© 1998 Marilyn Kulieke
© 1998 The Urantia Book Fellowship
In February 1998, Marilyn Kulieke, Lincolnshire, IL, portrayed two qualities of the spiritually evolving personality—trust and hope. This was one of an ongoing series of special programs sponsored by The First Society, Chicago.
Think of a person you can trust and complete the following statement: I know I can trust someone when…
In my life at work and in many of the activities in which I participate, trust is a very important quality for me. Do I trust that somebody will follow through when they say they will do something? Do I trust that when people tell me something they won’t change their mind the next day? Every day, in every interaction, my thoughts and decisions are based on my sense of the universe and how it works, and my experiences with the different people with whom I interact.
Trust is a relatively recent phenomenon on Urantia. “(T)he survival struggles of the early ages do not naturally breed mist.” “Suspicion is the inherent reaction of primitive men.” On Urantia, trust was “brought about by the ministry of the planetary seraphim” who arrived with the Adamic regime. “It is their mission to inculcate trust into the minds of evolving men.” (UB 39:5.7) Our current civilization is now evolving to the place where confidence and trust are ideals for which we can strive.
“Trust is the crucial test of will creatures. Trustworthiness is the true measure of self-mastery, character.” (UB 28:6.13) Part of the universe plan is to “augment trust just as fast as our characters are sufficiently developed to gracefully bear these added responsibilities…” Placing individuals who are not sufficiently prepared in situations where trust is required only courts disaster and insures disappointment. (UB 28:6.15)
The Thought Adjuster initiates trust and hope which consequently works to lead man Godward. (UB 101:2.5) Childlike trust secures entrance to the kingdom of heavenly ascent, but progress depends on our vigorous exercise of robust and confident faith. (UB 102:1.1) In many ways, Jesus’ life exemplifies this relationship between childlike trust and faith. Jesus’ faith was not immature like that of a child, but in many ways he had the unsuspecting trust of the child mind. “Jesus trusted God much as the child trusts a parent.”… “He depended on the heavenly Father as a child leans upon its earthly parent.” Jesus “combined the stalwart and intelligent courage of a full-grown man with the sincere and misting optimism of a believing child.” (UB 196:0.11)
Spiritual faith produces trust. Optimally, that trust will be in the goodness of God, (UB 101:3.6) Jesus said in a conversation with Ganid, “I am absolutely assured that the entire universe is friendly to me—this powerful truth I insist on believing with a wholehearted trust in spite of all appearances to the contrary.” (UB 133:1.4)
As Jesus began his mission with his evangelists, he called each by name and asked: “Are you fearful, soft and ease-seeking? Are you afraid to trust your future in the hands of the God of truth, whose sons you are? Are you distrustful of the father, whose children you are?” (UB 155:5.13) The Urania Book calls each of us to that same challenge.
Jesus’ life represents the life of an individual who bases his life on his implicit trust in God and his fellows. John Zebedee was greatly influenced by how Jesus took care of his mother and family, even when his family failed to understand him. Watching Jesus in his daily life “produced marked and permanent change in [John’s] character, changes which manifested themselves throughout his entire subsequent life.” (UB 139:4.9) Jesus loved and trusted Judas as he loved and trusted the other Apostles. But Judas failed to develop loyal trust and to experience wholehearted love in return. (UB 177:4.10) Trust in God, inevitably should lead to trust in others. As Jesus talked to Andrew and James in one of his morontia appearances he said to Andrew, “If you trust me, trust your brethren more—even Peter. I once trusted you with the leadership of your brethren. Now must you trust others as I leave you to go to the Fathet … And then go on trusting, for I will not fail you.” To James he said, “If you trust me more, you will be less impatient with your brethren. If you will trust me, it will help you to be kind to the brotherhood of believers.” (UB 192:2.8)
Hope is a concept that weaves itself throughout The Urantia Book.
Hope is not only important to those in levels beyond ours, but is also important to progress on this planet. Jesus’ life provides examples of how hope was a key element in the fourth epochal revelation to our planet. At the time of Jesus’ bestowal, the Jews had five hundred years of the overlordship of alien rulers, and this became too much for even the most patient and long-suffering among them. They needed a messiah to deliver the “chosen people” from this oppression. The book says: “And all of this false hope led to such a degree of racial disappointment and frustration that the leaders of the Jews were so confused they failed to recognize and accept the mission and ministry of a divine Son of Paradise when he presently came to them in the likeness of mortal flesh.” (UB 97:8.4)
We are told how Jesus dashed the hopes and fondest expectations of the apostles over and over again. At the feeding of the five thousand, the apostles hoped that Jesus would “assert his right to rule, but these false hopes were not to live for long.” (UB 152:3.2)
“Every time Judas allowed his hopes to soar high, Jesus would do or say something to dash them to pieces, and there was always left in Judas’ heart a scar of bitter resentment…” (UB 177:4.11)
When Simon Zelotes could take no more persecution, and thought all was lost, he went into retirement. However, in a few years, “he rallied his hopes and went forth to proclaim the gospel of the kingdom.” (UB 139:11.10)
It was only after Jesus began to “have faith in the loyalty and integrity of his apostles” that he believed they “would undoubtedly endure the fiery trials which were just ahead and emerge from the apparent wreckage of all theft hopes into a new light of a new dispensation…” (UB 157:4.6)
The Urantia Book portrays hope as a universal phenomena. Hope functions at all levels of the universe—from here to eternity. It can be hope that spurs us forward in our universe career toward perfection, or hope that must die. The book, on UB 100:2.8 suggests, that “spiritual attainment, whether secured by gradual growth or specific crisis,” leads to a “new orientation of personality, as well as the development of a new standard of values. Such spirit-born individuals are so re-motivated in life that they can calmly stand by while their fondest ambitions perish and theft keenest hopes crash; they positively know that such catastrophes are but the redirecting cataclysms which wreck one’s temporal creations preliminary to a new and more sublime level of universe attainment.”
“If my children are one as we are one, and if they love one another as I have loved them, all men will then believe that I came forth from you and be willing to receive the revelation of truth and glory which I have made.” (UB 182:1.6)