© 1999 David E. Glass
© 1999 The Christian Fellowship of Students of The Urantia Book
Doing the Father’s will is a multi-faceted enterprise. Doing God’s will is a complete lifestyle which relates not only to what one does to fulfill the Father’s will, but also as to how one performs the will of God — the spirit with which the son or daughter of God approaches, discerns, and takes action regarding his or her highest concept of the Father’s will. However, many planetary mortals don’t know much about God’s will. Even some Urantia Book readers are not always certain about what the Father’s will may be: first, in their personal relationship with God; second, in their service to their brothers and sisters; and third, with reference to the information presented in the newly received revelation. In life we all perform many functions: familial, economic, intellectual, social, and spiritual; and they are each relevant to one or more aspects of the Father’s will.
One aspect of the Father’s will is work. Many people on Urantia seem to identify themselves with their mode of making a living, their line of work, and one’s program for gainful employment is relevant to the Father’s will. You may recall that a revelator states that the will of God can be done in any earthly occupation. And even in work there is a sense of brotherhood. Do you remember that there was a song in the Broadway musical and movie, “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying,” entitled, “There is a Brotherhood of Man?” I feel, of course, that the Father also has more and other activities in mind for accomplishment by each mortal during his lifetime on his nativity world.
Let’s consider Jesus’ life. He began professional work at the age of fifteen, because of his father’s untimely accidental death and because he was the eldest son in a large family. Jesus did not limit himself during his lifetime to only one method of acquiring funds; he worked briefly or for a few years at different vocations. Jesus excelled as a carpenter, a fisherman, a boat designer and boat builder; he worked as a miner, and a blacksmith. He was an ideal tutor for Ganid, an effective translator for Gonod, and a skilled caravan captain. Jesus completely fulfilled his obligation of earning a material livelihood, an experience required of all Paradise Bestowal Sons during their planetary sojourns. This was for him, as it is for us, an aspect of the Father’s will. Factually, Jesus had completed his material mortal maturation, and spiritually, he had earned his universe sovereignty of Nebadon by the time he was baptized in the Jordan by John the Baptist.
Another aspect of the Father’s will is that we solemnly consider and affirmatively choose eternal personality survival. Some of our dear brothers and sisters throughout Urantia feel trapped in their various religions because they have been mistaught that assent and adherence to a religious code are indispensable to everlasting survival. Life without survival is meaningless and pointless intellectually, dismaying and paralyzing to the will, absurd, baffling, and demeaning to the personality, and ultimately sorrowful and tragic to the unbelieving individual mortal. Have you examined atheistic existential philosophy or agnostic humanistic theology? These are currently prominent thought systems in our global society and in our universities and schools. Isn’t it a part of our divine assignment, part of the Father’s will, for us to comfort, enlighten, and liberate our spiritual siblings? God loves each of them even as he loves all personalities — unconditionally and infinitely. But, have no fear: 97% of Americans and a huge majority of people all around the world believe in God and almost as many have faith in personal survival after death. And let us recall the statement of the revelator who affirms that there is much more goodness in the world today than evil.
While there are difficulties in sharing the revelation, considering its length, breadth, and depth, I have found that there is almost no resistance to forthrightly sharing Jesus’ simple, twofold gospel of sonship or daughterhood with God and brother-or-sisterhood with all people. The truth about God is appearing, and eventually all individuals are destined to be delivered from the debilitating condition of the relative unavailability of bona fide truth on our world. All religions contain truth, and many share Jesus’ self-changing and world-transforming teaching of the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. Only transformed individuals can transform the world.
While there are difficulties in sharing the revelation, considering its length, breadth, and depth, I have found that there is almost no resistance to forthrightly sharing Jesus’ simple, twofold gospel of sonship or daughterhood with God and brother-or-sisterhood with all people.
Jesus understands this predicament fully; he knows first hand the immobility of traditional religious beliefs and man’s tendency towards an intractable resistance to truth. None of this situation is God’s fault, of course, and most of it is not man’s fault either. The predicaments of the world are not the product of a supposed inherent sinfulness of the human individual. God has many reasons for not miraculously transforming Urantia into a perfect planetary Utopia. First of all, evolution is the main objective in creating the grand universe-God wants us all to have the thrilling experience of co-creating with him a grand universe of light and life. Secondly, God is making provision for a complete and fair judgment to be rendered regarding the iniquitous participants in the Lucifer Rebellion — whom he still loves and desires not to lose. However, mercy must be desired to be effective, and the Father refuses to coerce the rebels to accept forgiveness, rehabilitation, and renewed participation in the progressive perfectionization of Urantia and the rest of our quarantined local system. Doing the Father’s will and accepting eternal life must be a free will choice.
