© 2000 Kathleen Swadling
© 2000 Urantia Association International (IUA)
| Jesus' Teachings of the Kingdom of God | Journal — September 2000 — Index | The Spirit of Truth, Guardian Angels and Other Friends |
Kathleen Swadling, Australia
Good morning. I’ve been asked to present this topic on “Living the Will of our Father—Sharing God, the Sublime Consciousness of Knowing God.” When I was first asked to present this topic, my immediate thoughts were, "Oh my gosh, how on earth am I going to talk about something so immense and so profound; something so close to my heart without distorting the truth and beauty of something that lies way beyond the realm of words?
I thought, “How can I talk about this subject to a group of religionists without telling them something they don’t already know—without ‘preaching to the choir’ so to speak?”
I thought, “How can I talk about something that really can only be understood and recognised, for the most part, by our actions—by the fruits of the spirit?” I’ve had doubts as to whether I can do it justice or not.
I’d like to attempt to set the mood of this topic by sharing a couple of pieces of inspiration with you that helped me to get the inspiration for my presentation.
One is a song and the other is a painting. Both of these have touched me on a soul level and I felt that I’d like to share them with you because, for me they’re a demonstration of how a couple of people—a songwriter and an artist—have chosen to share a part of their spirit natures with us by utilising the metium of art. They’ve been able to produce something that has the potential to touch people’s souls and lift them up to that sublime place where truth and beauty can be felt.
This painting was done by a Persian artist named Mohmoud Farshchian and is called “Worship”—an image of man reaching for God. The song is called “Horizon” and was written and sung by my husband, Trevor. For me this song also depicts an attitude of the soul — of a declaration of faith and of the consecration to the doing of the will of God-of a man sincerely sharing his inner life with the Father.
While most of us might not possess talents that allow us to share soul-felt values through the medium of art, we’ve all been given a unique personality with individual talents, an indwelling spirit, and the freedom of choice to create a world of meaning and value that can be shared with our fellows. And when shared, it can produce feelings just as powerful and moving as some of the work produced by gifted, God-conscious artists.
The key to living the Father’s will is to share our inner life with him—the sublime consciousness of knowing God—and to make choices about sharing that part of the Father within us as it manifests through our unique personalities. It’s all about having the desire to see the Father’s spirit in our fellows and to recognise the goodness, the truth, and the beauty of the way the Father’s spirit manifests through each unique personality.
Each and every one of us possesses a gemstone that lies underneath the rubble of our imperfect natures—it’s called the soul. And because the soul is an evolving, growing thing, it’s easy for it to get hidden under the rubble.
We all have the choice about what to look for in life and what to look for in our fellows. We can choose to see just the outside rubble of the imperfect nature and relate just to that when we deal with our fellows, or we can look for the gemstone—the soul, and relate to that.
But like discovering most gemstones, it requires effort and determination to uncover the glorious wonders of the spirit. It requires a motive for persevering—it requires love and the desire to do good to others.
But how do we get to that state in which we’re so saturated with love and the desire to do good to others that we have the incentive and inner drive to persevere and look for the goodness in our fellows?
How do we get to the point where we’re sincerely interested in our fellows and willing to show them of our interest?
Before I attempt to answer these questions I’d like to explore what it really means to have a reasonably good idea in our own hearts and minds about what actually is the “will of God,” as I think there’s a lot of confusion surrounding the phrase “the will of God.”
I figured the best way for me to do this was to share with you my own experience whereby I became comfortable in my own mind about disceming what “the will of our Father” means for us as individuals.
There’s one passage in The Urantia Book that intrigues me over all others-it’s one that gives us a concise definition of the “will of God.”
Time and time again I’ve heard many of my sincere God-seeking friends ask: “But how do I know what the will of God is?” We get this question in study groups all the time.
Many find that they’ve a burning desire to do the Father’s will but have no clue about how we’re supposed to know what his will is for us? After all, The Urantia Book tells us that much of the work of the Thought Adjusters is done while we’re unconscious, for it tells us:
But a human being would do better to err in rejecting an Adjuster’s expression through believing it to be a purely human experience than to blunder into exalting a reaction of the mortal mind to the sphere of divine dignit. Remember, the influence of a Thought Adjuster is for the most part, though not wholly, a superconscious experience. [UB 110:5.5]
Passages like this make many of us, I’m sure, cautious about presuming to know what God’s will is for us for fear of falling victim to self-delusion. After all, we know of many fanatics who justify their strange, often wicked actions by declaring that they’re doing the will of God.
