1996-12-04. The Will
Nashville #32
Topic: The Will
Group: Nashville TeaM
Teacher: Ham
TR: Rebecca
Opening
Ham: I am Ham and again I want to express my gratitude to you for gathering here this evening.
Lesson
Free will, Responsibility
Tonight, we will discuss the will. As you know today, right now, as we are discussing in this moment of time, your will is honored and given full opportunity for expression by all the Father’s creation and even by the Father himself. Throughout all of time, this is the case. The Father’s will is such that your own individual wills, though circumscribed in time and space in order to prevent harm while you are developing, your will is nonetheless supreme within its domain. The Father can give you no greater gift than this that within your realm that your will is as free as is his within his realm.
The Father desires you to be free, he grants your will increasing freedom as increasingly you are able to handle that freedom. This gradual increase in freedom is shown even during the physical life. When you were a child, your parents or care givers restricted your freedom for your own safety and children learn rapidly to express their will within the boundaries they are allowed, and so you did this. As you matured and grew to young adulthood, your freedom was curtailed by job responsibilities or educational responsibilities. As you grow through adulthood, you are increasingly given opportunities for increased freedom of action. You will is given more and more strength. You are promoted to greater levels of responsibility or you are increasingly drawn to work which expresses freedom of action. As you grow in your ability to handle freedom, generally the Father who is the guiding overcontrol of your lives will give you freedom.
Self-control is at the heart of increased freedom. You are all conscious that giving a child or a young person too much freedom is detrimental and so before the Father widens your sphere of influence or your freedom of action, he must be certain that you are able to appreciate this new freedom and not to cause yourself harm through this freedom. I’ll use Rebecca as an example, today she has the great freedom of action but she uses that freedom productively. If she was given this freedom at the age of 20, for example, she undoubtedly would have ruined her life with drugs and alcohol.
Increasing maturity allows increasing freedom without the danger that are associated with the immature person. The Father therefore tries to fashion your lives so that you will have the greatest possible freedom within the level of maturity you have reached. Freedom is a very precious gift. You have great freedom of action, but it is always constrained and limited and the Father makes sure this is so for your well being. When the constraints are no longer needed, then they fall away. You must gradually, over time, be tested again and again to see where your maturity really is because greater freedom carries with it greater responsibilities.
If you are given the freedom of leisure, do you use your time constructively for self-improvement or self-development? If you are given the freedom of money, will you responsibly manage this wealth and create greater good with it? If you are given the freedom of travel, will you use this ability to increase your knowledge of the world and its peoples? If you are given the freedom of greater self-expression, will you use this responsibly to express the higher values of the universe?
All freedom carries responsibility, and if your freedom is not used responsibly then that freedom most often is revoked. You see, the Father is really and truly caring for you, watching over you, giving you impetus here and restraining you there. Although you may flatter yourselves into thinking that your lives are products of your own decisions, those decisions were products of the Father’s hand.
Increasing freedom is the road or the pathway toward Paradise. At every new level you attain, increasing freedom is the main point, the greater meaning. The Father loves his children so much that he sends a part of himself to shepherd them through the vicissitudes of the strenuous material life, and on throughout eternity. He personally monitors every step, every progress, every decision and rewards each step toward maturity with increasing personal freedom.
Now this personal freedom is expressed in many ways, but the main way and the way that is expressive of higher meanings is simply through increased ability at self-expression.
A you grow in the spirit, you are better able to find a way to express the higher values of the universe through your own individual experience and thus to share greater realities with your brethren. And this sharing of higher values creates meaning which remains a part of the supreme value, even the living Supreme Being because each interaction, each communication that expresses the Father — is reflective of truth, beauty, and goodness — is itself valuable. The coming together of minds creates a new level of meaning each and every time. Is this understandable to all?
Dialogue
Limitations
Q: I can understand what you are saying, and I can even see how it applies to my life. How does it happen that so many screw up? If the Father constrains us for our own good, then why are there so many ruined lives, drug addicts, ruthless dictators, and so forth.
Ham: Human immaturity, human folly.
Q: Lack of God in individual lives?
Ham: Yes, exactly. The will is supreme, and though one human will can reek tremendous damage in the world, still in the wider picture the damage is localized. Lucifer, for example, brought tremendous damage to the local universe, but in the wider picture this damage was contained and short-lived.
Q: Is the same true for the individual, the bad decisions we make can create damage but in the big picture it is localized?
Ham: Yes. Say a life is ruined by alcohol addiction, ultimately resulting in the person’s death. What are we talking about here, 30 years or 40 years? In the overall scheme of eternity, that is a blink of an eye. Do you see?
