© 1988 Janet Weeks
© 1988 ANZURA, Australia & New Zealand Urantia Association
How fortunate we are to have problems in our lives. Upheavals to cope with, illnesses to bear, family pressures and arguments, differing opinions thrown at us from all sides. Unemployment.
Ever feel that you are “caught in the middle”? Can’t cope?
Pressures at work, more decisions to make. The irate customer to deal with — and the anxious and uncertain one. Deadlines to meet. Stress. Tension.
Critical illness of a child or someone close to you. And, also, the loneliness following the parting on this earth with a loved one.
Do you ever feel that you can’t take much more?
of course we can take heaps more.
It is through coping with life’s problems and challenging situations that we learn to make decisions and obtain the opportunity to grow. Learning understanding and tolerance are just by-products.
In answer to Simon’s question “Why are some persons so much much more happy and contented than others? Is contentment a matter of religious experience?”, Jesus answered “… Much of man’s sorrow is born of the disappointment of his ambitions and the wounding of his pride … All too many of man’s troubles take origin in the fear soil of his own natural heart. … Seek not, then, for false peace and transient joy but rather for the assurance of faith and the sureties of divine sonship which yield composure, contentment, and supreme joy in the spirit”. (UB 149:5.3-4)
How did Jesus teach his apostles to solve their problems? He taught them to face them, talk about them together, but most importantly to share them with our Heavenly Father. Sometimes Jesus sent them to visit family and friends, or he took them out into the hills or by the seaside, away from the pressures of the crowds and their daily lives. Together they would simply enjoy each-other’s company and relax with. nature. Sometimes he even forbade them to mention the crisis at hand.
On their return, they always found out that that which had seemed insurmountable had faded in significance because of their increased resources to cope. He assured them that “Since your lives have been lived in the spirit and for the Father, nothing can be of serious concern to you. Kingdom builders, the accredited citizens of the heavenly worlds, are not to be disturbed by temporal upheavals or perturbed by terrestrial cataclysms. What does it matter to you who believe this gospel of the kingdom if nations overturn, the age ends, or all things visible crash, since you know that your life is the gift of the Son, and that it is eternally secure in the Father? Having lived the temporal life by faith and having yielded the fruits of the spirit as the righteousness of loving service for your fellows, you can confidently look forward to the next step in the eternal career with the same survival faith that has carried you through your first and earthly adventure in sonship with God.” (UB 176:3.2)
Jesus “lived in the midst of stress and storm, but he never wavered”. (UB 149:4.5) How did he solve his own problems? Remember what he did after the healing at sundown? or before his trial? Or before the Capernaum crisis?
Rodan of Alexandria made the observation: “But the greatest of all methods of problem solving I have learned from Jesus, your Master. I refer to that which he so consistently practices, and which he has so faithfully taught you, the isolation of worshipful meditation. In this habit of Jesus’ going off so frequently by himself to commune with the Father in heaven is to be found the technique, not only of gathering strength and wisdom for the ordinary conflicts of living, but also of appropriating the energy for the solution of the higher problems of a moral and spiritual nature”. (UB 160:1.10)
“This worshipful practice of your Master brings that relaxation which renews the mind; that illumination which inspires the soul; that courage which enables one bravely to face one’s problems; that self-understanding which obliterates debilitating fear; and that consciousness of union with divinity which equips man with the assurance that enables him to dare to be Godlike. The relaxation of worship, or spiritual communion as practiced by the Master, relieves tension, removes conflicts, and mightily augments the total resources of the personality.” (UB 160:1.12)
And we, 2000 years later, still live in the midst of stress and storm. only the location and times have changed. The assurance of personal faith and relationship with God is all we need to get through.
Being able to draw on the bank of faith which we have given to us is a function which has no end. And the miraculous part about it is, that the more we draw on it, the larger and stronger it becomes! Not like my bank account!
How sublimely confident we struggling mortals are, to have such assurance and comfort of the Spirit. “Jesus portrayed the profound surety of the God-knowing mortal when he said: “To a God-knowing kingdom believer, what does it matter if all things earthly crash?" Temporal securities are vulnerable, but spiritual sureties are impregnable. When the flood tides of human adversity, selfishness, cruelty, hate, malice, and jealousy beat about. the mortal soul, you may rest in the assurance that there is one inner bastion, the citadel of the spirit, which is absolutely unassailable; at least this is true of every human being who has dedicated the keeping of his soul to the indwelling spirit of the eternal God.” (UB 100:2.7)
“And throughout every trial and in the presence of every hardship, spirit-born souls are sustained by that hope which transcends all fear because the love of God is shed abroad in all hearts by the presence of the divine Spirit.” (UB 34:6.13)
“God-knowing individuals are not discouraged by misfortune or downcast by disappointment. Believers are immune to the depression consequent upon purely material upheavals spirit livers are not perturbed by the episodes of the material world. Candidates for eternal life are practitioners of an invigorating and constructive technique for meeting all of the vicissitudes and harassments of mortal living.” (UB 156:5.13)
So let us revel in the fact that we are beset with problems and stress. Let us draw on our faith, and let us dare to use our oars of religion and revelation which have been dedicated to us, so that we may direct our lives to the will of God as we grow and share and ascend together.
Janet Weeks, Banora Point (Tweed Heads, NSW)