Throughout his mortal life, Jesus was increasingly devoted to the non-required aspects of service to his planetary fellows. Jesus’ activities after his baptism were almost entirely composed of extra, additional, and unmandated service to his mortal children, both to those on Urantia and to those on the other inhabited planets scattered far and wide throughout Nebadon. He felt it was a part of the Father’s will so to serve. And Jesus taught us that it is God’s will that we, likewise, go the second mile in service to our fellow mortals.
As I see it, while, technically, we find ourselves in our Fifth Planetary Epoch, we are also still in our Post-Bestowal Son Age. We are in the first century of our Fifth Epoch, and we are 2,000 years into Michael’s Post-Bestowal Son Age. Now, Post-Bestowal Son Ages are ordinarily 10,000 to 100,000 planetary years long. I think it is the Father’s will, not only that we disseminate the teachings of the Fifth Epochal Revelation, but also that we function in our Bestowal Son Age by continuing Michael’s efforts to proclaim the gospel of the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man.
Seen from a revelation-enhanced perspective, the brothersisterhood of humankind is not just a concept or a rallying slogan; it is already a present spiritual reality, seeing that all normally minded and morally responsive people are sons and daughters of God by virtue of their identical origin. Spiritually, all human beings have the same Paradise Parent. And factually, they are all sons and daughters of God because they are all indwelt by perfect, infallible Thought Adjusters.
While the Father’s will includes a plan and a destiny for our planet and for the universe as a whole, God also has a plan and purpose for each planetary mortal. Such plans include, for example, the enlightening experience of parenthood, and such a requirement will be fulfilled in the Probationary Nursery on the Finaliter’s World if it is not experienced during mortal life.
The unique plan and purpose for each individual extends beyond planetary life to include: the local universe morontia career, the superuniverse spiritual ascension, the Havona experience, citizenship on Paradise, and, as members of the Mortal Corps of Finality, assignments in the other six superuniverses, and, beyond supremacy, administrative adventures in the Master Universe Outer Space Zones, and then never-ending activities in the unfathomable eternity of our postulated Cosmos Infinite careers. Such plans are probably known, I would suggest, only by the Father, by one’s particular Thought Adjuster, and perhaps by the Eternal Son and the Infinite Spirit. The Father’s will for the individual is, as we see, limitless. As a revelator writes, “The quest for God is endless!” (UB 106:7.5) While it seems to be the Father’s will that his children on Urantia know of this overwhelming future eternal destiny, a revelator also states that, at any given time, the work of one’s present life and current residential sphere is foremost in importance.
It is a part of the Father’s will that we know him — that we become God-conscious. “[God] has mobilized the resources of divine wisdom in a never-ending effort to reveal himself to the children of his universal domains.” (UB 5:1.2) For me, this is best achieved through the techniques of prayer, meditation, and worship. I find reading The Urantia Book, beneficial service to others, and socialization with other God-knowing mortals to be especially helpful. And, as Jesus taught, “It is not so important that you should know about the fact of God as that you should increasingly grow in the ability to feel the presence of God. When you once begin to find God in your soul, presently you will begin to discover him in other men’s souls and eventually in all the creatures and creations of a mighty universe.” (UB 155:6.12-13)
Concerning the proclamation of the gospel of sonship-or-daughterhood with God, Jesus trained his apostles experientially in order to convince them directly that such tactics as emotional appeal, miracle performance, physical healing, or simply feeding people do not necessarily create spiritually devoted human disciples and believers
On the subject of doing the Father’s will, a Divine Counselor writes, “The affectionate dedication of the human will to the doing of the Father’s will is man’s choicest gift to God; in fact, such a consecration of creature will constitutes man’s only possible gift of true value to the Paradise Father.” (UB 1:1.2) And a Solitary Messenger also testifies, “[T]he doing of [God’s] will is the secret of survival and of perfection in survival… [W] hen the creature personality consents — chooses — to subject the creature will to the Father’s will… [s] uch a creature choice is not a surrender of will. It is a consecration of will, an expansion of will, a glorification of will, a perfecting of will… [And] this choosing does not so much consist in the negation of creature will — ‘Not my will but yours be done’ — as it consists in the creature’s positive affirmation: ‘It is my will that your will be done.’” (UB 111:5.6)
It is the Father’s will (as revealed by Jesus) that all his mortal children love and serve their spiritual brothers and sisters with the wholeheartedness and devotion with which Jesus loved and served mankind. Jesus enjoined fatherly (not just brotherly or sisterly) love for all and service to all. And happily this is generally becoming a goal for students of The Urantia Book throughout the world.
