Faith & Life

God Knows Everything

“What do you want to do if you become invisible?” This is a frequently asked question in a superpower quiz. Answers vary, but some are always included: visiting places for free, taking things to one’s heart’s content, following someone one likes, or giving somebody trouble. Whatever it is, the common thing is that they generally try to do something different from usual when they are not seen; they want to do things that they can’t do due to their self-consciousness or restrictions. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.Heb 4:13 Nobody is invisible to God. God knows everything we think, everything…

Lively Family Is Good at Greeting

As a proverb says, “The way you greet someone determines how he will welcome you,” greetings are the key to success in your social life. Greetings are not only the way to be polite but make the other person feel good because they are an expression of your good feeling and concern for him or her. So if you are good at greeting people, things will go well. Greetings also play a big role in building a happy family. The family who exchanges greetings in time has a cheerful mood. Good greetings between family members lead them to respect and be considerate of each other, and they naturally come to converse often. It is also a great home education for…

Having the Same Care for One Another

I’ve never been part of a dance group in my life. When I was asked if I wanted to partake in the dance for the elderly, I took this blessing with great gratitude. I was not good at it but I didn’t want to lose the opportunity of blessing. Brothers named the dance group and practiced dancing every day. We all helped one another in creating an outfit we would wear for the day. We worked all night in preparation for the event and at times we seemed to get tired, but we encouraged each other by reminding one another of our goal that was to bring joy, laughter, and happiness to the elderly. Finally, we finished the costumes, but…

Byron Reveles from Sunland, CA, U.S.

How to Get Up Early in the Morning

It is easy to lie down at night, but it is hard to get up at once from your cozy bed in the morning. Many people struggle in their beds every morning, or take another minute, and eventually rush out of home, being pressed for time. Particularly, cold weather tempts you to sleep all the more, but there is a scientific way to wake up in an entertaining way. Our brain has a compensation system called Ventral Tegmental Area [VTA]. If this part is activated, we can easily wake up from sleep. In other words, it needs enough reward. Although people usually oversleep, on a day when they go on a trip, they wake up even before the alarm rings.…

The Place beyond Your Imagination

Man’s imagination is limitless. When you see an incredible invention or a beautiful work of art made out of brilliant imagination, you would marvel, exclaiming, “Wow.” When somebody achieves something that nobody thought was possible, people praise him with expressions like “He’s done something beyond imagination,” or “His work is more than what you’ve ever imagined.” However, as it is written: “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him” 1 Co 2:9 The kingdom of heaven is out of reach for human imagination. No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no language can describe it, and no mind can even picture it. That’s why God of…

To Finish the Spiritual Marathon

My mom died when I was three, and my father did when I was nine. My oldest sister, who was sixteen years old at that time, became the head of our family, and we strove to overcome the sorrow for losing our parents and the financial difficulties. After I entered middle school, I learned running and became a member of the national team as a marathoner. Unfortunately, however, my ankle got injured while training in the severe cold of under -40ºC [-40ºF], and I had to give up being an athlete. I grew up, overcoming the absence of my parents and the hard life of athlete, and I became arrogant; I felt proud of myself for being strong and successful.…

Enkhod from Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

To Create a Dense Forest

Forests not only purify the air, but also regulate humidity, temperature, and wind speed. Also, they provide us with a lot of products such as wood, herbs, and fruits, prevent landslides, and become nesting places for various plants and animals, which makes the ecosystem harmonious. We’ve found a way to make these important forests healthier. More than 80 scientists from universities and research institutes in 44 countries, including the University of West Virginia, University of Minnesota, and the Ecology Research Center of the Netherlands, have done a research on more than 30 million trees. The research reported that if tree species are reduced by 10%, forests’ productivity is reduced by about 3%; and if it gets reduced by 99%, the…

We Are All Friends

In Western society there is an idea called six degrees of separation that anyone in the planet can be connected to anyone else in just six steps. It basically means that human relationships are all connected to each other in a few steps. An American social psychologist, Stanley Milgram, did an experiment to prove this in 1967. He’d made some residents of the Midwest in the United States send mails through their acquaintances to a stockbroker living in Boston whom they didn’t even know, to see in how many steps it gets delivered. The mails arrived to the recipient through an average of five steps. A simple mathematical calculation of the experimental results is as follows: When we assume that…

Family Is Not Coincidental, but Inevitable!

Family is a group of people who share genes biologically and have the same or related blood types. Since all cells of the body are provided with nutrition and oxygen through blood, blood is the basis of life. Family shares the blood. Family relationship is stronger than any other relationships. There is a saying about family cohesion: “Blood is thicker than water.” The love for family members cannot be cut off. It is natural for people separated from their families to make efforts to find them, unless they left their families by their own will. People say the relationship between parents and children is destined by heaven. Life is a series of choices, but parents, siblings, and children are not…

Eight-year-old Son Who Saved His Father

A man in China was given only six months to live due to acute leukemia. The only way to live was bone marrow transplantation. Even after three months, no bone marrow match was found. When the whole family got anxious, they finally found the right person. However, the man stubbornly refused the surgery because it was his eight-year-old son who was going to give bone marrow. The man changed his mind with difficulty at his wife’s persuasion that the child needs his father’s love for his lifetime, and his son got ready for bone marrow transplantation. What was needed first was that the son should gain 10 kg or more weight until he would weigh 45 kg. He gradually ate…

