© 2001 Merlyn Cox
© 2001 The Christian Fellowship of Students of The Urantia Book
| Significant Books: Practicing His Presence by Frank Laubach | Fall 2001 — Index | Forgotten Urantian : Don Deam |
Recent events have literally brought home the need for the world to hear the Good News, and hear it apart from cultural bias and conflict. The conditions that give rise to hatred and prejudice and intolerance are complex economically and culturally, but simple in terms of basic human nature. Such conditions will always exist as long as we fail to recognize others as brothers and sisters in the human family of the one divine Creator-Father. Readers of The Urantia Book no doubt feel a new urgency in sharing the message of the Fifth Epochal Revelation.
At the same time, as we reflect back on the history of our world, it’s hard to find a time when that wasn’t the case. Few generations have existed without the destructive forces of human nature breaking in upon their lives from beyond the home boundaries of nationstates. The Good News has always been urgently needed, but the consequences of a world failing to understand it keeps getting higher. In a post-cold war age, many of us had hoped that a new age was dawning, a veritable spring time of international cooperation compared to the conflicts of every generation before us. Now it seems that a new era of conflict has arisen, built on long standing inequalities and prejudice, as well as pride, arrogance, and self deceit. And no side can lay claim to purity of motive and action in the long history of events leading us here. A new stage in the agenda for mankind is emerging. All the more need for sharing the Fifth Epochal Revelation.
At the same time, along with the urgency, comes the need for patience. I’ve always marveled at how patient Jesus was in the face of the burden he carried. His was a task far beyond that of any other mortal. How could he maintain such sublime composure while faced not only with the hostility of the world around him, but the slow comprehension of his own followers?
But he did. The urgency of his task was always there, but so was the patience, the un-hurriedness of his day to day living. I can only attribute it to a sublime confidence in God’s wisdom and over-control, and the certainty, even fore-knowledge, of the outcome.
So as we go about our tasks, I pray for both a sense of urgency and patience, for as ambassadors of the Fifth Epochal Revelation, I believe we will need both-in equal measure.
| Significant Books: Practicing His Presence by Frank Laubach | Fall 2001 — Index | Forgotten Urantian : Don Deam |