Spiritual Advice and Guidance Blog: Urantia Book

Q: I am devastated when children are abducted and murdered. Please tell me that they are not alone in their last hour. It saddens me while a child is being tortured the world continues and unaware of their pain.

A: All humanity suffers when children are mistreated and murdered. It is an outrage that touches all of us very deeply...

I don't know if I can ease your heart through this pain you feel, but I can tell you that our God is a loving and kind Father to all his children. In life and in death, none of us is ever alone. I do not know for sure, but I like to think that there is some sort of mechanism in the brain that, at some point, shields a victim of such suffering from feeling the full brunt of the pain and fear of such an experience.

Here is a passage from The Urantia Book that may help ease your mind somewhat:

(39:5.11) ...During moments just prior to physical death a reflective phenomenon sometimes occurs in the human mind, and this dimming consciousness seems to visualize something of the form of the attending angel, and this is immediately translated into terms of the habitual concept of angels held in that individual's mind.

We can only hope that a youngster undergoing such a terrible experience may be blessed with such a vision of peace and loveliness. I suspect that the ministering angels do attend these young ones, and ease their passing in ways that we cannot know. And once the child has passed on the the next world, their eternal journey of adventure and joy will begin, despite the terrible circumstances of their death. For this, we can be grateful.

Remember how much Jesus loved children? He was always sensitive to them, and advised all of us to become like children in order to really be able to receive his tender mercies. Knowing this, I am sure that any child who suffers a hard death in this way has a special dispensation of mercy as they pass into his everlasting arms. I can't say for sure, but I prefer to think it is true, since there is no proof to the contrary...

It saddens me as well, to think of the terrible things that happen on our world - not only to children, but to innocent men and women in all kinds of circumstances. Many people are caught in situations all the time that stagger our imaginations and leave us feeling sad and powerless when we dwell upon them. If we were aware of each instance of suffering and pain that occur on our world, none of us could carry on. This does not mean that we are not sympathetic, though. Anyone who hears of such things is saddened and upset by them.

We have a choice though...we can choose to allow ourselves to become paralyzed by sadness and laden with sorrow over these kinds of crimes against humanity, or we can activate our highest mind, and pray for right thinking and a knowledge of God to spread over our world. We can selflessly love the children that we do know, and teach them to love others, and to love God. We can join, or contribute to groups that work to alleviate the suffering of innocent victims. We can put our energy to work in positive ways that serve others. These are activities that we CAN control, and positive action has a ripple effect on our world.

I know that my reply may not give you the kind of relief that you desire, but I do hope that you will open your heart to God and allow him to speak thoughts of peace to your soul. Staying close to God is a sure cure for these times when we feel overwhelmed by events that are out of our control, but which touch our hearts so acutely.

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Labels: angels, children, God, Jesus, love, service, Sorrow, The Urantia Book

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Tuesday, September 22, 2009

My heart is broken by the wickedness and betrayals of my fellow beings...

Q: My heart is broken by the wickedness and betrayals of my fellow beings, how to heal? and furthermore, to love and trust them?

A: Thank you for your note to us here at Truthbook.com, a website dedicated to the teachings of The Urantia Book.

I hear a lot of sorrow in your note. I am sorry to hear that you have experienced such problems in your relationships with others. Regarding betrayal, The Urantia Book says that "of all forms of evil, none are more destructive of personality status than betrayal of trust and disloyalty to one's confiding friends." So, it is little wonder that you have been so affected by this loss of trust.

Jesus once spoke of this very thing in this passage:

(149:6.12) "Well did the Prophet Jeremiah describe many mortals when he said: `You are near God in the mouth but far from him in the heart.' And have you not also read that direful warning of the prophet who said: `The priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money. At the same time they profess piety and proclaim that the Lord is with them.' Have you not been well warned against those who `speak peace to their neighbors when mischief is in their hearts,' those who `flatter with the lips while the heart is given to double-dealing'? Of all the sorrows of a trusting man, none is so terrible as to be `wounded in the house of a trusted friend.'"

And of course, we know that Jesus, too, experienced betrayal in his life from his trusted apostle, Judas.

How to heal from such a thing? Learning to forgive is a vital part of living a happy life. Even when we have every reason to nurse a grudge, or fan the flames of anger against another, it is always better to practice forgiveness towards those who have wronged us. And this practice will bring healing to your soul. It is not always easy to forgive, but as we do it, we will also be forgiven for our own misdeeds. We all crave forgiveness when we have done wrong, so we must also be willing to give it to others. Our heavenly Father is always willing to forgive:

(146:2.4) The Father in heaven has forgiven you even before you have thought to ask him, but such forgiveness is not available in your personal religious experience until such a time as you forgive your fellow men. God's forgiveness in fact is not conditioned upon your forgiving your fellows, but in experience it is exactly so conditioned. And this fact of the synchrony of divine and human forgiveness was thus recognized and linked together in the prayer which Jesus taught the apostles.

