ancestors. Father, You know our miserable situation well: that we must be liberated from historical lamentation and sorrow. Please comfort us. Father, we know of Your sorrowful situation, for You have to hold onto our feeble hands. You must make victorious soldiers and an army out of fragile people. Please admonish and scold us. We desperately ask that You shape us into the capable workers and servants You can use, even if You have to whip us for not heeding Your words of goodness and Your true heart.
Please allow us to understand the heart of Moses as he guided the 600,000 Israelites who were wandering in Egypt. Moses related to his people with a most sincere heart. We have the responsibility to inform the Christians of the world (who should inherit the blessing of the Second Israel) that the restoration of the blessed land of Canaan lies with them. Father, we know of these responsibilities which must be fulfilled today. Please grant the remnants of Your resentment, Your anger, and Your mortification to penetrate into our bones and flesh.
Father, I sincerely ask that these people be Your loyal sons and daughters who are determined to take revenge upon the Father's enemy, even if they stumble a thousand times, even if they die a hundred times. We know that the path of the cross remains with us as we carry out Your commands. These are Your lonely sons and daughters who have volunteered to walk the difficult path; please be a friend of the heart to them.
We know that we can resemble You with our minds and bodies and become an unchanging, central people who can represent You when You become our eternal center. Therefore, we earnestly ask You to personally take our minds and bodies as Yours.
Father, we have already made the determination. Please allow us to be Your sons and daughters who fight, live and die with that determination.
I wish to convey Your words, but what shall I speak to these lonely members at this time? Please guide me to convey Your command as it is, and allow them to become heavenly offerings which You can accept. I sincerely ask this.
Please recognize our minds and bodies as Yours. Father, if there is any sinful nature which prevents You from taking possession of us, we sincerely ask You to eliminate it by the glory of the Trinity. We also ask You to guide this hour and not permit any invasion of Satan.
Please make us return to the innocent mind of a child by clearing out all of our thoughts and assertions. Please clarify our feelings and experiences. We earnestly ask You to permit this hour to be one when we can return to the heart of a child, so that we can be intoxicated by admiration and a heart of longing, and be totally absorbed in Your words. We ask all this in the name of the Lord. Amen.
I would like to talk to you on the topic of "Longing for Eden."
Human Beings Long for the Original World
When we think of the original garden before the fall, the Garden of Eden, the first thing that comes to our mind is God. At the same time, Adam and Eve, whom God created on the sixth day and blessed, come to our mind. All things, which were not invaded by sin, come to mind, together with our sinless original ancestors centering on God.
All things should exist for human beings; human beings should exist for God. However, the reality is that the human beings did not center themselves upon God, and all things could not center themselves upon the human beings. This remains as the great sorrow, misery and lamentation which captures our minds and bodies even today. No one can deny this reality.
When we think seriously about our ancestors who lived in the original world and original garden and God, who acted centering only upon the goodness which governed our ancestors, we cannot deny that we are far away from that situation. The more we have an earnest heart to make a relationship with the highest goodness personified in You, the more we agonize over the gap between ourselves and that highest goodness. If there were indeed a person who set out to resolve that agony, he would inevitably feel intense anger and enmity toward the traces of the fall that blocked Adam and Eve from harmonizing with all things and the original world centered on and glorifying only goodness.
Our mind is surely following the path that can connect us with the heavenly heart without even being conscious of it, because we long for that true, original world of goodness. We have the destiny to make an eternal connection with that world and the heavenly heart, transcending the limitations of time. However, our lamentation is that we do not have the external environment or the internal situation which can connect us to that heart.
From this perspective, we cannot deny that we are in a position to resent the fallen Adam and Eve and the reality of our environment today. If I am overwhelmed in this environment, can my mind and body feel happiness? Impossible. We are in such a situation. Therefore, we still have an unavoidable course of difficulty left to overcome this impossible environment.
We should remind ourselves again that we have been struggling until now in search of something without knowing where it was. However, now the time has come. The more I long to purify my conscience, to develop an eternal relationship with God, the subject of conscience, and to establish the standard of eternal happiness, the more I should feel indignant toward this world in which I live. Moreover, we should realize once again that there is no greater pain nor any greater problem than this, because we cannot resolve this indignation within our reality.
If God exists, He would surely love us and visit us in our pain and misery. We can recognize the existence of God by having a relationship of respect and concern for each other. God has been toiling and following the footsteps of fallen humanity, restraining His sorrowful heart, from the day of the fall until now. You must feel this once again.
