© 1996 Jeffrey Wattles
© 1996 International Urantia Association (IUA)
Jeffrey Wattles
Stow, Ohio, USA
In all the Scriptures there is no commandment that thrills me and challenges me and provokes my meditations so much as the words of Moses from Leviticus and Deuteronomy, repeated in the presence of Jesus by the Jewish lawyer, and confirmed by the Master as the way to eternal life: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength; and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” There is no experience in mortal living or beyond it, I would hazard, that surpasses the joy of really loving God-wholeheartedly, with a complete, coordinated personality, and genuinely loving our fellow beings. Whenever we touch that life, we know it to be true and good and beautiful, and we know that its source and destiny is God.
Most of us, however, have gone through times when we feel not only absent from the exuberance of divine living, but we feel definitely in a slump. We feel that, for the present, we cannot love wholeheartedly. We cannot just flip a switch between our ribs and turn on the energies of real love. This condition I call the spiritual downs. The symptoms vary somewhat from one case to another, but they include: loss of confidence, withdrawing socially—especially from the company of those strong in faith—, weakening in faith, blaming others for problems, doubting our standing with God, and being generally unhappy.
When we diagnose the spiritual downs, we can usually offer a very optimistic prognosis: the prospects are excellent; the patient can expect to live forever. Anyone with faith enough to worry about their spiritual health may be a little foolish, but such a one can use that same faith energy to take salvation for granted.
Remember, only a living organism can catch a cold. There are some spiritual problems that are in fact signs of life. Remember the rich young ruler who came to Jesus desiring to enter the kingdom. When asked to sell all that he had, he went away in sadness. In that sadness was the germ of faith. He did not merely say, “Give up my wealth? Are you crazy or something?” He felt a genuine conflict there. Of course it takes decisions to ripen the germs of faith, but the gospel that had begun to attract him and whose power had brought him to the Master for that interview would become the dominant influence in his life.
Sometimes the case with the symptoms of the spiritual downs is in fact more serious. In such cases, the individual has not really made a decision for the Father and may stand at the parting of the ways. “Choose this day whom you will serve!” thundered Joshua; and our hypothetical patient may be facing such a moment.
Now a person might ask, “How can I know whether my case is critical or not, whether my soul stands at the parting of the ways or whether this is just another one of those little times that most of us go through occasionally?” The essence of the spiritual downs is to confuse these two cases. The more hypocritical types underestimate the importance of the crisis; the more sincere individuals often take matters much too seriously. During the experience of symptoms the patient is liable to misjudge the situation. Therefore, it is important to have a treatment procedure which be of benefit without requiring judgment.
There is one more reason for choosing a method of dealing with the spiritual downs that applies equally to the person who has made the decision for the Father and to the person who has not. The reason is that none of us has perfectly achieved the decision of the Father. Who of us can say that we have reached such self-mastery that we have decided forever and finally to be loyal to the Father’s will? The character of freedom, especially for us mortals, is that even our best and strongest decisions need to be upheld by ever new decisions.
We have now characterized the spiritual downs as a temporary felt inability to love. We have listed some symptoms and considered that the symptoms might indicate something fairly trivial or something as important as a crisis of finding and deciding for God by someone who has been only a half-hearted believer until now.
Let us now formulate some attitudes to lead us in discerning the path of healing for the spiritual downs.
Can we not discern in these times a tremendous opportunity? Does our soul merely wander into such depths for nothing? Is it not a blessing that we are reminded again of our need to cry forth for the saving hand of our God, the Universal Father? Can we love the Father with a whole heart if we have not verified his sovereignty and love in our anguish and ennui, in our moments of despair or stretches of monotony?
When once we understand our suffering, we are the more prepared in mind to discern the Father’s fellowship in whatever afflictions we may bear. Some suffering comes because of misused free will, some because of the inherent liabilities of this organism which is our mortal house. Who would sacrifice the priceless gift of freedom to be kept unharmed by the results of evil and sin ? Who would purchase freedom from injury and disease at the cost of giving up this initial life in the flesh?
