© 2002 Myriam Delcroix
© 2002 French-speaking Association of Readers of the Urantia Book
It is man’s instinct to believe in God.
It is an inner call. For more than a century, since the era of materialism, more and more people have rebelled against the idea of a universal creator. These people find the idea of an invisible father infantile and reject what since the dawn of time has been part of our deepest feelings.
They find it easy to place themselves through our joys and sorrows in the hands of a God by praying to Him or loving Him.
People cut off from all hope of salvation find themselves orphaned and despise those who believe.
However, no one can find inner peace by believing only in themselves and in the power of materialism. These people, perhaps unconsciously, despise the strength of others and criticize them.
By affirming the weakness and ease of believers, have they really thought?
Is it so easy to love God and want to be like Him?
Is it easier to believe than to be an atheist in everyday behavior?
Example that I know:
An atheist person who has had problems with his closest neighbors realizes one day that they employ a cleaning lady working illegally and immediately decides, to take revenge, to send a letter of denunciation.
Another believing and honestly spiritual person, in the same situation, will rise to a higher level, will say to himself that this woman who cleans, doing an unrewarding job, is certainly in need and that in no way should she pay the price for these dissensions. The believing person will ask himself: Would God be happy if I denounced her and thus my vengeance against the neighbors would be accomplished?
I can’t, a little voice inside her will tell her, and she will no longer worry about these things that don’t concern her.
Which of these solutions is the easy one?
Is it easy to forgive by trying to understand and silence one’s little ego rather than letting oneself be invaded by one’s belligerent instincts?
Is it easy when you are sincerely a believer to forget yourself in order to love others?
Some will say that there is as much forgiveness and love among unbelievers as among others, I don’t think so.
Man is animal in essence and combative by nature.
Without God he gives in to his individualistic inclinations.
In today’s society where God no longer has much place, violence has never been so present because everyone is fighting for other very tangible gods which are material goods.
I think that the real ease is that of not denying yourself anything, that of the law of retaliation, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth…
Some will say, “yes, but look at all these religious wars, all this extremism in the name of God!”
So, I will answer: “all these wars, all these hatreds are only political, are matters of materialism and God is only a pretext in these horrors.
A being in love with God, whatever his religion, does not indulge in such practices which are those of true ease.
God is tolerance, love, understanding; everything that is dogma, extremism, sacrifice are childish inventions of immature men more concerned with their ego than with their blood brothers.
What is ease? Self-love through one’s ego or self-love through the love of others?
Is being a believer really the easy way?
Man is first a fetus, then a baby, becomes a child and later an adolescent before becoming an adult man.
Man is a microcosm, that is to say a reflection of the universe.
At the age of the baby state, the man sacrificed virgins on different altars soaked in blood.
As a child, he sacrificed animals everywhere to make himself loved by God or gods, depending on the country and civilization.
Some parts of the world still continue this kind of practice and are therefore still in the age of infantilism.
The Western worlds are in the era of adolescence and this humanistic adolescence resembles that of human beings.
What does the young person do? He rejects parental power, wants to assume his independence, believes he knows everything and despises his parents, looks down on them and compares them to complete imbeciles.
The earth, at this moment, is experiencing the upheavals of this adolescence. It rejects God its Father, magnified as it is by its sufficiency which is a transition leading towards maturity.
When humanity, wounded by its impatience, its materialistic demands and especially devoid of truly spiritual resources, finds itself without faith or law, then, thanks to the great upheavals which will lead the materialistic mind towards the more spiritually evolved mind, it will ask itself the question of knowing what is the cosmic goal of the universe. Like the adolescent, after his growth crisis, asks himself what will I do with my future, so humanity will ask itself this question and will try to resolve its problems in a wiser way.
Rejecting God from our life is the act of every immature child who rejects his father because sure and full of himself, this child cannot admit that he has a path to follow.
Likewise, humanity, imbued with its scientific and materialistic knowledge, thinks that it is weakness to recognize its heavenly father.
After profound transformations brought about by these temporary negations, the child turns towards parental love.
Likewise, humanity, after the anguish and upheavals stained with tears and blood, will enter a new era.
This era will be the prelude, if humanity desires it, of harmony and cordial understanding between children and parents, that is to say: the return of man to God his Father.
Myriam Delcroix