Parents' Heart Resembles God

Parents, especially ones just welcoming a newborn baby, all understand the desire to receive blessings and feel happiness through their sons and daughters, whom they love dearly.

Parents who have established a correct standard where they can experience the greatest joy would want to bequeath this to their offspring for eternity.

Even fallen parents have the hopes that their children will grow up as people who can be followed and revered by all nation being praised eternally.

This is an amazing fact of heart, even after the fall separated us from God's pure lineage.

Parental Heart Wants to Give Everything

The fallen parents' heart can even be such that it seeks to protect their children from harm and have concern for them day and night.  For example, a mother ignores the diaper smells from her baby while she is nursing her child at her breast.

If fallen parents have such a heart for their child, how much more earnest must God's heart have been longing to love Adam and Eve, who were to mature and perfect their love instead creating fallen, false love?

Any parent has such a heart that when they nurse and nurture their babies and sing them lullabies and whisper to them, they wish that their future will be a success.

No matter how incompetent or lacking a parent may be, if one of their children suffers from a disability, the parents' hearts are devastated to the point of breaking.

But if the situation is turned around, then the feeling of relief and joy are overwhelming in proportion to the original pain.

If fallen parents are able to experience such a heart, how much more depth must be the heart of God?

Even if a son commits a heinous crime and is sent to prison, his parents tearfully forgive him and reach out to him.

No parent would yell out, "Serves him right!"

Isn't this parental love extraordinary?

Similarly, if a son is sentenced to execution, the mother will be totally grief-stricken and seeks anyway to save her child.

Even going so far to change the world's legal systems or risk her life in order to save her son's life.  Such an unchanging and sacrificial nature of the parental heart towards the children.

Have you known parents to keep an account of the times they love their children, saying, "Okay, we bought you shoes at K-mart and clothes a few days ago with our hard earned money.  Let's see how much you owe us."

Parents love their children so, that they treat them better than princes and princesses and still feel sorry that they cannot give even more.

Parents have such a heart that they always want to give their children better.  This is why we cherish the parents' love.

You should know this.

Parents give and yet feel that it is not enough; they love and yet feel as if there is some love they have not yet given and want to give more; and even after giving, they still feel unsatisfied with what they were able to give their children. 

This essence of parental love is then what connects us to eternal love.

This feeling of endlessly giving is the original motivation for the beginning point of love.

When you relate to children, parents want to give all of the best possessions. That parental heart reflects the heart and nature of God.

Then, what kind of being is God? God is a being who wants to give all His precious attributes to those who truly become His children.

Parents Desire to Be Surpassed by Their Children

If I were to ask those of you who are middle-aged or older, "When you were young and looking for a spouse, did you want to find someone better or worse than you?" you would all give the same answer: "Someone better". 

No matter whom you ask, in the East or West, you will hear the same response.

On the same note, in the relationship between parents and children, parents never want their children to be second-rate. 

For example, if a good-looking couple marries and has a baby who is nowhere near as good-looking as the parents, the couple still wants to hear praise about the appearance of their child. 

No matter how attractive a woman is, she will still be happy if she hears a passer-by compliment her baby with: "Wow, he's so much better-looking than his mother!" 

Even though this implies she is much less attractive than her baby, no mother would protest at hearing this and grumble, "What? Why do you think he's much more attractive than me? 

Then does this mean that I am much less attractive?" Rather, she would be unable to contain her joy. This is the maternal heart.

Whom do you think such a heart resembles? Mothers are resultant beings, not causal ones.

Any family where the son achieves less than his father will decline. 

If the father is the president of his country but his son's accomplishments fall short of his, and if this pattern were to continue for some generations, that family will gradually decline and ultimately be driven to a miserable state. 

Therefore, if a son asks his father, "Shouldn't I do better than you?" would the father reply "How dare you say that!" or "Of course, go ahead!"? Of course, he would say the latter.

When determining who to entrust with responsibility for the family, no parent would want to choose those who are inferior to them. 

Why is this so? It is because parents always hope their children will outshine them.

The same is true with respect to the nation. The rulers of a nation should wish for their successors to be greater than they are. 

Whether in the family or in the nation, the desire should always be for successors who are superior to them in every regard. This is something that is desired eternally, and that transcends the fortunes of history.

If true parental love is to perpetuate forever, someone must inherit its tradition. Since our children are clearly our successors, we must educate them to become the heirs of this tradition and enhance it onto higher levels. 

While each generation should recognize the importance of the existing tradition, they should not just inherit it, but also develop it for the future.

Such a tradition can only start in true families with parents who are constantly burning with hope that their children will surpass them.

Such parents will consistently encourage their children to succeed. 

Parents who long for the day when their children surpass them will devote their utmost efforts to prepare the best possible environment for them. 

Such parents will sacrifice everything for the sake of their children's happiness, and push them in the direction that will make the children better than their parents.

Parents are happy when their children outshine them. Thus, women who beat children who do not do as well will not have the dignity to enter heaven. 

You should be able to love your sons and daughters more than your own mother and father loved you. Moreover, when your children also think like this, a world of love will emerge naturally, and the Kingdom of Heaven will be realized.

Parental Love Is Eternally Unchanging

What is the original motivation of parental love? While conjugal love is changeable, why is parental love toward the children born of that conjugal love unchanging? 

Parental love does not originate from conjugal love.

