LIFE COMES FROM DEPENDENCE, NOT INDEPENDENCE
You probably hear the same things I hear. The young woman says of her marriage, “I want to work. I don’t want to be dependent on my husband.” The grandmother confides in her friends, “I don’t want to ever be dependent on my children.” The newlyweds concur, “We don’t want to be dependent on our parents.” The non-believer says, “I’ll never be a Christian; I don’t want to have a crutch or have to rely on someone else.” My question for all of them is, “Why not?”
How is it that we have gotten so isolationist in our thinking that we want to disentangle ourselves from the very web of support God places around us to care for, support and nurture us? It is clearly a lie from the pit of hell.
God is a God of relationship. Relationship is always about dependence, not independence. For example, if you are dating someone and his or her greatest desire is to be independent of you and receive nothing from you, I put it to you that the relationship will not be very fulfilling and is not likely to last very long.
Independence is a euphemism for isolation. If one is independent of everyone, he or she is alone and thus isolated – an island unto him or herself. Islands are nice places to visit, but an island has difficulty sustaining abundant life for very long. So too spiritually. In my own example, my independence from God brought gradual creeping death to my soul. I appeared on the outside to have apparent worldly success, an education, a career, my own business, financial stability, a house, a baby . . . Inside, I was lost, confused, empty and longing for something – I didn’t know what.
Even after I came back to the Lord and began to build my fellowship with God by going to church and attaching some outward signs of faith to my life, I still felt times of great death in my soul. Darkness could easily creep in and spread. Without the callouses and vices of the world to medicate against the pain, it was worse than before. It was one such episode of darkness and depression which hit me so hard and so unexpectedly I was unable to pull myself up by my boot straps. I turned to blame the only one I knew . . . God.
“God,” I cried. “Why are you allowing this? (At least my theology was good – God is sovereign over all things.) I’m going to church. I’m reading in my Bible. I’m singing songs to you and crying with true love and emotion to you, so why did you let this darkness descend on me again?” I knew not long after asking the question God’s answer. He gently showed me, with no condemnation or anger, that I had allowed the darkness. I had invited it in, and while he had held it at bay for a time, it was now time for me to deal with the darkness. Time to fish or cut bait. The darkness, He showed me, was able to reach me because I had a divided heart. I still had parts of my life which I had not given over to His lordship. I still had great areas of independence from Him. His desire was for my entire life to come under His lordship. I needed to surrender all. He promised me that if I surrendered all, this darkness, caused by separation from God by my own sin, would never come back in the same way. And so it was.
I said, “No” to the sin that I was engaged in. I threw myself at His feet and begged Him not to ever allow me to get separated from Him again. I didn’t have all the doctrine and theology to point to at the time. I wasn’t very well schooled in my Bible, but I knew God had pointed to the compromise in my life and said, “Choose.” It was an easy choice. The walking out of the choice was more difficult. Saying “no” to sin in your own life is often much easier than telling your partner or partners in sin of your choice. They are not always at the same point your are spiritually and may resist putting aside the sin. However, God is able to bring to completion the work in you and the work in me.
Each day since that time, I have grown in my dependence on God. I have gradually changed my mind about independence. I no longer view it as a positive attribute for anyone. I have learned that in marriage, there is no room for independence. In the family of God, there is no room for independence. In my walk with Jesus, there is no room or desire for independence. I want to wholly rely on Jesus. I want no glimmer of my own righteousness to show through (it is as filthy rags). I only want God to view me in the righteousness of Christ. That requires my total dependence on Christ. In total dependence on Christ, I am able to be restored to that relationship with God that Adam and Eve had before the fall, a relationship based on close fellowship where all decisions are made based on the fellowship and dependence on a loving and nurturing Father who is almighty, all-knowing and all powerful.
May the God of all mercy show you how to be totally dependent on Him. May you rejoice daily in the wonder of an all-sufficient God who loves you.
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