Now because of the scope of the revelation, we also know that truth teaching and the encouragement of family-like fellowship among mortals began on our world (far prior to Michael’s bestowal mission) some 500,000 years ago with the advent of our then loyal Planetary Prince, Caligastia, and his serviceful staff. And, even earlier, the promotion of positive and fair personality relationships — as the will of the god of the “Great Beyond” — was hinted at and partially established by Onagar, the first truth teacher, almost a million years ago.
Concerning the proclamation of the gospel of sonshipor-daughterhood with God, Jesus trained his apostles experientially in order to convince them directly that such tactics as emotional appeal, miracle performance, physical healing, or simply feeding people do not necessarily create spiritually devoted human disciples and believers. We are immeasurably blessed to have the written account of how Jesus did go about training leaders to perform effectively as kingdom builders, because we can now look and learn from their experiences before we leap into planetary gospel proclamation. We have much material from which to formulate wise ways of proclaiming the gospel in accordance with the Father’s will, while it is necessary for us to adapt them to conditions in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Let us respond to Jesus’ charge, “As the Father sent me into this world, even so now send I you.” (UB 191:6.3)
Jesus taught that, by doing the Father’s will, we will attract others’ interests and lead our fellows to inquire of us as to the source of our optimism, the cause for our service motivation, and the reason for our devoted living.
It is our Father’s will that we devote time to the pursuit of our own progress in the conquest of the seven psychic circles. We are to progress individually; but with each step of spiritual discovery, we are to find new and more effective means of utilizing such insights in helpful forms of service and in the formulation of accomplishable, practical goals for humanity. The ideals for human progress are born in the inner life of the individual mortal — in his highest thinking guided by the divine Adjuster.
Of course, it is the Father’s will that we study The Urantia Book. Ultimately, it was God’s will that this revelation be given to us. The preparation and bestowal of Urantia’s Fifth Epochal Revelation was mandated by the Ancients of Days, who speak for the Paradise Trinity, which, in turn, can sometimes be seen to be primarily the will of the Father himself. It was never intended that man should live and progress without revelation. Arevelator states that revelation is indispensable to the materialization of the brotherhood of man on Urantia. Purely human sources of idealism and mortal catalyzers of a positive, en masse mobilization of effort on the part of planetary mortals toward the actualization of a higher and global civilization, without relevant revelation, would be inadequate and unavailing.
Jesus taught that, by doing the Father’s will, we will attract others’ interests and lead our fellows to inquire of us as to the source of our optimism, the cause for our service motivation, and the reason for our devoted living. Thereby will they find access to the revelational truths that have transformed our lives. This seems to be the wisdom circulated by many of the students of The Urantia Book today.
Jesus encouraged his apostles and Ganid to inform themselves of the beliefs of others, and The Urantia Book provides a detailed but succinct summary of all the great world religions. Ecumenical studies and interfaith dialogue are therefore clearly a part of the Father’s will for Urantia.
God’s will includes the material and scientific study of the cosmos as well as the spiritual pursuit of increasingly meaningful cosmic citizenship. Just as we may devote some of our time during our Paradise ascension careers to functioning as star students of the physical cosmos, so will we also continue to be evolving contributors to the emerging Supreme Being. Science and spirituality are to be associated and balanced through improving cosmic philosophy stimulated by the new information afforded to all Urantian thinkers in the Fifth Epochal Revelation, and by art, the pursuit of the Beautiful.
It is stated on the very first page of the (post-Foreword) text that one of God’s principle reasons for peopling the innumerable spheres of the universe of universes with love-experiencing beings is so that God would have more and more intelligent personalities to love, “beings who could know God, receive the divine affection, and love him in return.” (UB 1:0.2) Thus being loved by God and loving him back is one of the best and most enjoyable forms of doing the Father’s eternal will while experiencing his infinite love.
Let us all continue to pray for the ongoing progress of our entire planetary community toward greater education about and knowledge of God’s will. God loves each personality infinitely and unconditionally. Certainly we all want to serve our Father wisely and well as we seek to discern the overall and the specific aspects of his will for all of us collectively and for our individual lives. Our Father is giving to each individual mortal: infinite love, astounding revelation, a divine Thought Adjuster, and eternal life. Let us all respond by striving to discern and to do the Father’s will. As a dear friend of mine frequently liked to say: “May God’s will be done — by you!”
David Glass is a writer and musician and a long time student of The Urantia Book who lives in Beaverton, OR.