Eden Is Moved by God's Heart
We should confess that we are descendants of the fall before being proud of ourselves. We should reveal our sinful nature and history, which is stained with fallen nature, before we reveal anything. Although we are in this situation, we have been evading this position. As we see the enlightenment taking place more and more often, God must resolve the sin-stained history and the resentment of the sin which is transmitted through the blood-lineage.
God's longing and our wish are to resolve this resentment of sin. If the day of enlightenment does not come, there will be no day of resolution and liberation. If there is no day of resolution and liberation, there will be no day when God's will is fulfilled. If the day of the fulfillment of God's will does not come, there will be no day of glory for God who has guided the dispensation or for humanity, who followed and supported the dispensation.
We should be able to feel with our mind, body and spirit, the holiness in everything of nature. Our original nature should feel the touch of God's heart. We should be able to feel the heavenly heart and love which are experienced through our original essence, our original nature and character in our body. If such a person exists, he would be the happiest person on earth.
Before the fall, the ancestors of all humanity should have possessed minds connected to God's heart. They should have established all things as a glorious condition before God, as the symbolic, eternal objects of happiness and beauty which can bring internal stimulation. They should have proudly shown themselves as the substantiations of glory by the internal stimulation which comes from all things. However, they did not become such people. That is the greatest sorrow.
Eden is moved by God's heart. It is to harmonize with goodness, to practice heavenly ideology in daily life, to symbolize goodness in everything it sees, hears and feels, and to stimulate goodness in every aspect. If you can harmonize with God's heart and gloriously call Him, "Heavenly Father" from that place of goodness, that would be your greatest happiness. If God could make a relationship with such a person, He would make no further demands. We should know this.
If we trace the process of God's creation, He created all things in five days to create the human ancestors, Adam and Eve, the true parents of goodness who were to represent His true hyung sang. On the sixth day, God created the central figures who could dominate all things. With what kind of heart did God look forward to creating these central figures? I hope this hour can be a time when You can call "Heavenly Father" within your mind as you reflect upon this again.
We relate to all things every day; they give us visual stimulation. However, we have related to them with the same old heart. Had the fall not taken place, all things would have been related to by our original nature, centering on goodness. We should think again how our ancestors would have felt looking at nature; how God would have felt looking at nature and at human beings.
The Mind which Feels God's Touch Even in a Patch of Grass
We should think that God's hands touch everywhere, even an insignificant patch of grass growing in the field. When we look at a growing tree, we should remind ourselves that God's infinite, internal heart passed through that place. Not only plants, any animal, insect or bird in nature is the same. We should feel once again that nothing was created thoughtlessly; it was created thoroughly through God's internal heart and by His substantial hands.
When we realize that God loves everything He created, we should ponder: which does He love the most? Out of the grasses in the world, which does He love the most? If you think about these things seriously and earnestly, you will be able to connect with the love of God prior to the creation of human beings.
We should rejoice over a blade of grass, holding it with a joyful heart and experiencing that it has indeed passed through the hands of God. Such a person would enter into the position of God's friend in the world of the heart, even though he may be a fallen person. Wouldn't it be so?
Which grass would God love the most? Out of all the flowers, which flower would God love the most? Out of all the trees, which tree would He love the most? Even though all the birds, insects and animals were created through God's heart, which one would God love the most? You should think about this.
Among the persons who admire God's heart, long for God's ideology, and have the true mind of seeking God's garden of restoration, there may be many who try to exalt God and experience happiness from a glorious and joyful position. However, there would be only a few who think about the connection of God's internal heart that extends to the insignificant trees, insects and the whole creation, and truly feel happy. If someone made an insect, pouring out all of his energy and passion, there would be nothing more satisfying to him than someone wanting to love that insect with the whole of his mind and heart, with even greater effort and intensity than himself.
What did Jesus struggle to find before trying to restore the people of his nation to God two thousand years ago? For what did his heart look? I know Jesus was surely holding his people, worried about them remaining in the realm of lamentation. He prayed through the night, shedding tears for them.
If Jesus had not felt sorrow and shed tears all through the night when he looked at all things in the realm of lamentation, having lost the relationship of the original heart because of the human fall, I would venture to say he would not have become the Savior who could rule over and save the whole cosmos. If all things were taken away from a human being, he would not be able to sustain his life. For that reason, as long as he feels his preciousness, he should become a mediator of happiness toward all things which provide the elements for his essence. If he maintains this heart, he will be able to maintain the right way with nature everywhere he goes. He will be able to return glory to God under any circumstances by standing in a position of righteousness and a position of connection with all things.