Of course, that prayer is "The Lord's Prayer," which may help you to come to that place where you can forgive. It is worth the effort.

Jesus was fond of using Scripture in his ministry. Here is a passage that he used more than once. I hope it will comfort you:

(126:4.2) "The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, for the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the meek, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and to set the spiritual prisoners free; to proclaim the year of God's favor and the day of our God's reckoning; to comfort all mourners, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy in the place of mourning, a song of praise instead of the spirit of sorrow, that they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, wherewith he may be glorified.

As for loving and trusting people who once betrayed you, that will be a process in which the offending parties will have to earn your good graces again. You can love and forgive by an act of the will, and because it is the right thing to do, but learning to trust may take some time, and trust should not be given until it has been earned. In the meantime, you can safely place your trust in God, who is always faithful.

Thanks again for writing to us. Please consider signing up for our free service -Quote of the Day - which will deliver a message of hope and inspiration each day from the matchless teachings of The Urantia Book.

Labels: betrayal, forgiveness, Jesus, Judas, relationship, Sorrow, The Lord's Prayer, The Urantia Book

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Sunday, July 19, 2009

How to cope with big disappointments in life and related pain and sorrow? Is there an experience I MUST have here?

Q: How to cope with big disappointments in life and related pain and sorrow? Is there an experience here on earth that I must absolutely do because I will not be able to do it after my physical death?

A: You are not alone in asking this question regarding pain and sorrow - these kinds of experiences are part of the human condition, and affect all of us at one time or another. Sometimes, the pain is great, and we wonder "why," or, "why me?" Well, we might also ask "why?" when we are blessed with good experiences...and I am sure you have had those, also. Of course, the pain really gets our attention...

The Urantia Book provides a wonderful perspective on the inevitable changes that we humans go through in this life. Among the nine points of sage advice given, is this:

Is pleasure-the satisfaction of happiness-desirable? Then must man live in a world where the alternative of pain and the likelihood of suffering are ever-present experiential possibilities.(3:5.14)

And there is this:

The greatest affliction of the cosmos is never to have been afflicted. Mortals only learn wisdom by experiencing tribulation.(48:7.14)
You cannot perceive spiritual truth until you feelingly experience it, and many truths are not really felt except in adversity.(48:7.18)

This is taken from a section of The Urantia Book listing "twenty-eight statements of human philosophy" that are used in teaching new arrivals to the Mansion Worlds. You will find many of these very comforting and illuminating.

Sorrowful experiences can make us or break us. On a world that is filled with free-willed beings, error and its resulting pain and sorrow are simply a part of life. At the same time, as free-willed beings, we have the opportunity to use these experiences for our growth, rather than a reason to just give up. It is important to remember that nothing stays the same in this life. All is subject to change. Only God is changeless. It is our job to learn to establish and nurture a relationship with God so that when the hard times come, we are able to weather the changes, knowing that no matter what, we are assured of inevitable victory over all matters of the world on which we live through our free-will identification with our highest Self. The Urantia Book reveals to us a loving heavenly Father, a good God who knows all about our sorrows and pain because he experiences all of it with us. We have an intimate and ever-present friend in the Father. His Spirit actually dwells within our minds. Take heart:

It is literally true: "in all your afflictions he is afflicted." "In all your triumphs he triumphs in and with you."(1:5.16)

A study of the life of Jesus is quite helpful in hard times as well, as Jesus experienced just about the worst times that ever were heaped onto a human being. He emerged victorious over many of the sorrowful times in his life, and even over death, and he showed us how we can do the same, no matter our lot in life.

The experience that we have must have here in our earthly lives is the experience of life itself, and its associated joys, sorrows, spiritual progress and growth. Once we are translated into our next life - our eternal life - we will experience a whole different kind of existence - one in which the earthly kinds of experiences will no longer be possible. There's nothing we experience here that can't be augmented or improved upon in the mansion world experience but nevertheless, the angels are envious of the mortal lives we live so there's a quality to this life that's hard if not impossible to compensate for. While we are here, we have important work to do:

From The Urantia Book:

Very important is the work of preparation for the next higher sphere, but nothing equals the importance of the work of the world in which you are actually living. (48:6.26)

Your short sojourn on Urantia, on this sphere of mortal infancy, is only a single link, the very first in the long chain that is to stretch across universes and through the eternal ages. It is not so much what you learn in this first life; it is the experience of living this life that is important. Even the work of this world, paramount though it is, is not nearly so important as the way in which you do this work. There is no material reward for righteous living, but there is profound satisfaction - consciousness of achievement - and this transcends any conceivable material reward.(39:4.13)

The overcoming of adversity can be seen as a certain source of this "profound satisfaction."

