There has never been a busier, more productive time to be in service to the Urantia Revelation!
The Urantia Book tells us that:
Service—more service, increased service, difficult service, adventurous service, and at last divine and perfect service—is the goal of time and the destination of space. [Paper 28:6.17, page 316.4]
That’s all fine and dandy, but I’ve got a hive of hornets that have embedded themselves in the walls of my home and are swarming the office.
I have been devoting a great amount of time to the contemplation of “motivations” lately. My wife and I will be giving a short speech on the concept of service to an upcoming conference so we are reading about it, discussing it with others, and jotting down ideas to piece together into a speech. One of the definitions that The Urantia Book provides is that “service” is a “living love” which I generally re-phrase as “service is love put into action.” And although I’m sure I’ll make a metaphor out of this at some point, I’m distracted because there are literally dozens of hornets buzzing the window trying to figure out how to escape through glass panes.
There is a rich library of material available on the Theory of Emotions, but one oversimplification of the subject is that emotions are evolved to help serve our animalistic fight or flight instincts. Joy or disgust help feed our decisions to act: do I stay, or do I go? If you believe, like I do, that people are a combination of the animal and the divine, of the material and the spiritual, then we can maintain that there are divine motivations which serve as counterparts to the animalistic emotion motivations. To “like” something is an animalistic motivation, but to “love” is a divine one. When we say, “God is love” we are equally saying “God is a divine motivation to action.” And when we act upon our divine motivations, when we create a “living love,” this is service.
My wife stepped on a hornet earlier. She’ll be fine, but she is certainly adding to my motivations to act.
And so this is where the hornet metaphor comes in. I feel like I’m too busy and distracted by earthly motivations to be of divine service right now. I am reminded of the story of the Good Samaritan. Take the Samaritan’s perspective: He was journeying down the road one day when he comes upon a damaged man and is moved to be of service. So the Samaritan binds up the damaged man the best he can, transfers him to an inn where the Samaritan gives his day to good service. But the next day, our Samaritan must leave. He has earthly affairs to tend to and is already a day behind and has no more time to be of service. So what does he do? He gives money to the innkeeper so that the innkeeper can continue the divine service while the Samaritan tends to his early affairs.
And so today I must tend to my material needs. But I can contribute to the continued good works of the world by providing a day’s worth of financial support. And so it remains true, there has never been a busier, more productive time to be in service to the Urantia Revelation!
In Service,
Chris Wood