Giving Creates Prosperity
How will you spread prosperity and joy this season?
With the holidays upon us, we are reminded of the blessings we’re grateful for in our lives, including our beliefs and values centered on living for the sake of others. True Mother, in her bestselling memoir Mother of Peace (2020), illustrates how selflessly giving creates both intangible and material rewards, and how such prosperity shapes our lives.
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As we head into the last few weeks of the year, let’s be mindful to invest ourselves in the things that matter most. Below is an excerpt from Mother of Peace where True Mother shares the wisdom of giving and the boundless prosperity it brings.
Excerpt:
“As a little girl, I never had money and hardly knew what it was. When I got a bit older, in the maelstrom of the division of Korea, we had to flee our hometown empty-handed to preserve our lives. We remained penniless for a long time. Moreover, my maternal grandmother and my mother were devoted to God's Will and our lives had little to do with money.
After I married, tithes and offerings came in and went out just as fast for public purposes. I did not have any concern about making a fashion statement. Sometimes, when I saw an expensive purse, I wondered, ‘What might the money in that purse be used for?’ More important than how much money is in a wallet is the question of how it is spent.
The path of one’s money shapes one’s fate. According to God's Word, our responsibility is to have dominion of love over all things and to share our prosperity.
As explained in Genesis, God made Adam and Eve and told them to ‘be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and have dominion over all things.’ Our movement's economic activities began humbly in Father Moon’s mud-walled hut in Beomil-dong, Busan, during the last months of the Korean War. Father Moon and one disciple, Won Pil Kim, would create and sell simple portraits for American soldiers. When the church moved to Seoul, members collected stamps and sold them, and they colored in black-and-white photos and sold them along the roadside. Through these and other small businesses, we supported our missionary activities.
Our first step on the path to a real business venture was in 1960 when we set up Tongil Industries. Korea now exports all kinds of merchandise throughout the world, but in the 1960s, no one would ever have imagined that Korea's machine industry would develop as robustly as it has. We began Tongil Industries with a Japanese lathe that was destined for the trash bin. Our prayer was that God would bless our new company and that it would one day become the world's foremost manufacturer of machine parts.
By developing our expertise, Tongil Industries grew from manufacturing the Yehwa Air Rifle to making parts for equipment used in our country's defense. As a leading machinery enterprise in Korea, we not only acquired technologies to help Korea, we went on to share our technology with people around the world. Next, we established the Ilhwa Company Ltd., which pioneered the export of high-quality ginseng products. Ginseng was unknown in the West at the time but now it is a household item. Ilhwa is recognized both for its excellent products and as a leader in ginseng science.
Inspired by our vision, our members have started many businesses. While this supports the economic development of our country and the world, our purpose goes beyond that. Our goal is for all people in the world to enjoy mutual prosperity.
We believe in sharing the tools of technology among all peoples. With true family values and technology in harmony with the natural world, we all can live and work together in a pleasant social environment. Our philosophy of living for the sake of others is the driving force behind all of this. It is a fundamental truth that we should take care of those who are less fortunate than ourselves… This is the way of mutual prosperity.”
You can learn more about True Mother in her memoir available here.