When Jesus looked at nature, he would have wondered what grass God loved most, what flower out of the many that God loved most, which tree, which mountain. I ask all of you to reflect again upon the loving heart of Jesus.
How responsible a heart have you had in relation to all things God created with His heart and love? Have you ever held a handful of soil and thought about God's heart after He created it? If you have not, you are a sinner who ignores the heart with which God established the ideal of creation.
Human Civilization Cannot Be Thought of Apart From Nature
We understand that science is an area which attempts to explain principles, laws, theories and formulas of the created world. Literature would be an area of the deep, hidden sentiment in nature. Art is a concrete expression of the visible or hidden beauty in nature. Philosophy is an area that tries to explain the fundamental reasons for nature. Religion is above all these levels.
What should true religion and true religious people try to explain? It should be the clarification of the heartistic content which flows deep within nature. Religion should bear that responsibility.
Human civilization cannot be thought of apart from nature. We cannot talk about human civilization separated from nature. No matter how proudly human beings showcase their power and authority, without nature nothing is possible.
Nature makes our life valuable; it is absolutely necessary for our life. Therefore, if we do not feel the heart that flows in nature, we cannot enjoy true happiness and cannot reach the glorious position of having a relationship with God. You should realize this.
From now on, even when you look at a patch of grass or a flower, you should be able to look at it from God's point of view, representing and connected with God's heart. When you look at an insect, bird or animal, you should attain the internal feeling which connects to God's heart. If there were such a person, he would certainly be a great scientist, a great poet, a great artist, a great philosopher, or a great religious person. Even if he could not explain it with scientific logic, even if he could not express that sentiment poetically, even if he could not express that beauty artistically or philosophically, and lacked the power to experience the love emotionally, he would still be great.
There have been many who were viewed as great figures of worldwide prominence, great scholars who researched the cosmos on their own. However, no one can be called a world figure without presenting the ultimate solution to the problem of this cosmos and the beings within it.
In the World of Heart There is no Disparity between the Subject and the Object
Progress would cease for a person who merely understood and perceived the cosmos through existing scientific logic, theories and formulas. He would need the heartistic sensitivity which is unconsciously connected secretly to the cosmos. This is also true in the fields of literature, art, philosophy and religion.
A world-famous scholar would have the sensitivity deep in his heart to harmonize with the heart of nature. Having the sensitivity which can be connected to nature, he would unexpectedly receive hints, inspirations or dreams. These phenomena would occur only when he was intoxicated in his research area.
History testifies that people of much love and emotion did great things. If there is a religious person who can call out "God!" when he looks at a patch of grass, harmonized with such an emotion, he would indeed be a great religious person.
In Buddhism today, many people pray for blessing in front of a statue of Buddha. The external difference between the subject and the object in this instance would be enormous. However, in the world of heart, there would be no difference. If they believe and connect to it as God by the feelings inspired there, then God does not abandon such minds. He fulfills their wishes. The phrase "a wish come true" originates from this.
When we consider these things, our past and present life have been overly insensitive and unsentimental. We have had a desolate cosmic view. You should feel sorrow about this. If you become a person who does feel sorrow about this situation, then you will be called "a new person" in the new world and will be able to take responsibility for the new age. I have confidence this is true.
We should become a people who can forget our own sad feelings by the joy we feel from looking at growing grass, instead of frowning and lamenting as we look at our environment and the problems of society. If there is such a person, he would remain in the new age. If there is a person who aspires to the ideal and heartistic world, he would indeed try desperately to make a certain relationship with God.
Unification Church members! Please feel astonished when you look at growing grass. The unlimited power of life and God are there. When we look at a surging mountain peak, we feel a different emotion today compared to yesterday. If I could sing of the different emotions my heart feels with the changes of the four seasons, how elegant would that be? That person would be able to harmonize with all of nature. The original human being before the fall would certainly be such a person.
If there is a person who can sing and rejoice over the flowing stream, the river which flows through a vast field, the surging mountains, the rising morning sunshine, the moonlight shed from the east, and all things, unmindful of time, then he would be the true original human being of whom God dreamed and idealized as He created all things. This is the one to whom He wanted to entrust all things. The person who visits all the beautiful places would be the same. God wanted such human beings.