Over the years in my quest for God I’ve pondered this question again and again. Before becoming a student of The Urantia Book I tried many different methods in the attempt to “hear” what God wanted me to do.
If I had an important decision to make in my life, I tended to get very anxious about it if I couldn’t get any clear direction from God. I’d want God to show or to tell me what his will was in this or that situation.
I’d then get caught up in fear and anxiety in case I made the wrong decision. We can get ourselves worked up into a terrible state when we sincerely desire to do the will of God but can’t for the life of us figure out what that will is.
I’d sometimes think: Why can’t he just emblazon his will for us in the sky in neon lights so it’s clear for all to see? Well I soon found out that, blessedly, God’s way was not my way. I also found out that God’s way is infinitely wiser.
When I came across this passage in The Urantia Book that gave me the answer to my question my mind was finally put to rest over this burning question about what the “will of God” really means.
The doing of the will of God is notbing more or less than an exbibition of creature willingness to share the inner life with God… [UB 111:5.1]
That statement smacked me between the eyes like a lightning bolt—better than a neon light in the sky. Its simplicity and its beauty is so like the nature and character of God which Jesus revealed to us and which is revealed throughout The Urantia Book.
It’s just not God’s way to go about telling us what we should and shouldn’t be doing in certain circumstances—we need to figure that out for ourselves. But he has, however, equipped us with everything we need to make decisions in the light of what we understand to be true, beautiful, and good.
By exhibiting a willingness to share our inner lives with God, we put ourselves into a frame of mind where, of our own volition, we attempt to converse and share with the very source of all things true, beautiful, and good.
While the requirement is simple—an exbibition of creature willingness to share the inner life with God— the repercussions are immense—that’s why they say the doing of the Father’s will is nothing more or less. Things just have a way of working out when we’re sincere about wanting to share our lives with God.
But there’s much more we need to do. Realising that God’s will is simply the sincere attempt to share our inner lives with him is just a beginning.
This action actually puts us in a frame of mind where we’re able to make decisions and figure things out in the light of being conscious of actually being in the presence of the Creator; therefore, we attempt to do our best and to be honest with ourselves—you can’t hide anything from God when you sincerely attempt to share your inner life with him.
The “figuring out” part—the making of decisions while being conscious about being in his presence—is our power base for choosing to make decisions about undertaking mighty deeds in partnership with him.
It’s within this God-conscious, mind arena of choice where we’re equipped with that spiritual power that only comes through having unshakeable faith and undying courage—it’s what determines our spiritual fruits and what kind of effect we may have on our Father’s other children—how useful we can be in the service of our fellow men and women.
Right now I’d like us to take a walk through the process whereby the soul evolves and the personality becomes driven by the desire to serve his or her fellow man — where the desire to do the will of God converts to the effective living of his will.
The gift of revelation has been given to us to augment our thinking. In a sense, we could say that revelation is God’s way of blatantly telling us what we should be doing.
The Urantia Book is a bit like a handbook for living. All the answers are in there and if we study the book in-depth and truly attempt to embrace the teachings into our lives, we can’t go wrong.
It’s given us a framework for thinking-a framework within the arena of our mind to formulate and assess our thoughts and then decide what to do with our understanding of the information that’s been given to us.
What causes the soul to grow?
We know from our study of The Urantia Book that the soul develops as a direct result of the interplay between self and the indwelling Father fragment—the free will choosing of the personality to follow the leadings of the indwelling spirit—the Thought Adjuster.
We also know that this process is, for the most part, unconscious. But we are conscious of certain experiences that trigger a choice of spiritual value that’ll contribute to our soul growth.
How do we know when we’ve experienced a spiritual reality? How do we discern what connotes a genuine spiritual experience? Here’s a suggestion:
We’re given a thought—it may just pop into our mind or we may have been presented with a piece of information from something we’ve read or heard someone say.
We formulate it in our minds in such a way as to rationalise it. We then get a sense on understanding and if we discern truth content in it, we get a sense of realisation which is in and of itself an experience.
