Among the many things God has done specifically for me because of the Word I have learned, the very first thing He did was to erase all the fear of the future I carried around since I was a teenager. I came to the ministry in 1987 at the age of twenty-five. Prior to that time, the best I knew about my future was that it appeared to be very finite in scope, meaning, and duration. My father was both a scientist and business executive. When I was a teenager, he showed me what he thought was the meaning of my life by breaking down my entire future into numbers. According to him, I was expected to have about forty productive years in the workforce at just over 2,000 working hours per year, and thus I would need so-and-so much money to live comfortably in retirement. That meant I had to have a certain-sized salary in order to save enough money to live out my time. He broke down my life into a series of financial calculations. No more.
From that time on, I found my life consumed with the struggle to accept that forecast. How depressing the outcome of my life seemed to be. I routinely asked myself, “Is that all there is?” “Is that all my life means?” As far as I could know, I was simply marking time. Then, one Friday afternoon, somebody asked if I wanted to go to fellowship that Sunday morning. I can’t recall what was taught during that first time sitting in a ministry fellowship. What I will never forget is the recognition that I had just heard in twenty minutes more truth directly from the Bible than I had heard in the sum of my twenty-five years previously. So, it was easy to say, “Yes!” to the ministry’s Foundational Class. It was there that I was taught John 10:10:
The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.
That was revolutionary to me. All I had ever had up to that point was the less than abundant life. Right away, all my fears about having no real future were beginning to melt away. Then, I was taught about Romans 10:9 and 10 and the eternal life that was not vague and mysterious. It was presented clearly and plainly, right from the pages of God’s Word. And, I could see that it was so simple to obtain as well. From that time, I never looked back. Where once I thought my dead-end existence would eventually just end in death, I now had life, and eternal life at that. Eventually, the ministry taught me from the pages of God’s Word about the purpose for my life in service to my heavenly Father. Instead of an idle existence, lasting for only a few bleak years, I now have an important and meaningful life with the hope of eternal life that will be just as meaningful. Thanks to this ministry, I have freedom from the worst of all fears. And, I am thankful.