Never Falling Away from God

Hi, and Happy New Year 🙂 We’re continuing our look at the Divine Principle book through the lens of Unification Thought. Last winter I’d quoted these last few sentences from the explanation of the First Blessing in the Divine Principle:

“…when people realize God’s first blessing, they become God’s beloved who inspire Him with joy.  Sharing all the feelings of God as their own, they would never commit any sinful acts that would cause God grief.  This means they would never fall.” – Exposition of the Divine Principle, p. 34

These are the three last sentences in the single paragraph that explains the First Great Blessing. They’re not theological or philosophical propositions whose meanings we can examine for deeper understanding. Rather, I find them to be simple statements of emotional conviction. But whenever absolute words like “should”, “must” or “never” are used, especially in a religious context, I sometimes find it discomforting. The word religion literally means re+connect, and in the most meaningful sense that’s more than anything a matter of the heart, not merely legal requirement. So I can’t move on to the Second Blessing without stopping to consider these last sentences in the First Blessing.

When you’re in love with someone, you want to make them happy

The fact is, my perspective on these sentences has changed over the years. When I was younger in understanding the Principle, I brushed over them because, in the back of my head was the thought “Well, Adam and Eve fell and so do champions in scripture and in religious history”. Look at David: he loved God so much that he wrote 150 songs about God. That’s what Psalms is, and I’m supposing that those are just the “good” songs. Despite all that, David fell. And what of his son Solomon, who was famed for his wisdom? 400 concubines, according to the Bible! With such thoughts in mind, I skimmed over this assertion in the Principle, treating it as an elevated religious ideal that glosses over the reality of human experience.

But despite my first impressions, this Principle way of life holds these Three Great Blessings always before me, so that I’ve had to keep chipping away at them regardless. And as I did, the absolute conviction of these statements eventually made sense.

So that now, into my fourth decade of effort researching and testing the Divine Principle in daily life, I fully agree with the statement that someone who shares God’s feelings as their own would “never fall”. Because it turns out that it’s simple really: when you’re in love with someone, you want to make them happy and you don’t want to hurt them. So, because of love, you make choices that you wouldn’t otherwise make. You choose things that would otherwise be difficult or inconvenient; or you choose to refrain from things that you might otherwise do. And the more you love, the more extra-ordinary your choices and behavior become.

And if through the Principle that beloved someone has become God, the same desires apply: you really long to give happiness and you really don’t want to inflict hurt.

Well then, what of David and Solomon? One Divine Principle (DP) notion that’s helpful is that the expression of truth changes according to the growth of human intellect and spirituality (DP Introduction, p.7). And after thinking about it, I now believe that the intellect and spirituality of people back then wasn’t what it is now. Consider the Ten Commandments: what is the intellect and spirituality of people when it’s life-changing news that killing, stealing, and coveting another’s wife are bad things that you really ought not do?

And following that line of thought, I think that the understanding of Heavenly Parent that Father and Mother Moon have brought us is also very different intellectually and spiritually from those Ten Commandments and the many laws in Leviticus. Jesus challenged those notions with the new things he taught, especially that God needs to be understood as a loving Father. Father and Mother Moon have built on that foundation and introduced us to the masculine and feminine parental heart of God. They’ve also taught us that God’s Heart is one of Joy, Sorrow, and Pain (DP Introduction, p.8). So the understanding we have now is very different than what’s come before, because the intellect and spirituality of people has changed. We’re at a different level than people in the time of David and Solomon, and what we now know of God is also at a different level.

But still, “never”?

I believe so. I wonder how many times in your life someone has clearly but improperly indicated willingness to be intimate with you. And yet you refused them. If that’s happened to you, one of the best possible reasons is that you were deeply in love with someone else. You were so close to your beloved one that you could feel that person’s feelings as your own. You could feel what would happen to their heart if you betrayed their love — how painful it would be. So you firmly held your ground.

And if — because of the Principle — you’ve been working at putting God in the center of your love relationship, you might have come to believe that God loves your partner and that God put her or him in your life out of love for you. So it’s not only concern for your partner’s heart that guides you, but you have a consciousness that he/she is beloved of God, and you don’t want to disappoint and break God’s heart either.

You might even think about what a single indiscretion would cost you: the loss of the most precious people and things you have.

They say that a picture’s worth a thousand words. Perhaps then a poem is worth five-hundred. So here’s the last two verses of a song I wrote for my wife:

I say you’re a special girl,
Guided by a faithful soul.
You give your life for a better world,
And for Heaven first of all.
So now your life is joined to mine,
I feel more than yours alone:
By placing your heart in my hands,
God has also placed his own:
He has placed His own!

I say you’re a precious girl
And one day you’ll understand
How a simple girl with a loyal heart
Means more than life to a man.
Though trying for sainthood’s not easy,
It’s the hardest thing I could choose
But God help me make it ’cause it’s worth it all,
Just to have a girl like you:
A girl like you!

So, yes. In this special case I believe that it’s not a far reach to say that, as a person approaches feeling God’s feelings as their own, it becomes increasingly harder to fall away from God. And that, as someone approaches God more closely, the likelihood of falling away dissipates until it’s gone. They’d never fall — their heart and soul won’t allow it any more than it would allow them to stop breathing.

My God, how this Principle has changed life… ❦