The thought then moves beyond the realm of thinking and becomes an experience—an experience of understanding, an experience of knowing.
When we experience the realisation of a truth, we have a personal revelation and we feel something—we feel a sense of appreciation or a sense of beauty contained in the truth we’ve come to realise.
Experiencing an appreciation of beauty—a revelation—gives us an uplifting sensation—a feeling of awe. We often use the term “awe inspiring”—we’re moved and inspired by the beauty of realising a truth—we’re experiencing something good, we’re experiencing something Godlike—a genuine spiritual reality.
And we’re told on 132:3.4:
Revealed truth, personally discovered truth, is the supreme delight of the human soul; it is the joint creation of the material mind and the indwelling spirit. The eternal salvation of this truth-discerning and beauty-loving soul is assured by that hunger and thirst for goodness which leads this mortal to develop a singleness of purpose to do the Father’s will, to find God and to become like him. [UB 132:3.4]
So can we conjecture that those experiences we have which inspire a sense of awe and an appreciation of truth, beauty, and goodness are being experienced on the soul level—that level which is evolving and growing according to the extent we choose to concem ourselves with those meanings and values which are Godlike?
Experiencing a spiritual reality lifts you to a higher state of consciousness or a place that lies too deep for words. Whatever words we may use to describe the experience, we know it brings us a peace of mind and a clarity of thought. Something of meaning and value has occurred. We’re told on page 1219:
In so far as man’s evolving morontia soul becomes permeated by truth, beauty, and goodness as the value—realization of Godconsciousness, such a resultant being becomes indestructible. If there is no survival of eternal values in the evolving soul of man, then mortal existence is without meaning, and life itself is a tragic illusion. [UB 111:3.7]
A tragic illusion! Who among us would want to live a life of tragic illusion?
Therefore, the only kind of life really worth living is a life where we’re living the will of God, where we’re making choices and making decisions in our mind arenas that are of spiritual value. What would be the point of living life any other way?
So how do we reconcile these values gleaned and revelations discovered in our inner lives with the day-to-day struggle of everyday existence?
How do we struggling mortals grapple with such incredible ideals in our practical, everyday lives? Our everyday lives are fraught with struggles and challenges that need to be dealt with in bodies and minds dominated by mammalian, animal reactions to hormonal and electro-chemical impulses.
What a strange dilemma we find ourselves in most of the time: We strive for higher values and yearn for a glimpse of spiritual realities while battling most of the time with our lower, animal-origin natures. However, we can take solace in the passage in The Urantia Book, that deals with this great human paradox.
Many of the temporal troubles of mortal man grow out of his twofold relation to the cosmos. Man is a part of nature—he exists in nature—and yet he is able to transcend nature. Man is finite, but he is indwelt by a spark of infinity. Such a dual situation not only provides the potential for evil but also engenders many social and moral situations fraught with much uncertainty and not a little anxiety. [UB 111:6.1]
Fraught with much uncertainty and not a little anxiety—I can relate to that. So, given the difficulties we struggle with each day, given our imperfect, lowly evolved state, how do we share our awareness of God with others and turn our inner lives inside out?
If we’ve decided that the only life worth living is a life of service and consecration to the doing of the will of God, and if we know that the doing of the will of God is intrinsically tied up with looking for God in each and every one of our fellow human beings—searching for the gemstones—then we need to concem ourselves primarily with our relationships with one another.
How easy is it for us to overlook our fellows because we’re too wrapped up in the mundane existence of trivial material concerns?
How much do we value material gain over spending time getting to know those around us?
How quick are we to write someone off because we haven’t bothered to take the time to look beyond the rubble and search for the hidden gemstone?
How many times do we hurt one another with thoughtless words?
How quick are we to criticise, and how inept are we are paying attention and really listening to others?
How many times do we avoid being too friendly in case our precious time gets taken up with something that may detract from our material pursuits?
If we find ourselves guilty of some or all of the above, perhaps its time to re-evaluate our priorities. Perhaps it’s time to make some serious adjustments to our attitudes while carrying on our day-to-day activities.
I’m not advocating we give up our material pursuits—that would create too much of an impractical imbalance in our lives and in the physical world we live in. What I’m advocating is that we alter our attitudes while carrying out our daily, temporal responsibilities and duties.
