I used to study the Holy Bible all through my childhood and I was most intrigued with the Joseph story of the old testament. But what confused me was the "Land of Nod" and the "Nephi lim of Gen: 6". My teachers did not have the answers nor did we really have the internet at that time in the 80s. Along the mid 80s this concealed book about some people that came over to America in 600 b.c. entered my life and the next thing you know things start changing with everyone. I grew up Judeo Christian but something was always leading me to the stars. I became interested in the Mormons when I began to read other scriptures of religious faith in other beliefs beyond the Roman Catholic Vulgate- better known as the New Testament. When I read how the faith of a few comrades led to the settling of the west and when this Man by the name of Moroni was on his kness being surrounded by other ancient americans, I began to cry. We were not raised mormons but when we would talk to other people about this book we had been reading and they would look at us as if we were from another planet.
Masonry goes back in my blood. Farming runs deep through my roots. The peace tendency of a brother helping out another brother in need as always knocked on my soul all of my life. So as I grew up with all these questions about what is God and who was this man that hung up on this cross- I began to see things in a different perspective. My Father was on the quest for truth all of my life. Every time I would come home from school I would see him sitting in the living room always reading away. I can remember asking him is that all you do? He would just look up at me and smile. Then BOOM! The Urantia Book enters our lives. The first time I picked it up I thought to myself who would want to read this book the size of a phone book.
I can remember walking out on the back porch to hear my father talk about this guy that leaves his village to go out on the quest for truth to discover that as he ascends the height of th mountain to turn around and see no one there with him..... I paused and asked him if he was alright. I could feel something strange then occuring in the reorganization of my mind. I can even remember thinking that he was crazy. But when my answers began to be answered with the questions that I had all those years growing up as a christian kid- I knew that something was meant to be. The night I began to look out at the Milky Way Galaxy and wonder what is up there I never for a moment thought that I would be up there some day out of my material body. But to see the scriptures in the new testament about the apostle paul not knowing if a man had ascended to the third heaven or not- I know that this God, This mysterious God that dwells within the souls of men always leads a yearning mind to the truth. Chicago was big to us when we were kids. Why? Little did I know that it would be the city that the Atomic bomb came out of and the big blue book that was mysteriously written along this small group of people.
I never thought that I would find what I have found and I guess it is true that the time is ripe for feelings that lie to deep for words. I have cried more tears in my life time over the love that I have for a few fellow brothers in the spirit that if I could save every tear I think there would be a pond to fish in by now. At least I had my old man there to talk with me all those years that we would discover new truths. Little did we know that we were born to work for Christ Michael the human Joshua ben Joseph.