God Could Not Sing about Nature with Humankind
In the original garden of Eden, God could not have an hour of singing about nature and of expressing feelings toward nature with Adam and Eve. God must have desired to say, "Oh, my son, look at that mountain. I created it in this and this way. Look at that forest. I created it in such and such a way. All these I created for your happiness." Why could God not do that? It was because Adam was still immature. However, you should know that God had an earnest internal heart which He wanted to express to Adam. We should understand that God could not express such things to Adam because Adam was still emotionally and heartistically immature.
If Adam had been mature enough for God to express His heart, then God could have said, "Oh, Adam! Look at the flower in the garden. Look at the mountains and streams." If our ancestors had lived that way, humanity would not struggle today in the misery of the realm of death.
Therefore, you should long for the original Eden. You should long for the world where God's infinite love exists, where the emotion of eternal love can be harmonized, where all will be intoxicated in singing for eternity. In that Eden, all will take responsibility and pour out their effort, thinking that once they take responsibility, it will be of eternal value. God's sorrow is not being able to find such a person. God, who works through the dispensation on earth, must find such a person.
Among the songs we sing, there are songs which have the content of the mountains, a stream and nature within. They exist to assist in raising our emotions. Everything is like that. How wonderful it would have been had the heart of Adam and Eve gone in the direction God's heart wanted to go!
Now you should have such a heart. The person who has such an abundant mind and has experienced such a heart would be able to participate in the new age as a citizen of the new ideal Kingdom of Heaven.
If you wish to hold the glorious hands of God after resolving the agony of restoration and overcoming the sorrow of history, you should know what kind of person God would hold. God would want to hold the person to whom He can say, "Please enjoy all things in my place. Please experience all things in my place. Please love all things in my place."
Have you ever longed to see a natural flower in an atmosphere of mystery or grace? Have you ever related to it with as earnest an attitude as you do your ancestors? Have you ever offered praise to God because of the stimulation you felt from looking at a mountain stream? I would conclude that if you have not, then you are not qualified to be the owner of all things. No matter how wonderful the Garden of Eden may be, unless it is a place where all things and human beings are connected in heart and are able to move God, it is not a place for which we should long.
Until now we have prayed only for human beings. However, I do not pray that way. We should pray not only for humankind, but for God and Jesus. We should pay back the debt to Jesus, who prayed for us throughout the night. We should then pray for God, who has toiled until today, then we should pray for humanity. The person who lives with such feeling and sensitivity is the person closest to God. I would say this out of experience.
If you become tired on your way and sit down at some resting place with such a feeling, then God will surely be with you. If you can be that kind of person, then you would be able to sing of God's heart, holding the root of an old tree, leaning against a large rock in the shade as a resting place.
Fallen People Should Feel Both Joy and Sorrow in Sight of All Things
We members of the Unification Church should have a kind of flower which we like the most among all the flowers, just as God loves certain things more than others among all of His creations. If we do not have such a feeling, then we should be disqualified from the world of the heart. You should be able to say which flower out of all the flowers, which tree out of all the trees, which grass out of all the grasses you like the most. Only then will you have a longing mind toward nature.
As one's life vibrates, the one who has a relationship of heart which can embrace life and attract nature would be a person of dedicated will and seriousness. The nature we are looking at, this land we are stepping on, what kind of nature and what kind of land are they? Unfortunately, it became fallen land, sorrowful land. You should feel this. When you look at all things, you should feel the sorrowful situation of all things, as well as joy and goodness, for they remain in the realm of lamentation. Fallen humankind should feel unlimited sorrowful emotion and be able to connect with God as they look at beautiful places and enjoy them.
We should be a people who can feel sad, who can cry, and who can sigh, instead of feeling joy as we hold a blade of grass, look at a tree or mountain, and all other things. We should know that this mind emerges out of a longing for Eden. God is filled with such a heart. Humankind has not escaped from that relationship of heart until now. The person with such a heart would long for Eden as he looked at nature. When longing for Eden, we should long not only for nature within it, but also for the original person who can own all things there.
The True Person For Whom God and All Things Long
Jesus blessed his enemies. He blessed those who hammered the nails into his hands and feet and who put the crown of thorns on his head. He blessed the reckless enemy who pierced his side with the spear. Why did he do that? He could bless them for he understood well that they are human beings who were created as a result of the greatest investment of God, through His earnest heart and a process of enormous toil. Can you understand?