If our primary concem is to live in accordance with the will of God, and if we make a point of promising Godk during our inner life sessions with him about being conscious of that primary concem, then it should become easier for us to view our fellows as precious in the eyes of our Father, therefore worth taking the time to befriend.
Jesus was able to touch so many people in his everyday life because he always showed an interest in them. He would ask them questions and draw them out. I’d like to share some gems from The Urantia Book about friendship to illustrate this important point:
Isolation tends to exhaust the energy charge of the soul. Association with one’s fellows is essential to the renewal of the zest for life and is indispensable to the maintenance of the courage to fight those battles consequent upon the ascent to the higher levels of human living. Friendship enhances the joys and glorifees the triumphs of life. Loving and intimate human associations tend to rob suffering of its sorrow and hardship of much of its bitterness. The presence of a friend enhances all beauty and exalts every goodness. [UB 160:2.8]
There was something gracious and inspiring about the personality of Jesus which invariably attracted young people. He always made them feel at ease in his presence. Perhaps his great secret in getting along with them consisted in the twofold fact that he was always interested in what they were doing, while be seldom offered them advice unless they asked for it. [UB 129:1.9]
When Ganid inquired what one could do to make friends, having noticed that the majority of persons whom they chanced to meet were attracted to Jesus, his teacher said: “Become interested in your fellows; learn how to love them and watch for the opportunity to do something for them which you are sure they want done,” and then be quoted the olden Jewish proverb—“A man who would have friends must show himself friendly.” [UB 130:7.2]
Take heed of the words from the Master himself: “Become interested in your fellows . . .”
Train your memory to hold in sacred trust the strength—giving and worth—while episodes of life, which you can recall at will for your pleasure and edification. Thus build up for yourself and in yourself reserve galleries of beauty, goodness, and artistic grandeur. But the noblest of all memories are the treasured recollections of the great moments of a superb friendship. [UB 160:4.12]
These high levels of human living are attained in the supreme love of God and in the unselfish love of man. If you love your fellow men, you must have discovered their values. Jesus loved men so much because be placed such a bigh value upon them. You can best discover values in your associates by discovering their motivation. If some one irritates you, causes feelings of resentment, you should sympathetically seek to discern his viempoint, his reasons for such objectionable conduct. If once you understand your neighbor, you will become tolerant, and this tolerance will grow into friendship and ripen into love. [UB 100:4.4]
Jesus could belp men so much because be loved them so sincerely. He truly loved each man, each woman, and each child. He could be such a true friend because of his remarkable insight—he knew so fully what was in the heart and in the mind of man. He was an interested and keen observer. He was an expert in the comprebension of human need, clever in detecting human longings. [UB 171:7.4]
When people are so used to being lonely and isolated and overlooked and ignored-even though they may be surrounded by a multitude of their fellow human beings, and then someone comes along and takes a genuine interest in them for who they are, that person may be touched and may feel stimulated because someone has taken a genuine interest in him.
So many people are walking around lost and lonely. So many flounder in spiritual darkness. By taking an interest in people and by sharing the realness of yourselves with your fellows we’re given untold opportunities in our every day lives to bring a little bit of sunshine into the lives of others.
I’d like to make one more point which I feel rounds off this topic of Sharing God—of sharing our inner lives and living the will of our Father. I’d like us to consider an acid test for our effectiveness in practicalising this ideal.
Let’s say we’ve worked hard on our inner lifewe’ve developed habits where we regularly exhibit our willingness to share our inner lives with the Father. We feel comfortable with that relationship.
Let’s say we’ve also found it easier to take an interest in, and to befriend our fellow acquaintanceswe’re leaming to love one more soul each day. We’re feeling a lot more comfortable with our attitudes in the social arena.
Now here’s the acid test—how effective are we in working with those we’ve grown to love and admire? We’re told on page 311:
Of all the problems in the universe requiring an exercise of the consummate wisdom of experience and adaptability, none are more important than those arising out of the relationships and associations of intelligent beings [emphasis mine]. Whether in human associations of commerce and trade, friendship and marriage, or in the liaisons of the angelic hosts, there continue to arise petty frictions, minor misunderstandings too trivial even to engage the attention of conciliators but sufficiently irritating and disturbing to mar the smooth working of the universe if they were allowed to multiply and continue. [UB 28:5.13]
Like in marriage and family life where * we’re constantly challenged with working and living with those we love most in our lives, so are we challenged when having to work and cooperate with one another in the broader community.
