Time and Our Destiny Relationship – part 1
by Rev. Sun Myung Moon
April 2, 1978, World Mission Center
Translator – Bo Hi Pak
Edited by esgd
15 minutes
Everyone is born as a baby. Everyone goes through childhood, becomes a young adult, and then an adult. This is true for a nation as well as individuals, and it is also true for the Unification Church.
What are the criteria for judging which individual, nation and church has acquired great stature during the course of its existence? Whether in the case of an individual, a nation or a church, the first thing needed is a clear-cut goal, because without it time is always wasted in meaningless wandering. In college a person decides what subject he is going to major in, for without having this objective his four years will be ill-spent.
Once you complete elementary school you have a chance to go on to junior high school and to go on to higher education. Normally about 21 years are needed to get a Ph.D. — six years in elementary school, six years in high school, four years in college, two years for a master’s degree, and three years for a Ph.D. That is a long time to invest in study, but depending how much goal-oriented effort you invest you can economize on precious time and still accomplish the same thing. Some individuals can accomplish the same task in 18 years, or some in 15 or even 10 years. It all depends on the individual’s determination and effort. The most important thing is that you are the one to conquer time instead of time conquering you.
Time is definitely needed in order to reach a certain goal and, like a container, that time should be filled with effort. Time becomes purposeful when you fill it with energy and effort, truly investing your heart and soul. Where do you find the motivation and energy to put your heart and soul into that time? There are two sources of motivation and energy; either external pressure will inspire you to do certain things, or internal, burning zeal and realization will push you to the goal. Which one is the most effective? Indeed, the internal realization is the most important. Once you have this zeal inside then you don’t need anything else; you will move toward the goal regardless.
What is at the heart of motivation? Money can be a central motivation, and honor another. The genuine central motivation, however, should be a heartfelt awareness which comes from the spiritual center of your being. Where can we find this divine, noble power of love and soul which thrusts us into action? A reciprocal relationship will always motivate you -for example, the relationship between parents and children, or husband and wife. The power of love can always be seen when there is a circuit. Even in speaking of love there are different circumstances and atmospheres, sometimes good and sometimes bad.
Love has the power to motivate, particularly under adverse conditions. In an atmosphere of difficulty love is ignited and gives much stronger power for you to push to the ultimate goal. For example, you may have parents who give you tremendous love, but perhaps, without doing anything wrong, they become involved in a fight or plot, and are victimized and killed. You know that your parents did nothing wrong, and even though you are young and cannot fight back at the moment, you feel that ten years later you will avenge and vindicate them. That is the powerful motivation for action under adverse conditions. If lovers face some obstacle which prevents the consummation of their love, then their motivation to overcome it is so strong that there is practically nothing they cannot overcome.
Let’s consider a higher level of love. If your country is in difficulty or in crisis, then your desire to give yourself to save that nation is your motivation. Trying to resolve the difficulty of your nation will spur you on to heightened leadership. This principle works the same way in religion. God is goal-oriented and wants to go straight ahead without wasting any time, taking the shortest possible way. Often there are two ways to reach a target, but the shortest way involves going over more difficulties. You know that reaching the goal will be difficult, yet when you are motivated and your anxiety to reach the goal is unbearably strong, it will push you through like a tidal wave.
When you clash with difficulty there is bound to be some loss or casualty, yet that will never deter you. It will spur you on even more. Imagine that in combat you are fighting as a commander to take a certain hill but there are terrible casualties. Instead of retreating when you see that so many comrades have died because of that hill, you will be even more determined to finally achieve that goal. That’s the way a commander should feel.
This analogy is applicable to God’s way of looking at religion. God saw many Jews and Christians being sacrificed, coming through bloody battle after bloody battle. Why does God allow this to happen and what does He feel? He feels just like the infantry commander, and His strategy is to have an explosion of love to push through to the end. He wants to have an explosion of love, a burst of passion erupt from such circumstances. In any religion which goes through bloodshed and martyrdom there is always a dramatic explosion of love and faith that will never be dulled. Those members experience an intimate love and comradeship and love of God which binds them together in an ironclad and explosively strong relationship. That is the power dwelling in that religion.