Jesus came with God's inner situation. He was opposed by his enemies. However, he had to bless them, for they were human beings whom God had created with His whole heart and energy, His original heart.
Jesus had a perfect relationship with God in prayer, meditation and imagination during his thirty-odd years of life on this earth. Therefore, he was the original true person. He was the person for whom all things and God longed.
A human being desires to finish his leftover work the next day, if the work was not completed the day before. It is the same for God. If a person entered into the world of God's heart and experienced how much joy God felt after creating human beings, dancing for tens of years would not suffice to express the experience.
God would not need human beings who were created with the value some religious people describe. The value of the human being is enormous, for he was created through absolute principles that have unlimited flexibility and cannot be measured by any law. When God looks at such a person, He feels His whole inner nature and the emotion of the whole cosmos from him. God is infinitely joyful upon seeing him.
What happened to Adam and Eve, over whom God rejoiced, for whom God longed, and who God hoped would become the owners of all things? What happened to Adam and Eve for whom God and all things longed? Because of the fall, the longing turned into resentment and cursing; happiness and hope turned into lamentation and hopelessness; life turned into death, and love turned into mourning.
Many of us still do not know from whence this miserable reality came and how we are related to it, even though we are in a position to lament the reality of having such regrettable ancestors. God is looking for those who can sweep away the regret and resentment, who can go in search of the original human heart and raise the sound of joy.
The human beings for whom God and all things have longed are in this miserable state, and we deserve to be judged. That is the way I think. "Father! If I desire to avoid the judgment, then I hope to be qualified with respect to the heart. I want to be a victor who can avoid judgment and sing by passing the test with respect to the heart of God when He rejoiced after the creation of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, and with respect to the heart of God longing to go and see them." We should pray like this. God hopes we will do so.
I should become a person who longs for God's administration and who longs for the people. You should think how great the grace of God is in creating a son and a daughter to have us experience His heart.
Man and woman represent God's total nature and character. Therefore, we should become a man who knows how to love a woman and a woman who knows how to love a man. Humankind today does not know God's will. He desires to turn the whole cosmos over to a man and a woman who possess the standard of the heart which Adam and Eve wanted to achieve through God's heart.
Humankind is struggling with infinite longing in the world of the heart, because they have defiled the law of the heart. The reality of fallen humankind is constant struggle in an unsuccessful attempt to fill that longing through hobbies, art, knowledge, and objects of love. This is the historical tragedy and sorrow.
If such a longing is surging within your mind, you should become a person who can long for that original garden together with all things, and who can acquire the form of the original human being and long for God. If you become that kind of person, then God cannot help holding you with open arms, saying, "Oh! My son! My daughter!"
The Mission of Religion in Cultivating the Person of Character Who Can Govern the Cosmos
If you wish to go in front of God by elevating your value, you should listen to the words of the Lord. You should respond to God's longing heart and possess a mind of longing for God by experiencing the value of the original person in the original garden. How much joy God would feel if such a person came forth.
Longing cannot occur without love. That love should be God's love, which is the origin of eternal rest and eternal life, not human love. Therefore, out of all the religions, Christianity tries to fulfill that mission as the religion of love. The purpose of religion is to cultivate a person of character who can utilize the laws of the world of the heart and who has the authority to govern the emotions of life and all the principles of the cosmos.
God has been accomplishing the dispensation by setting the standard of heart which longs for us, humankind, while we have been like wooden statues throughout the six thousand years. History has changed in all kinds of ways; however, God has never lost that heart of constant longing for humankind from the position of the Alpha and the Omega. If someone has a gap between his and God's heart, then he would be a loser and a failure in history. God's statement, "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the before and the after, the beginning and the end," is a grateful statement. We should realize that God longs for fallen people, His longing intensified by His sorrow.
God has not forsaken the mind which longs, the insignificant body of this fallen person who brought a wound to His original heart. He continues to hold on. If there is a person who truly feels that God is longing for fallen humanity, holding the scar of sorrow, he will surely go to heaven. I once prayed like this: "Father, I wish to be a person who can cry out with longing for my own hands." God would be hoping for such a person. If God can hold my hand with His true love, I should be a person who can cry, holding onto my hand.
We should be a people who can cry, holding the hands of the original Adam who longed for God. Moreover, we should be a people who can cry holding on to Adam and Eve. If we can be such a people, then we can step over fallen history.
