Reflection of Dr. C. S. Yong's Morning Devotion
Message: Growing a Deep Emotional Life of Faith
May 27, 2020 by Rafael E. Ablong
Dr. Yong's message today is al about "Growth of A Deep Emotional Life of Faith". To me, this means nurturing a deep emotional life of faith that helps me to cultivate a life of heart, attendance, and faithful action centering on God's Will and providence at this time of the dispensation.
This helps us develop the ability of impression and premonition to recognize things before they happen. This sermon is significant because it reminds me of the few times that I experienced God's presence and direct guidance. Especially, in times of need, danger, and overall survival. Of particular importance were the times when I meet Him through our True Parents, Abels, sacrificial brethren in the church, and various experience from fundraising and other church missions.
Dr. Yong's message made me realize that:
1. God guides us and shows us the future through our dreams. All the visual manifestations of God in my life are evidence of His love and care. I only understood His presence in my life when I studied the Divine Principle and experienced the love of True Parents through the guidance and inspirations of my leaders and church brothers and sisters. It makes me reflect on the investment of heart, hard work, and hardships of Heavenly Parents even before I was born. This message guides us on how to develop our five spiritual senses and the ability to understand dreams so we can use it in our daily life as we do the Will of God on earth.
2. Sometimes, even if we pray hard we do not receive God's inspiration through dreams, visions, or impressions of the physical and spiritual reality because we need to pray harder and more sincerely, naturally. The reason why we are given so many missions and positions in the movement almost at the same, at some point, is so that Satan cannot invade us easily and we can improve the innate abilities of our spiritual senses.
3. Our faith and connection to God are developed through direct experience. Directly experiencing God's sorrowful and longing heart through various church missions and responsibilities like fundraising and witnessing can develop our potential capacity to recognize things and situations through dreams and spiritual experiences. By becoming one with God's Heart, we enable our premonition or impression to sense things before they happen which helps us actually to physically survive, avoid danger, or to grasp an important opportunity to succeed.
4. True Father taught us step-by-step to capacitate each of us to look and know beyond our times and situations. The Fall has made us all ignorant and incapable of cognition and appreciation of our great human potential as co-creators, co-ruler, and as the visible body of the invisible God.
5. A prayerful life of faith and single-minded devotion to doing God's Will coupled with hard work and sacrifice will help us to fulfill God's original ideal nature in us. This is the nature or ability to see beyond looking, feel beyond touching, listen beyond hearing, smell beyond our olfactory perception, and taste with foreknowledge. When we have a strong prayer life, constant communion with God, and meet Him through direct experience in the mission life, then our spiritual senses improve our capacity to work naturally, increases.
6. The most unforgettable dreams and premonitions I have in my life are:
-Pampanga (sometime in 1985). While sleeping on the ground outside the Fiera, in a big place near a university, with some brothers led by Kuya Dante. A person in a dream (an Angel), woke me up and told me to be aware that a group of armed men (policemen) would come and question us who we are. He said to me, wake up everybody and have them show their church (HSA=UWC) ID to these armed men and everyone will be safe. After I woke up brothers and sisters and told them about the ID, the armed men came and asked who we were and what we were doing in the city. We showed them our IDs and told them we were HSA-UWC missionaries. They understood and left us eventually at peace.
-At the 3-Day Ceremony Room of the Old Antipolo Training Center (June 1995). In the middle of the night, while sleeping after our third day of the Three -Day Ceremony. I had a very real physical dream of a long-haired Japanese-Chinese looking lady who was about to kill my wife with a knife in the air. I held her arms with the knife in it and struggled to keep her away from my wife. I was shouting and fighting with her until I woke up. I told my wife about it. That time, I realized I need to pray always for my wife and stay with her to protect her, and never leave her for safety and security reasons.
-At the Pasig Guest House of the Church Business Department in Bgy. San Antonio, Pasig City (Sometime in June 1996, 5:00 am) During the 8-Day Ceremony of my firstborn child, Masato. I heard God's voice from Heaven saying "What is it, my son?". My bones trembled and I felt the small room we were in with my wife and son, entirely filled with a big, bright, comforting light. It was for a moment but it felt like it was there for a long time already. I told my wife about it and we prayed together so seriously with commitment and determination to stay together and do mission together.
-Singalong, Malate. At the house where I stayed together with Raul Caballero and Kuya Soc Talaba for a while. Sometime in 1994, after reading the World Unseen, I became spiritually aware I was followed by the spirit of the person who wrote the book. He was with me wherever I went. Even when I am on a Jeepney or bus. I refused to listen to him and even pretended not to notice him. I prayed hard with True Parents' picture and gave the book to somebody and ended my contact with him. There was another spiritual phenomenon in the building after that and I prayed to God and talk to that person and used the holy salt to purify the place. It disappeared. I felt the spirit of God so strongly with me at that time.
-I dreamed of True Father twice or three times just smiling or looking at me without saying anything which made me always think of my spiritual dignity, purity, and connection to God and if I am helping Their mission on earth or not.
-I also dreamed of True Mother and Heung Jin Nim when I was at my most prayerful and struggling moments. Especially, when I was doing construction work in 1985 for the old Antipolo 2 Training Center just a few weeks before I met Mr. Murotani, Rev. Kwak, and 5 other people including Kuya Soc Talaba for the mission to study and penetrate the UP Diliman Campus through CARP, VOC-CAUSA, and TIMD activities.
-I have a few more dreams and experiences even here in Japan but it is making this reflection longer. So let me just stop writing here and say that maybe I inherited the prayerful spirit of my mother who was also a "faith healer", community organizer, and founding pioneer of the Holy Face Association in Dumaguete City.
Thank you, Dr. Yong, for your love and passion to share God's heart of sorrow, longing, and expectation so that we can grow up to become members realizing God's Will. Whenever messages like this are given. I always feel that God is the reason why I am here. Sometimes I think I am just a lighthouse on a small island. I cannot go anywhere but I provide the light as a marker so people will know where it is and nobody will crash, die, or get injured here. But even in this situation, I can still use the power of God and True Parents' love, my blessing, and the Divine Principle so I can fulfill my 430 Blessed HTM Couples and 430 Ancestors Blessed Couples mission. I know it can be hard, but with God's Heart and Love, everything is possible.
Thank you so much, Dr. Yong, for your daily morning devotion.
-- Rafael E. Ablong
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