What is Life as God Intended?
I want to talk about life—not life as we see it today, but life as God intended it to be. We receive a lot of letters in our office, and some of them are asking for help; a lot of them, to be honest, are “thank you’s" for finding their own freedom and their own identity and life in Christ. One of the letters that came to me, I put in the beginning of my recent book Letting Go of Fear. Fear, by the way, is the number one mental disorder in the world today. And she said,
“I’m 36 years old. For as long as I can remember, I have been plagued with fears and anxieties. I was raised in an abusive family and lived under the threat of even worse treatment if I ever told. In the bondage of fear, I decided never to tell anyone.
“I came home one evening and found everyone gone. I was gripped with fear and crawled under my bed. Why weren’t they home? Did they think I told someone? What would happen when they came back? I could never enjoy the simple little things that accompany childhood.
“My anxieties and fears followed me wherever I went. I was too afraid to try out for anything where I could possibly fail, and I dreaded every exam. My stomach would tie up in knots from anxiety. I became a perfectionist who had to achieve—whatever the cost.
“This pattern of fear continued into my teenage years and young-adult life. I tried to accept Jesus twice, but I feared not being good enough. I feared the rejection and ridicule of others, so I tried to keep everyone happy. Even sleep offered no reprieve. The nightmares I suffered as a result of the abuse in my childhood continued into my adult years.
“I am a parent now, and I fear for my children. Am I an adequate mother? Will my children be hurt or abducted? I know this is robbing me of the life I want to live, but I don’t know what to do. I feel like I’m living two lives. On the outside I appear to be a successful teacher, wife, mother, and contributing member of society. But if people could see the condition of my soul, they would notice only pain, anxiety, and fear. Can somebody help me? Can I help myself, or is this what life is supposed to be?
No—it is not what life is supposed to be, at least not in the beginning! God created the heavens and the earth. We look upon it today through the Hubble telescope, and we just stand absolutely mesmerized by the expanse of the universe. There are stars out there so big that would make our sun look like a little bitty dot. All of these planets and galaxies and dark spots and dark holes and supernovas—there’s one thing that’s true about all of it: they’re all lifeless; they’re all devoid of life.
Maybe our planet and other planets like it possibly have biological life, but it’s inevitable that all biological life is simply going to die. It has to have some way to reproduce itself. So it sows a seed or some means of reproduction. Then God did something totally unique. God—the mind behind the universe—took a hunk of clay and breathed into it the breath of life, and Adam was alive. Alive how? Physically—his soul was in union with his body. But he was alive spiritually—his soul was in union with God. That’s the kind of life we’re going to talk about. It’s that life that Adam lost. It’s that life that Jesus came to give us. We’re going to talk about that life and how He has met our most critical needs in our life to know who we are, children of God.
Neil T. Anderson is the founder of Freedom in Christ Ministries. He began the ministry in 1989 and continues to spread the message of freedom to this day.