How do we deal with someone with whom we may not agree and with whom we need to work in order to get a certain job done? We may love them dearly but we think they’re wrong in a given situation, or that they’re showing poor judgement—yet somehow we need to work out the differences of opinion in order to achieve the task at hand.
Here comes a good acid test to see how effective we can be in maintaining the friendship. Will the disagreement end in stalemate where the friendship is jeopardised? Was the friendship only skin deep to begin with, for it to be so easily shattered?
It can be easy to love our fellows if we don’t need to work and toil with them. It can be easy to love one another at conferences and in study groups, but if we’re thrown together in a committee or a team—what then?
What I’m advocating here is that we shouldn’t feel too smug about ourselves as far as our spirituality goes in regard to our relationships with one another until we’ve been put to the test of seeing how effective we are when working with each other.
The Urantia Book tells us on 28:5.14:
One of the most important lessons to be learned during your mortal career is teamwork. The spheres of perfection are manned by those who have mastered this art of working with other beings. [UB 28:5.14]
We know from studying The Urantia Book that the mastery of working with others is one of the main features of the evolutionary, finite career of us mortals.
If we study the section on the Edentia Training worlds on UB 43:7.1 of The Urantia Book, we see that it’s going to be a long and difficult road to master teamwork and to get dignified in our socialisation. We sometimes need conflict in order to grow.
Sometimes important truths come to the surface during a conflict with someone we love. We should be careful not to get too hung up on the fact that there is conflict, and we shouldn’t really worry too much about the fact that we may not deal with it very well. Rather, we should be continually working on how to deal with it better next time and helping one another learn how to get better at dealing with it.
What is inexcusable is if we allow the conflict to destroy the relationship.
Those of us here today have come to this conference because of our love and interest in The Urantia Book and because we have all been mightily moved by the truths gleaned from this book.
Our inner lives have been so touched by the spiritual realities felt that we feel moved to improve ourselves and the world at large by learning more about these teachings, and to explore ways of spreading these teachings to our fellow human beings around the entire globe.
How many of us have felt the call to service by this passage on 2:7.10:
The religious challenge of this age is to those farseeing and forward-looking men and women of spiritual insight who will dare to construct a new and appealing pbilosophy of living out of the enlarged and exquisitely integrated modern concepts of cosmic truth, universe beauty, and divine goodness. Such a new and righteous vision of morality will attract all that is good in the mind of man and challenge that which is best in the human soul. [UB 2:7.10]
We’ve been challenged in The Urantia Book to find ways and means of disseminating the fifth epochal revelation.
Those of us who have chosen to work in groups or in teams must learn how to work effectively together with our friends. We must learn to focus on common goals while often being confronted with the challenge of disagreeing with our dear friends. Friendships are put to the acid test of realness when confronted with such challenges.
The Urantia Book gives us many lessons in working effectively together. If we, as teams of Urantia Book readers, wish to change the world by introducing the book and its teachings to mankind, we must ever be mindful of the power of intelligent teamwork, coupled with wise leadership. We’re told on page 911 of The Urantia Book:
In civilization much, very much, depends on an enthusiastic and effective load-pulling spirit. Ten men are of little more value than one in lifting a great load unless they lift together: all at the same moment. And such teamwork—social cooperation—is dependent on leadership. [UB 81:6.37]
The essential ingredients to effective teamwork is for the team members to agree on the goals and for each team member to recognise, adopt, and cooperate with the other team members and with the team’s leaders.
This often means facing the challenge of having to go along with something we may not agree with.
A couple of major hindrances to successful cooperation lies in the fact that many of us possess the immature tendency to revere individualism as well as to mistrust those with leadership qualities or those who are in leadership positions.
We can abort the effectiver falling out with one another over differences of style or opinion.
The apostles Nathaniel and Thomas make interesting case studies in effective and ineffective teamwork. In his final admonitions and warnings to the apostles, Jesus said to Nathaniel:
“Nathaniel, you have learned to live above prejudice and to practice increased tolerance since you became my apostle. But there is much more for you to learn. You have been a blessing to your fellows in that they have always been admonished by your consistent sincerity. When I have gone, it may be that your frankness will interfere with your getting along well with your bretbren, both old and new. You should learn that the expression of even a good thought must be modulated in accordance with the intellectual status and spiritual development of the bearer. Sincerity is most serviceable in the work of the kingdom when it is wedded to discretion.
