One of the fundamental principles of creation is that whenever God creates something he designs it according to its purpose and intended environment. In other words, when God created birds to fly, he gave them wings and the desire to fly. When God created fish to swim, he put in them the ability to swim and gave them gills so they could breathe in water. When God created mankind to have dominion over the earth, he imparted to us the ability to govern, rule, lead, and manage the earth, its creatures, and resources. We are designed to rule, not to be ruled. We are designed to govern, not to be governed. We are designed to manage, not to be managed. We are designed to lead, not to follow. Whenever anyone tries to tell us what to do, even someone in a legitimate position of authority, there arises in us a spirit or attitude of resistance. It is our nature to resist being ruled or controlled by others. This is due in part to our sinful nature, which we inherited from Adam and Eve, and which the Bible says is always in rebellion against God, who is the ultimate and absolute authority. Adam and Eve sinned when, out of pride, they sought to be equal with God, their Creator, and free from his authority over them. Our resistance to others ruling over us is also due to the spirit of leadership that God placed in us when he created us. God's purpose was for us to rule over the created order as vice-regents under his authority. He designed us for that purpose and put in us the appropriate spirit and innate ability to fulfill our destiny. Sin distorted and exaggerated that spirit, pushing it beyond the bounds that God intended. Our natural tendency is to resist all authority, including God's. One reason so many of us experience frustration in life is because our environment has changed. We were designed to rule our lives and environment but instead we live in a world where we are ruled by our own pride, lust, passion, greed, and selfishness. We are dominated by the adversary, Satan, the author of sin and the instigator of humanity's downfall. God designed us for mastery, yet that is not the reality we experience in our daily living. We are frustrated because we are not fulfilling our purpose. We do not, function properly because We are not living in the environment for which we were designed. The key to fulfilled and purposeful living is discovering how to regain our place of' dominion, to return to our position of leadership in the earthly domain as God originally intended. To do this, we must understand the contrasts between the two kingdoms that envelop lives as well as how we are to integrate ourselves properly into these two different worlds.
