Sometimes I allow myself to get caught up in an unbeautiful emotion, one that does not fit the truth of the situation, and is not dominated by goodness. At such times, I have allowed some secondary material value or intellectual value to eclipse my loyalty to spiritual values. But I am learning to respond to this disorder by bringing to mind a recent discovery: God is the reality of values.
If I turn to God in this way when I become emotionally entangled, I find a quiet, reordering refuge. Each of our basic emotions serves an evolutionary function and has its proper expression in certain types of situation. But a value that is out of place is put in its place by God. The lower value is not denied, but graciously embraced in a larger totality of values in which divine reality prevails. Sometimes the process is prompt and decisive; at other times it is gradual and mostly beyond human awareness.
Values are plural, but the reality of values is singular, a unity. Contemplating this unity facilitates rest. Without technique or recourse to an intellectual system, communion allows harmony to be restored.
One benefit that comes from knowing God as the reality of values is that we can recognize more readily when the matchless personality of our God our Father is acting through his spirit within. When we feel an incoming wave of awareness of divine value—a unified truth-beauty-goodness blend—we may recognize that the personal God is revealing his lovable nature, and we can learn to participate in this divine flow by spontaneous worship.
2.27.2017. The Angry Penguin image was made public on Wikimedia Commons by its creators, Swantje Hess and Jannis Pohlman.
Wonderful post
Thanks for the feedback, Michael. You know I count on it!
Wonderful post
Thanks for the feedback, Michael. You know I count on it!
What a wonderful and glorious day it will be when our souls no longer eject these unwelcome impulses and thoughts into our minds. But we should take comfort in the fact that the day of their elimination draws nigh. The presence of the Father’ s spirit is the pledge that this is happening. Every time we overcome these unwelcome emanations from our souls with the power of his spirit, we grow just a little bit more towards the distant goal of spiritual perfection.
In the meantime, we should allow the light of hope and the guidance of faith to light our spiritual path. Our heavenly Father loves us and we shall not fail.
Dr. Perry
Well spoken, warrior and healer!
What a wonderful and glorious day it will be when our souls no longer eject these unwelcome impulses and thoughts into our minds. But we should take comfort in the fact that the day of their elimination draws nigh. The presence of the Father’ s spirit is the pledge that this is happening. Every time we overcome these unwelcome emanations from our souls with the power of his spirit, we grow just a little bit more towards the distant goal of spiritual perfection.
In the meantime, we should allow the light of hope and the guidance of faith to light our spiritual path. Our heavenly Father loves us and we shall not fail.
Dr. Perry
Well spoken, warrior and healer!
I like your idea: the lower value is not denied, but graciously embraced. “When I’m not in a place of close communion with the Father, I fall into an old pattern of measuring myself by external factors related to my writing career: how many publishing credits I’ve received, Facebook likes, invitations to read my work?
“But in the medical building one morning, waiting quite a while for the doctor to show up, I had time to look out the window at a wintry sky and meditate on being a son of God, learning to trust in his guiding presence. Barren trees awaited the budding out of spring. Plain, unadorned birds, possessing no particularly bright colors, flitted from branch to branch, expressing their joy and delight in just being birds, contented with the gift of their natural state, free from fear or anxiety. As I followed their flight, I too enjoyed my soul at rest in a renewed friendship with God, and was thankful for the blessing of old friends still in my life.”
http://www.urantiabook.org/dave-holt/seeking-the-heart-of-my-soul-s-joy
I like your idea: the lower value is not denied, but graciously embraced. “When I’m not in a place of close communion with the Father, I fall into an old pattern of measuring myself by external factors related to my writing career: how many publishing credits I’ve received, Facebook likes, invitations to read my work?
“But in the medical building one morning, waiting quite a while for the doctor to show up, I had time to look out the window at a wintry sky and meditate on being a son of God, learning to trust in his guiding presence. Barren trees awaited the budding out of spring. Plain, unadorned birds, possessing no particularly bright colors, flitted from branch to branch, expressing their joy and delight in just being birds, contented with the gift of their natural state, free from fear or anxiety. As I followed their flight, I too enjoyed my soul at rest in a renewed friendship with God, and was thankful for the blessing of old friends still in my life.”
http://www.urantiabook.org/dave-holt/seeking-the-heart-of-my-soul-s-joy