Becoming Warriors of True Love

The following message was given by young Unificationist Kosuke Enami at the Chicago Family Church on Sunday, September 25, 2016.

Good morning. I’d like to start off with gratitude. I’d like to say thank you to our Heavenly Parent and to True Parents, thank you to the people who are here and giving me this opportunity, because it’s a privilege to be up here. When you’re asked to speak, there are a lot of things you want to convey to the congregation; it’s not an everyday thing. I finally came up with the title for this sermon: “God’s Ultimate Warriors.” That may sound a bit cheesy, but that was the name of my team in the elementary school group at Camp KOHOE [in southwestern Michigan] this past summer. Unfortunately, they’re in Sunday school today and not here in the service, but I’m sure they understand what I’m talking about.

I’d like to explain a realization that I had during the past couple of weeks. It was just one moment, actually. One day I was at work, and I have this coworker whom I look up to. I wanted to talk to this person because I really respect this person, but apparently this person didn’t want to talk to me, or just minimal conversation like “Hey, how are you doing?” or “I’m doing good,” and that’s it. I kind of felt like this person didn’t like me. I realized I wanted a conversation with this person, but at the same time I just wanted love, and conversation is a big expression of love to me. I was able to connect that to the truth that love is the center of everything. It blew my mind. It’s something that True Parents have been teaching, and is probably in every message of theirs, but I didn’t link it to my own experience.

I thought, “Why do people eat food?” Yes, to maintain their physical health and their physical well-being, but also food is love; True Father says that in Chapter 2 of his autobiography. Why do people seek friends? For love. People go to the ocean for love. Every single thing is centered on love. I just had a realization that everyone wants love, but there are so many people who are lacking love, including myself. At that point I was feeling, “Oh, I don’t feel love right now.” I started thinking that I want to be the person to give, to start giving love to people, so I decided that for a whole week, “I’m going to give love to every person that I see. I’ll open the door for someone for the sake of love. I’ll go to work, and the first thing I’ll say is, ‘Hey, good morning.’” I wanted to see their frown turn upside down. I wanted them to smile. I think that brought me a lot of joy: to love people. There was a lot of joy to see people smile.

In the Bible, 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, it says: “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

What I’m trying to say is that there are so many ways to show love. To show patience, that’s part of love. For a week I had an amazing time: Left and right people were smiling because I brought that kind of environment, that atmosphere, and that was an amazing feeling for a whole week.

The second week came and it got harder, actually. When you keep giving, it’s harder. What was so hard was that when you try to do good things, there’s evil in this world and there’s opposition. Where there are mountains, there are valleys. 

I hit a wall when I was trying to center everything on love and just have a pure intention to make things right, make things good, and people rejected me. Why? “I’m trying to make your day better. Why would you reject me and give me negative feedback?” I didn’t understand these people, so I hit a wall one time because I was sick of it. I was like, “I’m trying to help you out and trying to help things out, but you don’t appreciate it and are not very supportive.” For a couple of days, I didn’t know what to do. I tried to read Hoon Dok Hwe every day, although I was not always consistent.

After a couple of days with that experience, I was reading Chambumo Gyeong, and the part that I read was about True Father going to prison. He said he went to prison with hope and expectation. I was able to connect my small experience to that amazing experience that True Father had. True Father had a pure intention, he came to save people, he wanted to love the members. That’s all he was doing, all he was doing was to love God, to liberate God and humankind. That was all he was thinking, and people put him in prison. What the heck? How was that fair?

I compared my situation to True Father’s situation. I would be so mad, I would be so “Cained out”—that’s a GPA [Generation Peace Academy] term, which some of you may know. Even though he was rejected by people with good intentions, he had hope and expectation. Specifically, he was talking about his expectation to meet prepared people in prison, and he also thought about what would come after prison—paying indemnity—and what would come after that—laying the foundation. He went to Danbury prison [1984-1985], and he wasn’t in despair with his misery, but instead he prayed for America. He thought about the future and what’s good ahead. I was able to connect to that situation. I felt a lot of True Parents’ love.

