Separation Anxiety

Genesis 13:10-11 (KJV)
¹⁰ And Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered every where, before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt, as thou comest unto Zoar. ¹¹ Then Lot chose him all the plain of Jordan; and Lot journeyed east: and they separated themselves the one from the other.

Abraham was the first Jew, the Father of the Hebrew nation.  The Jewish people didn’t call themselves the children of Adam, or Seth, or Enos, or Cainan, or Mahalaleel, or Enoch, or Methusaleh, or even Noah.  They called themselves “the children of Abraham.”  Why?  Because God began a covenant relationship with Abraham.  Everything good that was going to happen to Israel was going to be funneled through Abraham.

Why, then, did Lot, the nephew of Abraham, separate himself from his Uncle?  Apparently, he did not fully recognize that God blessed him because of his association with Abraham.  He thought he could strike out on his own and make it—maybe even make it big.  I know there was strife between Abraham and Lot’s herdsmen.  I know their two clans were getting so large that there was continual war going on.  I know the land was too small to support both of them.  But the real problems came as a result of the separation.

When Lot separated himself from Abraham, he saw wealth, materialism, good times, independence from “the Boss,” and freedom to be himself.  But it also entailed a broken relationship between him and the covenant of promise.

Separation Anxiety:  A condition affecting babies when first separated from their parents.

Teary and tantrum-filled goodbyes are a common part of a child’s earliest years. Around the first birthday, many kids develop separation anxiety, getting upset when a parent tries to leave them with someone else.

Though separation anxiety is a perfectly normal part of childhood development, it can be unsettling.

Understanding what your child is going through and having a few coping strategies can help both of you get through it.

How Separation Anxiety Develops

Babies adapt pretty well to other caregivers. Parents probably feel more anxiety about being separated than infants do! As long as their needs are being met, most babies younger than 6 months adjust easily to other people.

Sometime between 4-7 months, babies develop a sense of object permanence and begin to learn that things and people exist even when they’re out of sight. Babies realize that there’s only mom or dad, and when they can’t see you, that means you’ve gone away. And most don’t yet yet understand the concept of time so do not know if or when you’ll come back.

Whether you’re in the kitchen, in the next bedroom, or at the office, it’s all the same to your baby. You’ve disappeared, and your child will do whatever he or she can to prevent this from happening.  -Parenting

Separation:  An intermediate step between marriage and divorce.

        When married couples have problems between them that reach a critical point, one of the first things they do to resolve the differences is to separate.  Sometimes it works, but most of the time it’s just the prelude to the next step, divorce.  It’s a traumatic time, even if there is no other solution.  It signifies a broken relationship.

Six Degrees of Separation

Six degrees of separation is the theory that anyone on the planet can be connected to any other person on the planet through a chain of acquaintances that has no more than five intermediaries.

In 2001, Duncan Watts, a professor at Columbia University, continued his own earlier research into the phenomenon and recreated Milgram’s experiment on the Internet. Watts used an e-mail message as the “package” that needed to be delivered, and surprisingly, after reviewing the data collected by 48,000 senders and 19 targets (in 157 countries), Watts found that the average number of intermediaries was indeed, six.

There is only one degree of separation necessary for you to be miserable—the separation between you and your God. 

Separation.  None of us like it.  It’s one of the most fearful sensations that a human being can have. 

Separation:  Adam and Even and their separation from God in the garden.

Separation From God

Isaiah 59:1-4 (KJV)
¹ Behold, the LORD’S hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear: ² But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear. ³ For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue hath muttered perverseness. ⁴ None calleth for justice, nor any pleadeth for truth: they trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity.

Separation from God is not an inconsequential choice.  Sometimes I am amazed at how people think.  “Oh, I’m just taking a break from religion.”  One woman told me, “I just want something a little less demanding.”  “Oh, I’m just going to go to this church over here for a while.”

Do they preach the truth?  “Well, what is truth, anyway?”  Usually, when people make these decisions, they don’t come to me to discuss it; they come to announce it!”

        But, separation from God means separation from the attributes of God.

        It means separation from the knowledge of God.

        It means separation from the power of God.

When you are separated from God, you lose that protective covering, that covenantal relationship.  You become exposed to every devilish doctrine and error that is out there.  For example, listen to this letter that a member of this church got in an email:

The question that I have is twofold, first what is the reductionist root cause of sin and evil, if God created everything then God created Evil and sin, Second, if God created us with free will thus giving us some kind of surrogate responsibility for our actions then why is it that we had no choice.  If we had no choice then God forced or caused our free will thus creating sin thus I wonder how original sin can logically exist in an epistemological sense.  

Babies are raped, why did God create the possibility for this to happen?