My Path, My Goal

‘What is it that I really want to do? Then what should I do right now for that work?’ After entering college, I lost my goal and directions both physically and spiritually and wandered around. I felt so frustrated that I didn’t know what I could do about it. Then I flew to Australia where my older sister was living and stayed there for two months, which became a once-in-a-lifetime turning point for me. At first, I wasted my time as I did in Korea. Then I went out to preach with the local Zion members. All I could do was just stand by them because I didn’t speak good English, but the brothers and sisters still expressed their thanks.…

Ryu Su-hyeon from Seongnam, South Korea

Worry First, Enjoy Later

先憂後樂 This is a four-character Chinese idiom written in the essay, Yueyang Lou Ji (On Yueyang Tower) by Fan Zhongyan, a noted premier in the Northern Song dynasty of China. It means, “A venerable man is concerned about the future of the country before others begin to do so, seeking his own pleasure only after the people are assured of their happiness.” So this expression is often mentioned to emphasize the mindset of those who are entrusted with something great of a country. In the Bible too, there is such a role model. It is Apostle Paul. In the process of preaching the gospel, although he encountered so many dangers and went through overflowing sufferings, he was always concerned about…

I Am Always on Your Side

When I was a high school senior, whenever I needed pocket money, I used to sell my articles online rather than ask my parents for allowance. Trade of used articles seemed to have many advantages; I could not only make pocket money but also clear away the items I no longer used, and I could have a sense of economy. Fascinated by used goods trade, I thought over how to make a profit through the trade although I outwardly seemed to study hard in the reading room like other students. While spending precious time on buying and selling things, Scholastic Aptitude Test was just around the corner. One day, I received a call from the police station. I was told…

Kang Min-seo from Seongnam, South Korea

Banbogi (Meeting at the Midpoint)

In Joseon Dynasty in Korea, married women could hardly visit their parents. At that time, a married daughter was no longer a member of her own family and had to become a member of her husband’s family thoroughly. Such daughters-in-law were allowed one-day trip to their parents around Chuseok, an autumn festival, after a busy farming season. But staying away from home overnight was not considered acceptable for women. What was worse, if their parents lived far, it was not easy for them to return home the same day. That’s why they had banbogi. Banbogi was a custom of married daughters’ meeting their family members at the midpoint between the two villages. In anticipation of banbogi, women prepared special delicacies…

Age Groups

In 2015, the United Nations [UN] presented the age groups again, considering the average life span, physical changes, etc. This result was brought by taking the increase of the elderly's longevity with the development of science and medical technology into account. When we look into the age groups divided into five stages, until age 17, it’s considered as under age, age 18–65 as young adults, age 66–79 as middle-aged, age 80–99 as older person, and age over 100 as elderly person; we’re literally living the 100-year life. Some perspectives think it’s chimerical but generally people are welcoming the new age groups because as much as young adult and middle-aged period—the most energetic and active period in lifetime—is long they will…

Opportunities in Everyday Life

People say, “An opportunity is just like long bangs which we find it easy to catch but hard to recognize that we miss it often; it has no back hair, so we cannot catch it again once it gets passed by; it also passes so quickly as if it has wings on its shoulders and heels.” So people say they have to grasp the opportunity at the right time. But how many times in our lives do we sense it, thinking, ‘This is the very opportunity!’? If we can recognize the golden opportunity at first glance, none of us will foolishly miss the opportunity. Opportunities come into our everyday lives and constantly flow like time. Ichizo Kobayashi, a Japanese industrialist,…

If We Work with One Mind

In the morning after a heavy snow warning was issued, I received a message that we were going to volunteer to remove the snow. When I got ready and arrived at Zion, it was already crowded with brothers and sisters, holding different kinds of snow removal tools, even from the entrance. We made teams and left for each assigned location. The snow on the big road around Zion had already melted, but in small alleys were icy roads. We started to remove the snow, walking carefully as if we were stepping on an ice skating rink. Although there was no one giving directions, we knew what to do; those with shovels broke the ice, those with brooms gathered the broken…

Im Mi-ran from Seoul, South Korea

Like a Diamond

Diamond is considered to be the emperor of gemstones and the hardest natural mineral on earth. It’s composed of carbon just like graphite that becomes a material of pencils and charcoal. Although diamond and graphite are made entirely out of the same atoms, while graphite and charcoal break up easily and appear black in color, how could diamond become a gemstone that symbolizes “everlasting love” with colorless transparent beauty and great hardness? The answer lies in the difference of their distinct crystal structures. In charcoal and graphite, the carbon atoms, a network of regular hexagons, are arranged in an infinite array but they are layered. So they are easily broken even by weak forces. But diamond is the hardest material…

Make a Family Time Capsule

What plans did you make with your family around this time last year? In the New Year, we make many plans to spend the year more fruitfully. As time passes, however, it tends to end in smoke unlike the first resolution. How about writing down those goals and commitments this year and putting them in a time capsule? You may add letters, meaningful objects, and photos. Then keep it sealed for a year and open it with your family at the end of the year. When you open the time capsule that contains what you wrote, imagining how better you would change a year later and love for your family, won’t it be a fun and meaningful time? Tip Write…

Walking with God

I spent the summer of 2017 in Fukuoka, Japan, and in January of the following year, I participated in the overseas mission for a month in Japan again. This time, it was in Yokohama. Before departure, I was excited, wondering what kind of gospel work I would witness in Yokohama although it was still the same country. However, what I felt when I arrived in Yokohama was completely different from what I had expected. Although Yokohama is the second most populous city in Japan, it was difficult to meet a soul seeking the truth. Even when I simply greeted them, they said no right away or passed me by without even looking at me. No fruit was borne though I…

Do Seong-yeong from Tongyeong, South Korea