Spiritual Advice and Guidance Blog: Urantia Book

Q: I am a born again Christian and lately I can't pray, Every time I try to pray there are no words I can say and sometimes I feel so empty inside and I can't even understand what I am saying when I pray. How can I improve my prayer life?

A: When I read your question, this quote from The Urantia Book immediately came to mind:

(91:8.12) Words are irrelevant to prayer; they are merely the intellectual channel in which the river of spiritual supplication may chance to flow...God answers the soul's attitude, not the words.

If you want to improve your prayer life, try to just BE in the presence of God for a while without saying any memorized prayer words. Reach out to God with your inmost soul, and he'll surely help you to know what to do about your concern. Just doing that will possibly help you to feel better connected to God.

I think we all go through dry spells in our spiritual life - at least I do. It is uncomfortable to say the least, when we feel as though we are not able to talk to God as we once could; worse, that perhaps we are not being heard. We feel that emptiness so deeply. Refuse to yield to anxiety over this issue, but know that there is a light at the end of this tunnel that you are in...try to relax. God knows your desire.

Here are a couple of Urantia Book quotes to help you through this time in your life.

Jesus' Discourse on Prayer This link will inspire you to look at prayer as Jesus did.

And THIS is a link to a section of The Urantia Book which has always been of help to me with my prayer life. It deals with praying and the "alter ego," that part of us that comes into play when we "talk to ourselves..." Maybe it will be helpful to you right now.

In addition, you might go to our topical study on Prayer for more advice and inspiration from The Urantia Book.

Don't give up. I will agree with you right now in prayer that you'll turn the corner soon.

Thanks for this great question...

Labels: alter ego, God, Jesus, prayer, The Urantia Book

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Monday, October 06, 2008

How Can I Find God's Voice?

Q: How to find God's voice?

A: What I hear in your short sentence is a question regarding the voice of God, and how to hear that Voice within yourself.

Many of us have been instructed that God is within us, and The Urantia Book expands and enlarges this concept beautifully. We learn in its teachings that this spark of Divinity within is called the Thought Adjuster, and that it is an actual fragment of the Father himself:
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(148:6.10) ...the Father...speaks within the human heart as a still, small voice, saying, `This is the way; walk therein.' Do you not comprehend that God dwells within you, that he has become what you are that he may make you what he is!"
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Here is another quote regarding the voice of God-within:
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(110:7.9) While the voice of the Adjuster is ever within you, most of you will hear it seldom during a lifetime. Human beings below the third and second circles of attainment rarely hear the Adjuster's direct voice except in moments of supreme desire, in a supreme situation, and consequent upon a supreme decision.
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And this:
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(101:1.2) The Thought Adjuster has no special mechanism through which to gain self-expression; there is no mystic religious faculty for the reception or expression of religious emotions. These experiences are made available through the naturally ordained mechanism of mortal mind. And therein lies one explanation of the Adjuster's difficulty in engaging in direct communication with the material mind of its constant indwelling.

The divine spirit makes contact with mortal man, not by feelings or emotions, but in the realm of the highest and most spiritualized thinking. It is your thoughts, not your feelings, that lead you Godward. The divine nature may be perceived only with the eyes of the mind. But the mind that really discerns God, hears the indwelling Adjuster, is the pure mind. "Without holiness no man may see the Lord." All such inner and spiritual communion is termed spiritual insight. Such religious experiences result from the impress made upon the mind of man by the combined operations of the Adjuster and the Spirit of Truth as they function amid and upon the ideas, ideals, insights, and spirit strivings of the evolving sons of God.
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We see by these quotes that the best way to find this voice within is through our highest thinking, as that is where the combined Spirit of God (the Thought Adjuster) and the Spirit of Truth (Jesus) work together for our highest good.

Even though it may seem difficult from the above quotes to actually experience the hearing of God's voice, we are not left only with difficulty. A very practical way that The Urantia Book helps us to find and hear the Divine voice, is through the prayerful practice of conversing with our "alter ego." Consider this quote:
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(91:3.7) Enlightened prayer must recognize not only an external and personal God but also an internal and impersonal Divinity, the indwelling Adjuster. It is altogether fitting that man, when he prays, should strive to grasp the concept of the Universal Father on Paradise; but the more effective technique for most practical purposes will be to revert to the concept of a near-by alter ego, just as the primitive mind was wont to do, and then to recognize that the idea of this alter ego has evolved from a mere fiction to the truth of God's indwelling mortal man in the factual presence of the Adjuster so that man can talk face to face, as it were, with a real and genuine and divine alter ego that indwells him and is the very presence and essence of the living God, the Universal Father.
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Basically, we can "talk to ourselves," a practice that we all naturally learn to do as children, when we have inner conversations with an imaginary companion. As we grow, and as we desire closer communication with God, we may ennoble that concept to become the reality of a conversation with God-within.

Please click here for the entire section on Prayer and the Alter-Ego.

Labels: alter ego, God, God within, God's voice, prayer, The Urantia Book, Thought Adjuster

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