“If you would learn to work with your brethren, you might accomplish more permanent things, . . . UB 181:2.21-22
Jesus also said to Nathaniel: “If, therefore, you serve me with a whole heart, make sure that you are devoted to the welfare of my brethren on earth with tireless affection. Admix friendship with your counsel and add love to your philosophy. Serve your fellow men even as I have served you. Be faithful to men as I have watched over you. Be less critical; expect less of some men and thereby lessen the extent of your disappointment.” [UB 192:2.10]
Note how Jesus tells Nathaniel: “If you would learn to work with your brethren, you might accomplish more permanent things . . ” and how he gave him a complete set of instructions on how to accomplish greater tolerance for his fellows.
We know, however, that Nathaniel could not work with Peter and the others after Pentecost (UB 192:4.7) as he was opposed to the shift in the proclamation of the gospel from sonship with God and brotherhood with man, to the proclamation of the risen Christ.
So although he was right in the fact, he missed the essential truth of persevering with his fellows to work for the greater cause.
Nathaniel was even described as being the odd genius of the twelve [UB 139:6.4]. If he’d had stayed and worked with the team Jesus went to such lengths to train, perhaps his greater understanding of the gospel message would have eventually had a positive impact on the direction the Christian movement was to take.
As it was, he went off alone into India and no doubt did good work, but how much more could he have accomplished if he had only taken heed of Jesus’ preferred admonition for him.
While Nathaniel had a hard time working with those who he didn’t agree with, Thomas on the hand showed more tolerance. On 139:8.8 we’re told:
In the councils of the twelve Thomas was always cautious, advocating a policy of safeety first, but if his conservatism was voted down or overruled, he was always the first fearlessly to move out in execution of the program decided upon. Again and again would be stand out against some project as being foolbardy and presumptuous; he would debate to the bitter end, but when Andrew would put the proposition to a vote, and after the twelve would elect to do that which he had so strenuously opposed, Thomas was the first to say, “Let’s go!” He was a good loser. He did not hold grudges nor nurse wounded feelings. Time and again did he oppose letting Jesus expose himself to danger, but when the Master would decide io take such risks, always was it Thomas who rallied the apostles with his courageous words, “Come on, comrades, let’s go and die with him.” [UB 139:8.8]
We can learn a lot from Thomas who showed an incredible willingness to go along with the program even if he didn’t fully agree with the methods chosen by his leaders and fellow team players.
So my fellow students of The Urantia Book, I ask that we demonstrate the true attitudes of our souls when working with one another.
I ask that we leam to thrive and grow from conflict and form mighty teams of men and women willing to commit themselves to the work of the Urantia revelation.
May we learn to cooperate with one another in order to achieve meaningful ends, and not splinter off into disillusioned factions, seeking out like-minded brothers and sisters who are easier to work with.
May we not turn our backs on the program because we may not like the choices of our leaders or fellow team mates.
May we remain united by focusing on our common goals and settle in for the long haul which is guaranteed to be difficult but no doubt exciting and rewarding.
In closing on this topic of “Living the Will of the Father—Sharing God, the Sublime Consciousness of Knowing God,” I’d like to summarise by saying that the true value of any genuinely spiritual inner life experience is the extent we effectively share our true selves with others, the extent we genuinely love and serve our fellows and maintain that love through the storms of time. On page 1096 we read:
Religion is not a technique for attaining a static and blissful peace of mind; it is an impulse for organizing the soul for dynamic service [emphasis mine]. It is the enlistment of the totality of selfhood in the loyal service of loving God and serving man. [UB 100:3.1]
When the believer is truly mobilized by the spirit power that comes as a result of the sincere consecration to the doing of the will of God, then the fruits of the spirit will truly manifest—the soul will become organized for DYNAMIC SERVICE.
Thanks for your attention. God bless you all.
| Jesus' Teachings of the Kingdom of God | Journal — September 2000 — Index | The Spirit of Truth, Guardian Angels and Other Friends |