I have been told that I must believe that Jesus died for my sins in order to go to heaven, thus heaven is the motivation for believing, thus I am only believing to get something out of it for myself in a very deep hedonistic motivation.  Psychologically Religion is great for humans because studies have shown that Religious believers have a higher state of well being, longer life, better health physically and psychologically so I am not saying that religion is bad.  I am saying that I do not want to believe in something just to become happy or to go to heaven. If I believe in something there must be an empirical reason with validity backing it up with some sense of subjective truth in my own personal perspective on truth. 
 
I have many other qualms with religion but maybe I should allow you to enlighten me with what I have all ready spoken of.  I am sorry if these questions offend you in any way, that is not what I am out to do, I believe we all have reasons for believing in our beliefs and I want to know what the absolute belief might be, but I am very analytical about belief because of Jim Jones, Charles Manson, David Koresh, the heaven’s gate cult, the cult of Yahweh and others.  They all had followers so to Christianity may be leading people in negative understandings of reality.

First, the Bible does not say that God created everything.  It says that He created “all things” and then it qualified “all things.”  Colossians 1:16 (KJV)  For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:

Evil was not created by God.  Created comes from the Hebrew word “bara” and it means to “make something new” or to be brought into being out of nothing.  Evil was not the product of a creative act but the perversion and distortion of something that was already created.

Yes, we are all creatures of free will, and yes, God took a risk in creating us this way.  But would you want it any different? 

There are a lot of other answers to this letter, but the main problem is that when a person gets separated from God, you go down twisted, convoluted paths that always end up in destruction.  The philosophies of man are intriguing enough to get you to try them out.  Once you leave the main road and take the bait, you get pulled farther and farther until you lose sight of everything about God. 

I am not anti-education nor anti-intellectual, but I am saying that you should not get heavily involved in questions that you don’t have answers to.  The question is the come-on and it operates under the illusion that if you keep digging, you’ll find the answer. 

2 Timothy 3:7 (KJV) Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.

If you want to be separated, you need to be separated to God.

Separation to God

        Ephesians 2:11-22 (KJV) ¹¹ Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands; ¹² That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world: ¹³ But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.

When you were in sin, you were separated from God.  (Broken, lonely, lost, miserable)

(That’s why alcoholism, drug addiction, gross immorality, lying, cheating, stealing, fighting, etc.)  It was Separation Anxiety!

¹⁴ For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us;
¹⁵ Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace;
¹⁶ And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby:
¹⁷ And came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh.
¹⁸ For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father.
¹⁹ Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God;
²⁰ And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone;
²¹ In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord:
²² In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.

Separation for God

Not only are we separated UNTO God, we live a life separate from the world because we are separated FOR God.     

2 Corinthians 6:11-18

2 Corinthians 6:11-18 (KJV)
¹¹ O ye Corinthians, our mouth is open unto you, our heart is enlarged.
¹² Ye are not straitened in us, but ye are straitened in your own bowels.
¹³ Now for a recompence in the same, (I speak as unto my children,) be ye also enlarged.
¹⁴ Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?
¹⁵ And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?
¹⁶ And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

¹⁷ Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you,
¹⁸ And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.

Why does the Bible lead us into a separated life?  Because it is an enlightened way to live!  It’s clean, holy, reverent, righteous. 

Galatians 5:16-21 (KJV)
¹⁶ This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.
¹⁷ For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.
¹⁸ But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law.
¹⁹ Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
²⁰ Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,
²¹ Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

Some people ask, what’s wrong with this, what’s wrong with that?  I just want the look, the taste, the feel of the world.  Why can’t I do that without being in the world?

Let me ask you this:  Do you wives want your husbands to go out looking like he’s single?  Do you husbands want your wives to act like, dress like, think like she is not married to you?

No. When we are in a covenant relationship, we respect the agreement.

When you are one thing, you don’t look like you are something else.  If you go to Northview, you don’t wear Southview colors.  If you go to BG, you don’t wear UT colors. 

I live a separated life because I know with whom I am in a covenant relationship!  My allegiance, my respect, my reverence, my commitment is to the One who saved my soul!

The bridge back

Galatians 6:1-2 (KJV)
¹ Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.
² Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.

I am here today to help you resolve your separation anxiety.  I believe that the source of any problem you have today are because you are out of relationship with Jesus.

I don’t have all the answers to all the questions.  I don’t have the promise of an immediate overnight change, although it can happen.

What I do have is the offering of the hand of God.  I can do that because I have the ministry of reconciliation.  God wants to take your hand where you are today and lead you back home where you want to be.  You don’t have to come home first and prove yourself.  Just get back into a relationship with Jesus.  Let Him show you what the next step is.