© 1997 Rev. Gregory Young
© 1997 The Christian Fellowship of Students of The Urantia Book
| Significant Books: The Power Behind Positive Thinking by Eric Fellman | Spring 1997 — Index | Prayerful Problem Solving |
As we proceed together to explore steps toward increased spiritual growth, I should like to begin by asking you a question. How many of you as you were growing up ate your oatmeal without parental prompting? How many of you did it under great duress?
Let me tell you about Johnny. Johnny and his mother were having a dispute about oatmeal. Johnny’s mother was trying her best to persuade the boy to eat his oatmeal, but he stubbornly refused to do so. Finally, in desperation, she said, “Johnny, if you don’t eat your oatmeal, God will punish you.” Still, Johnny refused, and his mother sent him to bed. Before long, a great storm arose. Lightning flashed, the thunder crashed, and the wind whipped the rain against the house. Johnny’s mother rushed upstairs to comfort her son. “Johnny, are you okay?”she asked. “I guess so,” he replied, “but this sure is an awful fuss to make about a little oatmeal.”
This theological fairy tale prompts me to ask: What kind of God do you believe in — I don’t mean what kind of ideas you have learned about God — but in your heart and soul what kind of God are you willing to trust completely with your ultimate welfare and spiritual destiny? What kind of God would you be compelled to love with all of your heart, mind, soul, and strength?
I venture to say that a faith based upon frightening people into some sort of obedience is a faith based on primitive superstition. It is not far removed from the ancient practice of making sacrifices to appease an angry and fickle God, a capricious God. I believe there is a yearning, a hungering, in each and every human heart and mind to be cared for by a God of unquestionable love, and to give our love in return to this loving Supreme Being. The basis of faith and devotion is a love relationship. A relationship of faith and love is the foundation of unwavering trust, the confidence to expose our vulnerability and give ourselves completely to that relationship
We must intuit, even before we commit ourselves to God’s will for our lives, that God believes in us and is committed to our welfare. Because God knows that we are capable partners in this adventure of the ages, he has entrusted us with the awesome responsibility of human destiny. God, knowing our potential much better than we do, entered the arena of human affairs in Christ incarnate who told us, “You are the light of the world.” (Matt. 5:14) Our Heavenly Father knows that we have the ability to learn and grow. We are challenged to accept God’s purpose for our lives because God believes so deeply in us.
The human soul hungers to fill an emptiness that brings ultimate meaning to life. In the business of our lives we often forget that the love of God is the most enduring and fulfilling experience of human existence. Other experiences are limited in nature and content, their newness and excitement wear off, but our experience with God has no limits, save those of our own limitations. When you search for God-and there are a lot of people searching, many in the wrong places-you are engaged in contacting the most important presence in your life. And when you find God whose spirit dwells within your mind and soul, you have found everything!
Jesus, while sojourning at Amathus, spent much time with his disciples instructing them in the nature of God. God, he told them, is “Abba” (a casual expression for father, more like daddy). He constantly spoke of God as our Heavenly Father. Jesus addressed God in this endearing way in his prayers and personal relationships with the Father’s presence in his daily activities. God is a tender loving parent like the loving father accepting his prodigal son home, like the good shepherd actively seeking out the lost sheep. One need look no farther than Jesus to see what God is like. God is Abba to us, a tender loving spiritual creator, not a stern bookkeeper chiefly engaged in making damaging entries against his erring children.
One of our nightly rituals is getting our children to bed in a timely fashion. They are masters in using delaying tactics. They always seem to come up with a new twist to stay up just a little bit longer. Some time ago, on one of those evenings when I was home, Gabrielle had already had stories and the usual request for a drink of water, when she wanted me to come in and hear her bedtime prayers. Great, I thought, one more delaying tactic. So I went into her room and knelt beside her bed. Gabrielle sat up, held her hands together in a prayer fashion and started her prayer. “Thank you God for…” and she started to name the endless list of the stuffed animals in her room. She thanked God for her mom and dad, her brother, her pets and other things. But then she said, “And take care of Jenny’s grandmother (who had died sometime before), and thank you God for love.”
As I knelt there beside her bed, my eyes began to swell up with tears, for it dawned on me that this prayer was sincere, and what I felt was the utter sense of trust and openness of Gabrielle’s heart. I became aware of how much of that childlike trust so many of us lose as we grow into a skeptical, mistrusting adulthood.
Believing in God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength leads to a willingness to have an openness for God to work miracles of love and faith in our lives. A truly victorious life on earth is one in which we can give thanks to the goodness and love of God in all circumstances. It means having enough trust, enough devotion in the creator to dare to face the worst life has to offer and declare, “Even if I cannot do this, there lives in me one, much greater, who can and will do it.”With and through the guidance and strength of Christ we can surmount and transcend every obstacle in our mortal pilgrimage. This is the victory that overcomes the world. When we open the door of our heart to the spirit of the living God we are challenged to grow. If you assume that your growing years are over, I have some good news for you, you have only just begun!
Living faith is much more than holding an idea, a theory, or an opinion in your mind. A faith that changes our lives requires a total investment of heart, mind, soul, and strength. It is the total mobilization of all the powers of our personality that inevitably results in growth that culminates in action. Living faith takes on value only as it is applied to our life relationships. God has given each and every one of us enormous potential to grow in the truth, beauty, and goodness of his love.
If you are troubled, if you are anxious and afraid of what tomorrow might bring, if the experiences of life crush heavily upon you, making it almost too much to bear, allow God to be that resource of strength beyond your own strength. You might ask yourself. “To what extent have I made spiritual realities a part of my life; how wholeheartedly have I dedicated myself to God’s will?”
Many of us are like the Dr. Manette that Charles Dickens writes about in A Tale of Two Cities. The doctor had been in prison for twenty years prior to the French Revolution which brought his release. In prison he learned to be a cobbler and in the gloom of his cell he spent his days making shoes. Finally, the day came when he was given his freedom and let out into the bright sunlight. The freedom and sunshine terrified him. He had been in the shadows and darkness of the cell too long and had grown to love that darkness. For his comfort a servant was given the task of locking him up at night in an attic room the size of his old cell. There in the twilight gloom he could be seen enjoying his trade of making shoes.
In a similar way, some of us have become accustomed to the narrowness and weakness of our constricted and imprisoned lives and we are afraid to venture into the larger life which the spirit of God is inviting us to enter. We are offered magnificent opportunities for growth that we hesitate to accept. God has limitless resources and when we are in partnership with God, no limit can be placed on our growth potential. How much do we truly, wholeheartedly, wish to dedicate ourselves to this partnership? Let us have the courage to respond to the spirit of God within us; for God has not given us a spirit of fear, but the spirit of power, the spirit of love, and a sound mind through which to mold our lives by his truth, beauty, and goodness.
Greg Young is pastor of St. John United Church of Christ in Germantown, Wisconsin .
| Significant Books: The Power Behind Positive Thinking by Eric Fellman | Spring 1997 — Index | Prayerful Problem Solving |