Jesus taught:

"It is the Father's will that mortal man should work persistently and consistently toward the betterment of his estate on earth. Intelligent application would enable man to overcome much of his earthly misery." (148:5.3)

I do hope that this reply has been of some help and comfort to you.

Labels: affliction, disappointment, experience, Jesus, life, pain, Sorrow, The Urantia Book

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Saturday, January 19, 2008

My son died from cancer at the age of 21. Was it so much necessary to suffer and leave this world like that?

Q: My son died from cancer at the age of 21. Was it so much necessary to suffer and leave this world like that?

A: Your sad loss touches every caring mortal learning of it. It touches the angels too who are endowed with greater love and compassion than we are. It touches Jesus and it touches our heavenly Father. Knowing this doesn't make it easier to understand, but your sorrow is shared.

The Urantia Book says of God, "He has said of the mortal races, 'In all your afflictions I am afflicted.' He unquestionably experiences a fatherly and sympathetic understanding; he may truly suffer, but we do not comprehend the nature thereof." (3:6.6)

The Urantia Book helps to clarify the meaning of life, our purpose here, and our purpose hereafter. While we live here we're subject to physical laws and the laws of nature, and of nature The Urantia Book relates, "... nature knows nothing of fairness--" (84:5.2) This physical world is the birthplace of the soul, the vessel needed to carry personality forward into the less material, more spiritual existence we have before us. Whatever happens to us beyond the circumstances necessary for this birth is subject to the "vicissitudes of time."

In The Urantia Book, Jesus relates, regarding the Book of Job, "And who can challenge the attitude of Job in view of the counsel of his friends and the erroneous ideas of God which occupied his own mind? Do you not see that Job longed for a human God, that he hungered to commune with a divine Being who knows man's mortal estate and understands that the just must often suffer in innocence as a part of this first life of the long Paradise ascent? Wherefore has the Son of Man come forth from the Father to live such a life in the flesh that he will be able to comfort and succor all those who must henceforth be called upon to endure the afflictions of Job." (149:6.7)

Perhaps there will be some comfort in considering the following inevitabilities of material existence (3:5.5):

"The uncertainties of life and the vicissitudes of existence do not in any manner contradict the concept of the universal sovereignty of God. All evolutionary creature life is beset by certain inevitabilities. Consider the following:

1. Is courage--strength of character--desirable? Then must man be reared in an environment which necessitates grappling with hardships and reacting to disappointments.

2. Is altruism--service of one's fellows--desirable? Then must life experience provide for encountering situations of social inequality.

3. Is hope--the grandeur of trust--desirable? Then human existence must constantly be confronted with insecurities and recurrent uncertainties.

4. Is faith--the supreme assertion of human thought--desirable? Then must the mind of man find itself in that troublesome predicament where it ever knows less than it can believe.

5. Is the love of truth and the willingness to go wherever it leads, desirable? Then must man grow up in a world where error is present and falsehood always possible.

6. Is idealism--the approaching concept of the divine--desirable? Then must man struggle in an environment of relative goodness and beauty, surroundings stimulative of the irrepressible reach for better things.

7. Is loyalty--devotion to highest duty--desirable? Then must man carry on amid the possibilities of betrayal and desertion. The valor of devotion to duty consists in the implied danger of default.

8. Is unselfishness--the spirit of self-forgetfulness--desirable? Then must mortal man live face to face with the incessant clamoring of an inescapable self for recognition and honor. Man could not dynamically choose the divine life if there were no self-life to forsake. Man could never lay saving hold on righteousness if there were no potential evil to exalt and differentiate the good by contrast.

9. Is pleasure--the satisfaction of happiness--desirable? Then must man live in a world where the alternative of pain and the likelihood of suffering are ever-present experiential possibilities."

Your question was "Was it so much necessary to suffer and leave the world like that?" and the answer that comes to mind is "no," it is not necessary to suffer -- suffering is not a prerequisite to entry to the world of the spirit although often suffering endows the sufferer and those closely associated with a new and more complete understanding of and spiritual awakening to the purpose, value, and meaning of life; and "yes," it is necessary to suffer because it is part of the material human existence. Earth is not heaven and it will never be so.

Your loss is great and your suffering is real. Your son is no longer suffering and is now taking the first steps in a thrilling adventure extending into eternity. We pray that that understanding will ease the pain in your heart.

Labels: death, inevitabilities, Job, Sorrow, suffering, The Urantia Book

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