When I consider the great number of complainers about life, and how relatively few people take their own lives, I realize what an overwhelming vote of confidence the human race actually gives to the Creator, by living practically, day by day, by choosing life. Life is good, and we all know it on a level more deep than our conversation or philosophy may acknowledge.
Now we have a background for considering the treatment of the downs. The first phase of the treatment is to ignore the symptoms. This is a very surprising recommendation, but when you recall how many of our troubles are just made up in our minds, the idea will make more sense. How many doctors have said, “Go take a vacation”? Jesus came right out with it: Be not anxious. Be of good cheer. Continue about whatever you are doing, working to do your best at whatever you undertake
Often the complaints cease with a few days of this application, and love of the Father and his family is once again restored. Lots of problems are so superficial as to respond well to benign neglect.
The wisdom of the first suggestion is that it avoids spiritual hypochondria. Some people go around taking their spiritual pulse—compulsively. My Dad used to shock many students who came in for counseling to his office at Rockford College with the question, “What have you done for others lately?” Jesus’ religion was not one of selfexamination, but one of love and service. Perhaps if we do not feel loving some morning, it is merely some changing reaction to our material environment; it may be no problem worth our concern.
The second phase of treatment, surprisingly, can be taken at the same time as the first. It is: to persist in prayer, take a second hour for worship during the day, meditate in the presence of the God of heaven. Persistence, I was told as a salesman, is everything. Jesus told about the judge in a certain town who respected neither God nor man. A widow kept coming to him asking for justice in a claim against her enemy. For a long time he refused, but at last he said to himself, “Maybe I have neither fear of God nor respect for man, but since she keeps pestering me, I must give this woman her just rights, or she will persist in coming and worry me to death.” Luke 18:1-5, (UB 144:2.5). Jesus told this parable to encourage persistence, and he promises: “Ask and it shall be given to you; seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened to you.” [UB 144:2.3] (UB 167:5.2).
Persistence is valuable because it may uncover some moral or attitudinal block that is keeping us from better communion with the Father’s indwelling spirit. Once the block is identified, new decisions for the better way reopen the path to progress. The beauty of the whole process is that we do not have to feel good in order to make the saving decisions that bring us closer to the Father.
Now we come to the last part of the treatment; it is practically simple and theoretically complex, so naturally I’ll save dessert for last. Here comes the theory:
Love has two phases—an activity and a passivity. The activity is what we do for the beloved; the passivity what we feel for the beloved. The activity is chosen and can be commanded; the feeling merely happens to us and cannot be commanded. One definition of love brings both these aspects together: Love is the desire to do good to others. [UB 56:10.21; emphasis mine]
First, notice that our feelings are usually a mixture of attitudes that we implicitly choose and stimuli beyond our control. To the extent that our feelings are a result of things beyond our control, pertaining, say, to this body, the electro-chemical mechanism that we walk around with—to that extent we are not responsible for our feelings. But to the extent that our feelings are a result of attitude choices, it makes sense to command: Be not anxious. Be of good cheer.
Second, notice how we can indirectly bring about the feelings of love that we all like to experience and express.
A friend of mine at school told me about an episode in his relationship with his girlfriend. For a while, things weren’t going too well, and he had a chance to start up with another woman. At that moment, his feelings about his girlfriend were dull, and his feelings about the other woman were lively. But even though he wasn’t feeling loyal, he made decisions of loyalty. And the result was that he harvested a new level of feeling of love to accompany his strengthened commitment.
If we take the human steps, the Father will complement and complete our efforts at loving.
As Hosea said: “Sow righteousness and reap a harvest of kindness, break up your fallow ground: it is time to go seeking God until he comes to rain salvation on you.” Hosea 10:12
Truly the most genuine love we can ever feel for another is the love which the Father gives us to give. When we feel wholehearted love it is as much a gift from God as it is our own personality mobilization—or perhaps we can see these as two descriptions for the same act.
If we deal with our problems without anxiety, if we persist in seeking the Father’s will and way, and if we choose the paths of righteousness, even when we don’t quite feel completely motivated to do so, we will surely come to live in that fresh new way Jesus lived for us, wholehearted love for our Father and our brothers and sisters. The spiritual downs can be like the bending of a diving board, the prelude to more solid attainment and grace and entry into the water of life.