God never plans an everyday, lukewarm way of doing things. It is His strategy to push history along a dramatic path which will have an explosive result. In that kind of movement each member is closely knitted in love to the others, and if one member dies or is sacrificed, he leaves a will which says, “I am now dying, but don’t give up. I want you to go ahead and fulfill.” After you have seen a dying comrade leave that kind of will for you, just thinking of that scene will bring tears rolling down your face. Then you will feel tremendous power and think, “Yes, leave it to me, I will fulfill your purpose and mine together.” Even when you try to go to bed and sleep comfortably you will feel, “I have a mission, not only mine but my brother’s as well. I will accomplish mine and fulfill his as well.” That kind of stimulation will always be with you. It is not just going on your own journey, but having comrades going with you toward the same destiny that makes you strong.
Why do we really need religious affiliation? We could just have social acquaintances, but why is simple friendship not enough’? Horizontal friendship does not include God. God is always there when you are motivated for the public purpose, for a greater cause. As soon as you are motivated in that way, God always becomes subject to you. If you really cry out for the mission and public purpose, for mankind and for God, then God is always there, responding in the same way. When you are burning with love for humanity, then Cod is the subject because He is the center of such feelings. Because your feelings parallel His, you can link yourself to God in that situation.
In our horizontal world you will not find this comradeship or public-minded love and sacrificial sense of duty. Only God can be your vertical comrade. If you really know God then you feel His company is superior to everyone’s-better than love of parents, better than love of husband or wife, or of brothers and sisters. God is supreme in love, and only after you know this love to the depths of yourself can you feel how wonderful it is.
In that supreme love you know that God is telling you to not give up but to just go right ahead because you will win. If you get that kind of encouragement every day, how can you fail? How much will that spur you on, motivating you to truly put your entire heart and soul into the mission and hold nothing back? When you are spurred on in a goal-oriented way of life, God will become more intimate, giving greater inspiration day by day and serving as your source of energy. With God watching over you, you will receive daily guidance, being shown how the enemy is aiming at you and where to hide. If you have that intimate relationship with God, can you say you are tired or collapse in the middle of the road? It would be impossible to even entertain the notion.
We need a subject and we need the reciprocal relationship between that subject and ourselves. In your family life there is always subject and object, as well as in the nation, but the greatest of all subjects is God. By making a relationship with that God you can be spurred on to your ultimate, eternal goal. That is what we call religion. Religion is the art of making yourself related to God. As the ultimate source of love, God has unlimited power, and wherever the public mind of God is responding to His object there is always an overflow of energy coming from Him. Do you think God is looking forward to seeing just everyday life, or to seeing some dramatic confrontation and breathtaking circumstance?
Do you think some ritual prayer in the morning or before meals will reach God faster, or a showdown prayer about the destiny of the world? Is God drawn to the millions and billions of people who just pass through each day, or to you when you have a showdown? Have you experienced such a showdown prayer, saying, “God, I will go on; I will even bypass You and never give up.”
God is truly the champion of acceleration, adding speed all the time. Do you want to procrastinate and put your job off, or go quickly forward? Some power has to be added in order for you to accelerate and have no time to do anything else. If someone pushed a big clumsy fellow from behind, he wouldn’t pick up speed but would fall down instead. But if you are ready to go like a bullet and someone pushes you, then you will fly.
Would you like to fly down the fairway like a golf ball when it is whacked by a club? If the ball is very soft like chewing gum, then what happens? Instead of flying it will just flop over, flat on one side. But if the ball is hard instead, then no matter how much power is added to it, it will not flop over but will take off. You should be the kind of men and women who can say, “No matter what kind of hardship comes or what kind of difficulty hits me, I will not change. I am like a solid ball and hardship will make me even more solid.”
The mission of a soccer ball is to be kicked everywhere or bounced on someone’s head. The more power that is added to it and the farther it is kicked, the more it will fulfill its mission. Picture a soccer ball soaring through the air across the field with a champion waiting at the other end. Should the ball try to avoid falling down because it knows the champion will kick it, or will the ball look forward to being kicked far away again? Is the ball looking forward to a master performance or a poor performance? God is the same way, anticipating something extraordinary.
God is really an exciting God, never dull, and He always likes fresh new things and situations. He is variety-minded, not single-minded. If you appreciate beauty and art and you look at this curtain here which is one simple color, could you call it a masterpiece of art? Imagine a big frame with all the combinations of colors inside; you would appreciate it more and be astonished at its variety. God is the same.