© 1992 Meredith Sprunger
© 1992 The Christian Fellowship of Students of The Urantia Book
After our survival and safety needs are taken care of, the most important concern of human beings is empowerment for living. We need physiological nourishment to furnish the material energy underlying all of our activities. To transcend the mere animal level of human living we need also to be energized and nourished by the value or spiritual level of reality.
Our metaneeds are not ephemeral appendages to life, but are rooted in human biology and psychology. They are universal and not merely the product of social conditioning. … When these values are not actualized in our lives we become frustrated, maladjusted, and ill. We are cut off from our fully human empowerment.
Twentieth century psychologists and psychiatrists like Carl G. Jung, Viktor Frankl, O. Herbert Mowrer, Henry A. Murray, Roberto Assagioli, Abraham H. Maslow and others have emphasized the overriding importance of this source of human empowerment. These values have been variously denominated as “transpersonal,” “meta,” “being,” and “spiritual” values. Our metaneeds are not ephemeral appendages to life, but are rooted in human biology and psychology. They are universal and not merely the product of social conditioning. Metavalues are the ground of human personality. They are intrinsic, supracultural, transpersonal, and related to Ultimate Reality. When these values are not actualized in our lives we become frustrated, maladjusted, and ill. We are cut off from our fully human empowerment.
To become creative and productive we must have a healthy, living connection with the source of all wisdom and power. The branches cannot bear fruit unless they have an organic connection with the vine and root system. The Supreme Being is this divine energizing influence undergirding creativity, competence, and achievement. This is the source of all empowerment.
We seek meaningful actualization and fulfillment as individuals and as a planet. How is divine empowerment mediated to us? Every person is unique. “The love of the Father absolutely individualizes each personality as a unique child of the Universal Father, a child without duplicate in infinity, a will creature irreplaceable in all eternity.” (UB 12:7.9) Each person has natural abilities in some kind of activity or service. What is your deep motivation? Which activities do you find creative? Where do you find ideal play in which you lose yourself?
The Indwelling Spirit of God has an ideal plan and purpose for our lives. This is not necessarily a specific vocation but an optimal plan of development and service. As we sincerely strive to follow this divine calling, we will experience enthusiasm and empowerment. In optimizing this fulfilling activity, we need to ask ourselves how this creativity can be most helpful to others. It is the constructive and helpful work that is important, not our ego inflation. “When you feel important, you lose energy to the wear and tear of ego dignity so that there is little energy left to do the work. Self-importance, not work-importance, exhausts immature creatures; it is the self element that exhausts, not the effort to achieve. You can do important work if you do not become self-important; you can do several things as easily as one if you leave yourself out.” (UB 48:6.37) Creative work is an empowering joy. Burnout is ego-exhaustion.
The Indwelling Spirit of God has an ideal plan and purpose for our lives. This is not necessarily a specific vocation but an optimal plan of development and service. As we sincerely strive to follow this divine calling, we will experience enthusiasm and empowerment.
When we actualize the Indwelling Spirit’s plan for our lives, we initiate a partnership. This divine-human partnership is endlessly empowering. It is the exciting adventure of evolving our souls and serving humankind. It is the satisfying, self-forgetting absorption in work that is more important than ourselves. We can fine-tune our energy alignment by meditation and contemplation. But we open ourselves to the source of all power through self-transcending worship. In this life-long partnership, we are not the senior partner, but we are endlessly grateful to be associated with a loving helper of infinite resources.
Our daily capacity for creative work is a function of being. Based on the caliber of our native endowment, it depends on the openness and dimension of the channel connecting us to the source of human empowerment. Just as the quality and diameter of the wire of conduction linked with a dynamo determines the flow of electricity, so the quality and magnitude of our soul’s connection with the Almighty Supreme determines the amplitude of our empowerment. This is not an introspective preoccupation, but a self-forgetting, reality oriented, even tough-minded, dedication to loving service. Our personality potential is a function of our spiritual maturity.
One of the most effective ways of expanding soul growth and concomitant empowerment is unselfish service. Our empowerment grows as we help others, contribute to truth, beauty, and goodness on our planet, and create that which will make the world a better place in which to live. “Service-more service, increased service, difficult service, adventurous service, and at last divine and perfect service — is the goal of time and the destination of space.” (UB 28:6.17) Service is the channel through which we are actualizing the will of God, expanding our potential of empowerment, and implementing our greatest source of happiness and fulfillment.
Service is the channel through which we are actualizing the will of God, expanding our potential of empowerment, and implementing our greatest source of happiness and fulfilment.
Next to factualizing soul growth along with mastering the cosmic circles of personality development and the loving service of our family and associates, probably our most important concern should be the spiritual rejuvenation and empowerment of our planet. Our world is suffering from environmental pollution, social confusion, economic insolvency, and moral decadence. We desperately need the creative renewal of the Fifth Epochal Revelation. The Urantia Book is Christ Michael’s saving answer to our spiritual isolation and confusion. This enlarged vision of reality will initiate one of the “most amazing and enthralling epochs of social readjustment, moral quickening, and spiritual enlightenment” ever experienced on our world.