Today’s devotional reading—God bless Kensei. He chose it after I decided to talk about this. It talked about Joseph and his story. Joseph had those brothers who didn’t treat him very well, but in the end he loved them. His intention was love, even though his brothers betrayed him. His intention was love. He overcame that obstacle.

Same thing for Jesus, and same thing for Christians. They loved Jesus so much because he’s the Savior; he came to save the world. What did people do? They put him on the cross. You know what Jesus said? In Luke 23:34, he said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” I think they know what they do. I think they know what they’re doing, but no, actually, they don’t. Jesus had that love, that true love. People seek for love, but it’s not always true love, it’s not always absolute love that’s eternal, unchanging, and living for the sake of others. 

True Father also described it as: give, forget that you gave, and give again. That is so hard to do, but that is true love. That’s what Jesus did, and that’s why people are so attracted to him. We’re so attracted to True Father, True Parents, because they have that kind of love.

I had this experience and I kind of saw it as a scientific experiment, like—what would happen if I kept on loving people? Well, I hit a wall; that was my conclusion. Okay, what do I do after that? God might not always tell you the right thing at the right time, not at the time you want it, but just keep seeking, and I think that’s why we have True Parents. They’re a substantial being that gives you that kind of love. 

Today’s title is “God’s Ultimate Warriors” because I want you all to have that kind of mindset as warriors, or soldiers. Soldiers that would go out into the fields and pick flowers—that’s not why we call them soldiers, or warriors. We call them warriors and soldiers because they go to battlefields, and they are aware that they will face challenges. They are aware that people will shoot them or stab them. They won’t go to the battlefield and get shot and say, “Why’d you shoot me?” You don’t complain that someone shot you. You should already know that. As warriors, I think we’ve got to understand that when you love, you will have a block. It’s not easy. It’s not easy to go through life. It’s not easy to be successful. You must understand that and still do it because these soldiers do it for the sake of a greater purpose like, for their family, for the nation, for goodness to win. Let’s be grateful for our situations and stop complaining, because we’re soldiers for God and for True Parents.

Last two things. One is an experience from Camp KOHOE. I was there for about three weeks, and it was extremely tiring. For the first week and a half, I was on crutches. KOHOE is not flat. You go up the hill, down the hill, up the stairs, down the stairs with crutches. It’s very tiring. Mentally, it’s tiring too. I was having difficulty in that way. Every day I was out of energy, especially with the elementary school group. Those kids have so much energy, and you have to keep up with it.

One night I had a dream about True Father. He was sitting in a chair, and there was a line of people, and everyone was hugging him one by one. In the moment I was feeling, “Oh, it’s True Father and we’re hugging him now. I should feel honored and special about it, but I don’t, because we just go to the line and hug for three seconds and then move on.” It didn’t feel that special to me, but I felt like it should have. But then, it came to my turn to hug True Father. I went and leaned and hugged True Father, and he said two words: “Thank you.”

I felt a lot of True Parents’ love from that. I didn’t expect it to be very special in the beginning. That dream made it so special to me. It wasn’t just seeing True Father in the dream, but it was a dream in which I felt True Parents’ love. I’m saying that True Parents are the substantial form of God, and we should receive True Parents’ love. We are warriors for True Parents.

Finally, I would like to paint a picture for you of what a battle looks like. You guys are all soldiers, you are all warriors, and you guys have these machine guns loaded with love. You guys are shooting people with love. The enemy has regular guns. They’re shooting you, metaphorically. Like I said, I hope that you don’t complain that they have these guns, but that’s the point. When you have trouble, you’re going to keep shooting love to people, and then you’re going to hit a wall, and you’re going to feel, “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do, so I’m going to talk to my commander-in-chief, and that’s True Parents.” That’s all. Thank you.