We try to elevate our value and raise ourselves as objects of longing, even without being aware of it because we have the historical responsibility to long for the original person, to show that value proudly, and to offer it before God. That is natural because a human being has that ideal innately. However, as we elevate our value, if we allow in the value of the fallen world in the slightest, as we try to establish ourselves as the object of longing, it can become the basis for the fall by the slightest mistake.
Therefore, for fallen humanity, everything is denial. We have to give up everything. It is because Adam and Eve fell from the position of not having everything. Not having the authority to dominate all things is the fall. Has Adam ever stood in the position to dominate all things? No, he has not.
We should understand that we should give up everything and start with tears, for the historical condition to long and look for that original person remains. For that reason, we should look for a religion that induces tears. In Christianity we hear, "Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near." Jesus came to this earth and said this. These are words of wailing. They tell us to wail when I look at myself, wail for my family, for my loved ones, for my people, my nation, and for this whole earth. We should understand that this is because God's will to re-establish the relationship of longing still remains with us.
The Problem of Life Can Be Solved Only through Religion
We should be able to long for all things and all people. Have you longed for all people? Have you ever experienced the heart which is connected to God's pure heart, which can enjoy giving without limit and then forget? To induce such a heart, God worked the dispensation with words like religion, the Savior, the bride and bridegroom. We should be able to give our all to Him.
God is longing for the day when He will receive all things offered with heart and longing. He longs to receive a family that is offered with heart and longing. God is hoping that this nation, this people and this world will be offered.
You should be able to stand in front of God with a longing heart and say, "I only have this one cent, but please accept it." When you can do this, that one cent can represent the cosmos. No matter how humble the family, if they can say, "Please accept this unworthy family," that family can inherit the heavenly task. When the Israelites, who wandered miserably in the wilderness, asked with a longing heart toward God, "Please accept this people as Yours," God tried to give the leading authority of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth to those people.
It is the same for the nation and the world. If there is an idealism or ideology for all of humanity, it should make us long for God heartistically; otherwise it cannot resolve the fundamental problem of life and the heavenly dispensation.
The fall was missing an hour of longing for God and for the original garden in search of heartistic relationship. Therefore, my mission for the restoration is to put my life on the line and achieve the world where such a relationship is established.
God presides over the ideal realm of that heartistic and longing-filled garden, and He searches for all things and humanity. If there is a person who can call such a God "my Father" with the attitude that can comfort God's mind and with a heart desperate to fulfill that mission, then God cannot say He does not know him. If there is a person who wanders in search of the original garden with such a heart, God cannot say He does not know him. Humanity cannot deny him. The creation cannot deny him. We should know that he is a true human being.
Therefore, all things which grow in that garden of longing, the human beings who live there, and God who comes to that garden should not be disconnected. Rather, centering on the human being, God is in the above position and all things are in the below position. They form one happy resting place in which all can harmonize. We should know the person in that garden is the one whom God can love, whom humanity can love, and whom all things can respect as their true owner.
Unless this work is completed, God's total will cannot be completed and see the glory of victory. We will not be able to resolve the sorrow of the fall and realize the dream. We should know clearly that we cannot build the world of victorious glory unless this is fulfilled.
Prayer
Father, we know that the course of restoration is almost endless. We human beings run and run in circles without resolving our sorrow and resentment. However, when we become connected to Your world of heart, we can establish a relationship with the history of sorrow. Today's struggle can become the foundation for the future, and we can ultimately build the garden of unlimited hope, unlimited happiness, and unlimited longing.
Where are the mountains and streams to which You can bring Adam and show them off proudly? Where are the blooming flowers, the growing trees, the green fields, and running streams You wanted to show Adam proudly?
Adam, who could have stood in the position to accompany You in the state of connected heart, fell and left You. We earnestly hope and ask that we can become ones who can attend You and rejoice with all things, all people, and the cosmos.
We realize that the bitterness of the cross cannot be connected to us unless we reach it through our longing. The glorious position which You left cannot be connected to us either, unless we have the mind to admire the ideal garden with piercing longing. Father, please grant that we may become Your sons and daughters who can relate to all things in the original garden as original persons with the heart of longing. Let us be able to victoriously receive Your blessing without any relationship with the fall. Please guide us to be the true ancestors of humanity. We earnestly ask this.
Father, we entrusted everything of this day to You. I ask earnestly that You grant them the heart that experiences a new joy through the offered words. I ask everything in the name of the Lord. Amen.