Unchanging love does not originate from the horizontal conjugal relationship, but is surely related to the origin of a vertical subject.

Who would such a vertical subject be? He is known as God. 

Vertical love is not the kind of love that a husband and wife can enjoy as they please. In the case of vertical love, it is impossible to say that you will love, when you want to and not, when you don't want to. 

It cannot be severed. It cannot be severed by man who is in the horizontal position. Thus, the love parents have toward their children never changes.

In today's political society, which is caught in individualism, children say that their generation is different because of the new trends of the age.

They want to disassociate from the traditions of their parents and the conventional norms of society.  Yet, even though they argue about the old ways and the new ways, the parental heart does not lead them to say to their children, "You go your way, and I will go min."  

Parental love is not like that. Even animals are the same. In loving their young, they transcend their own selfish lives.

Where did parental love come from? 

If we are resultant beings of the First Cause with some relationship to Him, we have come from within some destined power of this First Cause.

This is not something we as human beings can touch. Can we just deny that God created us just because humanity does not believe He exists?

As such, have you ever heard anyone say, "Let us revolutionize the love with which parents love their children; let us become the standard-bearers of that revolution"?

Let's suppose some parents come forward with the idea of revolutionizing parental love and reinventing human history, claiming, "Even though we are parents, we will not love our children.  This is how parents will be from now on." 

Yet, the moment their baby's umbilical cord is cut, a loving heart will naturally arise in them. Every life form, whether on a higher or lower level, is created in such a way that it cannot but love its young. 

Thus, since the act of loving their children inspires parents to invest and use their lives as stepping stones, it is clear that parental love brings us closest to an eternal and unchanging standard.

When seeking an absolute standard, although parental love may not achieve this by itself, it can be a stepping stone closest to absoluteness for human beings. 

It can be the only foothold. Then looking at the history of the world. I wonder whether it has not become a permanent foothold.

Where did such parental love come from? 

It is not learned based on advice from one's father or the admonition of one's spouse; nor does it come from one's own decision to love.

It happens naturally. Love is something that comes naturally.

If we analyze the essence of love, there is no need to revolutionize love. When parents love their children, this is part of true love. 

This is why the heart with which people loved their children from the time of the first ancestors is the same heart with which we descendants several millennia later love our own children. 

Moreover, the heart with which our descendants, who come several millennia later, will love their children will also be the same.

Love is eternal. True love is something pure that does not need to be revolutionized. 

Then, what kind of love is God's love?

If God establishes certain beings in positions with an absolute standard, acknowledges their existence, and loves them, then that love needs no further drastic change.

Parental Love Sacrifices Everything

Love cannot be fulfilled alone.

Without an investment of life, love cannot be established. When considering the love in the parent-child relationship, there is a clear bond of life. 

Thus, as long as a bond of life remains, and as long as there is hope within that bond, love will surely remain.

No bond of love can be made apart from a bond of life. 

Thus, love requires an investment through a bond of life, and then the degree to which you invest your life will determine the value you feel.

For example, the parents' love for their children is not just based on their daily relationship; rather, it is a love that comes from within their bone marrow. 

Parents have a loving heart that cannot be forgotten or cut off from, no matter how you may try. This is why parents love their children until their last breath. 

As soon as parents feel they have a bond of life with their children, a heart of love naturally arises in them.

Parents do not love their children based merely on a deliberate decision because they are their children. 

Instead, parents cannot help loving their children beyond any personal intention or connection, due to the life force connecting them. Such things are felt very clearly in our family life.

What kind of being is God?

God is a being with a heart that desires to give and give endlessly, which is also why we seek Him. 

If God were just a merchant who says, "Hey, loving you costs so many dollars and cents," we would not pursue that kind of God. Why should all people love God and follow Him? Why should we like God?

It is because He gives and gives everything to all people and still feels ashamed, saying, "I can only give you this much now, but wait just a while, and I will give you a hundred and even a thousand times more."

God is not content with what He has given so far. 

God's heart seeks to give abundantly, while also promising even better things in the future. If we are with such a being, we can be happy even in a state of poverty. 

When we reach the situation wherein we are experiencing starvation, in a shocking way, we experience the stimulation of future hope within the present reality.

What this means is that through such hope we can make a new resolution.

When a mother feels sorry that she cannot give enough, if her child hugs her, saying, "Mommy!" will it just be a physical hug?

How grateful she will be! It is a chance to shed tears of mutual comfort looking to the future. 

It is not an occasion for despair but a place of explosive growth where they can take the hope of tomorrow as stimulation for the present, make a joint resolution together and encourage each other. 

Therefore, such an experience is not a miserable one.

Only within such a realm of love can we find the stimulation to look to the future and sing praise for its value within the realm of reality.

Hence, we come to the conclusion that there is no misfortune for those who live within that realm of love.

Parents want to sacrifice everything for the sake of their children. This is like God. What does this mean? 

God does not invest Himself for His own sake or need for power.

Likewise, parents want to live for the sake of others rather than for their own sake; they want to stand in the position of God, who lives for the sake of others. 

If God were to say that He only exists for Himself, this would not be true love.

Love, life, and hope are realized when parents sacrifice themselves completely for the sake of their children and are bound together with them.

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Return for Tomorrow's Post: Siblings Unite Based on Parents Love

This post was rewritten and derived from the textbook Cheon Seong Gyeong Book Four - True Family, Chapter Eight Section 1-4