Q: Yes. That helps a great deal. So what you are saying is that God really doesn’t constrain our freedom but that is o.k. because it is limited? Was 6,000,000 Jews a big problem in the universe? Where does God draw the line?
Ham: No, they were each one welcomed individually and lovingly to their greater estate.
Q: That was after the fact of them being tortured.
Ham: The Lucifer rebellion has caused much grater damage than Hitler could have ever thought of, sheer scale.
Q: So are wills are not really constrained, maybe within the universe, but not here in our abilities to hurt other people?
Ham: Yes, I think that was ultimately constrained.
Q: I don’t see how you can say that, it keeps going on and on to the next generations. That particular horror continues, and others do too. It may be constrained on a grand level. Are our lives any less important than the Universe? Is what happens in our lives any less important? So again, we have the freedom to hurt other people, our wills are not constrained.
Ham: If your wills were constrained, then you would not have free will on the level that you have it.
Q: So the constraint is the size of the mess we are able to make?
Ham: It is limited to this planet.
Q: Or to a circumscribed time frame? If we are given freedom to the limit that we are responsible, why would someone like Hitler be given the freedom to do what he did?
Ham: This was a time when Caligastia still inhabited Urantia and exerted considerable influence. Also, there are other factors which in the Father’s wisdom were allowed to play out that the horrors of increasingly dehumanizing warfare always escalate until warfare is abolished.
Q: What about more recent massacres in the Tutsi, in Bosnia, much more recent times after the Lucifer rebellion has be adjudicated. How do you explain that?
Ham: Warfare will not end until it is willed to end through wise administration of earth. Warfare will continue to escalate, it will not go away.
Q: Even the most constrained among us have enough freedom to pick up a machine gun and kill our neighbors?
Ham: Correct, and these forces will continue until human beings create forces that stop this.
Q: So then, everything you have said tonight is more about increasing freedom in a grander scale. As you said we all have the freedom to pick up a gun, or mess up the environment. But all we have now is life on earth. It seems that there is nothing to stop us from going at each other? Is that what you are saying, that the only thing that is stopping us from greater maturity and then we will be given greater freedom in the universe? So this is our playground for now until we can handle it better?
Ham: Testing ground would be more appropriate.
Q: If instead of getting our selfish desires, what we want is to make the world a better place, then as we become more mature, things will open up so that we actually can do some good?
Ham: Yes.
Q: There are two parts to this, the freedom to do evil and that is what comes to our minds first because we are surrounded by it, but there is also the flip side which is the freedom to do good. This is what comes to your mind first about freedom, from your perspective?
Ham: Yes. Questions.
Progress
Q: I would like to ask my usual question, please.
Ham: Jarad, you are learning rapidly the course to follow. You are understanding the value of restraint and character building. Also, you are learning to focus your energies more precisely and to work on one thing at a time. It is like you are bringing in energies that were scattered, and learning to focus on one thing then another then another to make progress. You have a tendency to want to do everything and nothing at the same time. Don’t worry, you are doing very well and making great strides spiritually. Continue to seek balance in your spiritual exercises, and to give thanks every day and to pray for others.
Q: Do you have anything for Rebecca?
Ham: Rebecca, you are learning to accept situations and people better and to have less judgment and more love. This should lighten your burden considerably. Finally, you will learn to be nonjudgmental of yourself and your actions.
Jeremiah, you are slowly making progress. It may feel like two steps forward and one step back, but have assurance that slowly there is change. Healing efforts are welcomed. Continue all else as we have outlined. Cottage cheese is a helpful addition to your diet, even though you’re trying to limit dairy, cottage cheese is good for you at this time.
Q: Anything for Deborah?
Ham: I am very pleased that she is enjoying the companionship of Abraham. This is as it should be. Nothing to add.
Q: Anything for Mary Jo?
Ham: Yes, don’t allow yourself to fall into depression or bouts of self-pity. You have help all around you, and companionship as well. Keep active and maintain close contact with your daughters. Also, I believe there is a Urantia book study group in Albuquerque. Contact them.
Q: How shall she find them Ham?
Ham: The foundation.
Q: Ham, I would appreciate any advice you might have for me.
Ham: Vontis, you should have much gratitude and happiness for your progress. Don’t look backward, always go forward. Embrace newness and difference. Get yourself to do things differently, to try new things, to just do things in a different way, just little things. Don’t get circumscribed by familiarity.
Closing
If there are no further questions, I will depart for the evening and wish you all a wonderful week of discovery and adventure.
