By Karen Van Aarde, South Africa
What makes me tick is the truth―seeking the truth. Since I was a youngster, I have felt that there was more to know about God, more to experience of God.
Early on my relationship with the Father was relatively close, and I had a heartfelt longing, an intense hunger, to know the Father.
When I was five and a half, I can remember waking my mother in the middle of the night and asking her to read me the Bible. Later I would tear the pages out of the Bible and stick them in my pockets and underneath my clothes. I supposed that having those pages with me would bring me closer to God. In time, the Bible was insufficient to quench my thirst for truth. I wanted more.
While practicing the religion of my family, I started searching for truth in other religions. I did it in secret because “other belief systems” such as the Apocrypha, Hinduism, Buddhism, Eastern Meditation, Mysticism, Gnosticism, the Kabbalah, and new age beliefs were regarded as heretical
I found bits and pieces of truth but far too little to be satisfied. I voraciously read religious and spiritual books but realized that none of these books and “other belief systems” and religions were helping me find the truth.
Strange how we long for something when we do not even know what it is, but we know when we find it as surely as we know that the sky is blue.
My friends could not understand my lack of passion for, and my dissatisfaction with, the church and certain scriptures of the religion we grew up with. I wanted more and trusted that our heavenly Father would lead me to higher truths.
Then one Saturday evening I encountered a friend at the supermarket. We shared the same passion for truth, and he asked me what I was looking for in life? He was testing me to see if I would be open to The Urantia Book.
After sharing with him my thoughts and feelings and my quest for truth, he said that he understood what I was experiencing. He said that he knew the perfect book for me.
I was excited but also weary of finding just another book again that danced around the truth, talking about things that do not agree with my heart. But I ordered it, and when it arrived, I was like a child on Christmas Eve. I tore open the box and was surprised by how thick it was. As I flipped through the pages, I perceived that I was actually holding what I had been searching for. I found confirmation after confirmation about all the things I clearly knew in my heart. Many times, while reading The Urantia Book, I shouted, “I knew it, I knew it!” Sometimes I would laugh out loud with sheer pleasure.
Truly, for the first time, I could feel myself changing in a way words can never express. It felt as though I were “ingesting” life itself. Every day it was becoming easier to do the “right” thing.
I am happier now, more at peace.
I am developing a deep and ineffable love for the Father, for myself, and for my fellow man. I am truly building a personal relationship with the Father and a personal, private, and powerful understanding of the Fatherhood of God and brotherhood of man.
For my whole life, I was one big question mark. Now, the more I understand the teachings of The Urantia Book, the easier it is to be who God wants me to be. Being more like the Father is within my grasp. It is not always easy, but the more I understand the truth, the more strength I have. For the first time, I can say that I am truly free!