Why Do We Like the Concept Family?

As we witness the chaos of the world, instability in jobs, and relationships, there is one relationship that never changes no matter what - family.

Your siblings, mother, father and extended family will always be tied together by blood ties.

God made this unit of relationships that teach us how to love brothers and sisters, the elderly and the young of the world.

So, why do we like the family?

It is because family provides a base to freely exchange happiness.

This is why we yearn for our hometown where we grew up.  It is the place where our parents and siblings live.

The family is originally a good place.  Why is it good?

Because your parents, siblings and relatives are there.  Therefore, we become homesick for our native land, our hometown.

People think more about their hometown than they think of their nation.  Even living in a large city like New York, people long for their hometown.

Why do you like your families?

It is because the family becomes a free activity center for their parents' love.

God must be able to act freely there.

When God comes upon a society full of people who are more driven internally, and have the shining core of love no matter how shabby they may be, God will be able to act freely around them.

Do you feel uneasy when you visit someone else's home?

Like you are out of place?  This is because there has not been a bond of love established there for you.
You will feel awkward in someone else's dwelling because the love between the people there does not emanate in all four directions but just between the family members.

This was not the original role of the family. Thus we are destined to walk a path in oneness, unity.

The best thing is not decided by you?

Then what would hold the highest value in the family?  

The parents.

You as an individual could have great wealth, knowledge, respect and power, but none of these attributes are superior to the parents' position.

Your spouse would come next and then your children.  When it comes to your family, is there anything more valuable in life than your parents, spouse or children?  There is nothing more precious.

Why do we like our spouse, our parents and our children?

Because love is there.

Parental love is something absolutely needed by the children. 

Also, fraternal love and filial love of the children are absolutely necessary in the family.

Then who are the most beloved people in your families?  Wouldn't they be your parents?  Why do you like them most?

This is because throughout your lives, they are the closest to you in a relationship of love.  Then your beloved spouse comes next.

If husband and wife come to love each other unconditionally rather than set on conditions or circumstances, that love will be the greatest thing that will bring happiness and harmony into the family.

Even if it may not be closely related to an eternal love that is absolutely given by Heaven.  If this love becomes one, that reciprocated between the husband and wife, that is the greatest love in the family.

This is how I see it. Filial love, the love children have toward their parents, is next. If children can sacrifice themselves for their parents and love them with a bright and positive attitude rather than despair, while longing for ideal circumstances in which their love can sprout as the hope of tomorrow, that love will be one with pure and true value for the happiness of that family. 


Thus, if the family that is complete with true parental love, true conjugal love and true filial love, centered on God, then we can only conclude that it is the most ideal family in the world.  A true family.

The Family Is the Base of Eternal Happiness

On what basis can we say that someone is a truly a happy person in our daily life?

Is someone happy because they have some special talent, hold any power or authority?  Do these things alone make a person happy?  They cannot.

Also, can a person that has a lot of money be totally happy because they do not have to envy what others have? No.

Could a person become happy because they obtained a global amount of knowledge or hold some control over the world at will?

As we see in today's climate that, this is not the case.  People cannot truly become happy with just those things.

Even if they do so momentarily, happiness will not be eternal by going this route.  What happens the moments that these material objects are lost?  Can they maintain that state?

Such external things will never be the source of eternal happiness even if a person acquires enough wealth that they do not envy anyone in heaven and earth and sing songs of joy.

They will still feel a gaping hole in their soul and yearn for even more.

Material things may be a means to find happiness, but they are not able to be happiness itself.

Then, what is determined in order to feel happiness?

You must have a beloved spouse, parents and children.  Nobody can deny that the original way to happiness is through the creation of a true family.

We may see that if we lack one of them, we feel sorrow and dissatisfaction will inevitably remain in our hearts.

All people on earth generally feel that the family is a base of happiness. 

A family must have parents as the head of it, like the president of a nation.

People who grow up without parents are called orphans and are seen as pitiful people.  It is pitiful for one to not have parents or a spouse.

The family has parents and a conjugal bond at the same time.

However much the spouses may have loved each other, there will be utter pain and misery when one of them loses the other.

It is the same for when a couple cannot conceive children.

The family must have parents, spouse and children in order to become the foundation for eternal happiness.

God's original purpose for seeking to restore humankind was for His own happiness.

This establishment of happiness cannot take place apart from human beings.  At that point of convergence, it can only be brought about through God's relationship with them.

When all of the ingredients needed for our emotional well-being are present in our family, God also wants to feel happiness in such a setting.

From where does happiness arise?  What kind of setting will allow us to sing songs of joy?  It is in the setting of the family.

This family happiness cannot be attained if there are emotional problems, or if there is no heart or love experienced between the family members.

If a couple cannot have children, also, there cannot be any happiness there.

This is the same for children who do not have parents.  There will be no joy for them.

Where there is a man, there will have to be a woman as his partner. 

This same truth is for the woman.

The husband and wife desire to keep their love at a higher dimension within their subject-object relationship.  Further, they must have children.

A unified family is only realized once a couple has parents above them and children below them.  A family is united vertically (spirit) and horizontally (physical) in this way.

Then upon whom does this family center?

We already know that we center the idea of unity based solely on human beings.

But this method is impossible for two separate beings to come together eternally since they alone cannot pursue a higher value.

But if there is an absolute Subject Partner of love, then the parents will want to become one with this Subject Partner as their center.

That center where all of the family members become one in love, is a place of happiness and hope.

Everything must then be brought into oneness and unified through something more valuable and stimulating.

This is not possible based on our human love alone, but only from God, the true subject partner.

Return for Tomorrow's Post: We Enter Heaven as a Family Unit

This post was rewritten and derived from the textbook, Cheon Seong Gyeong Book Four Chapter Eleven, Section 1 and 2.