Dependence on God

"My goal isn't to be better than anyone else; my goal is to be better than I once was."

                                                                                      ~ Anonymous


When I had cancer, I learned a lot about myself.
After I was healed and began to recover, I learned more about myself and more about the people who were around me.
Spiritually, I learned the very valuable lesson of God's Sovereign control over every aspect of the universe, to include our very fragile, personal lives.


Of all the things Scripture commands believers to do, of all the things that we're told that we are to have as a response to life, to prayer, to requests and in our meditative life in Christ,

the most difficult could very well be the command we are given by the Lord which says:

"Be Still and Know that I AM God."

~ Ps. 46:10

This command given to the Psalmist by God and passed on to us in Scripture, could be the hardest thing we ever have to do in our lives.
By our nature, we do not want to be still, we do not want to wait; His timing, we think, should line up with our timing and what we want should be what God wants for us as well.
But you know as well as I do that it doesn't work this way.


I cannot speak for the rest of the world; but I do know that 'being still' is a foreign concept, historically, for most Americans.


As Americans, historically, we have been taught from a very young age to aspire for self-reliance; we need no person or government to provide for us or to regulate what we do in our individual lives.
Isn't this the spirit of ruggedness which helped to build America?


In fact, we celebrate independence far more than any reliance.
We expect our children to walk before the reach a year of age; we make joyous encouragement to our children when they go to the bathroom for the first time in a commode. When riding a bike, we are more than willing as parents to take training wheels off at the first indication a child can sustain their balance; only to discover they weren't as ready as we want them to be and begin to cry when their knee is skinned up because of the crash to the ground.
As adults, we read self-help books when we try new projects and gather our own information to accomplish a task.
We look down on those who sustain themselves by government assistance and welfare programs.


In general, Americans tend to want to be self-sufficient and self-reliant.
But the one place self-reliance will kill you is when we try to be spiritually self-reliant; in the Kingdom, the opposite should take place, the Christian should seek more dependence rather than independence.

"Apart from Me, you can do nothing"

~ Jn. 15:5

If I had to describe prayer, there are many things that could be said: Communion with God, spiritual humility, etc.
But at its core, I would say that prayer is a solemn declaration of our dependence on God Himself; in particular, His grace and goodness.

The Biblical patriarchs, the prophets, the leaders of the Old Testament and the Apostles and early Church of the New Testament teach us the same ideal about dependence on God.
With God, we become more than conquerors for He conquers through us; apart from God, we are left to our own resources and fail miserably.


To prove this statement, and to see how things are supposed to be in our lives spiritually, we need to look no further than the first chapter of Genesis.
After each creative act of God, He looked and 'saw that it was good.'
This means that each part of Creation held the goodness of God and shouted His glory throughout the universe; Creation demonstrated the glory of His handiwork.
Another verse of Scripture states the Creation this way:

"The morning stars sang together and all the Angels shouted for joy."

~ Job 38:7

Amazing, isn't it?
It was a time unknown to us today; all Creation spoke to God's glory and created beings

proclaimed with joy His magnificence.
It was a time, unknown to us, of utter dependence on God Himself.


Yet, despite the pain we experience in this life, despite the tragedy we see reported each day through the media news cycles, and despite the loss of purity which has invaded humanity, there is still something lingering in Creation that shouts God's glory throughout the universe.
It is like the scent of an old, but familiar perfume from someone you once knew but have been separated from for ages.


And every once in a while, we find relics of that past civilization amid the fallen world today; calling us back to our Creator, back to His grace.


It is the Creator's hand guiding us to Himself; drawing us near, even as we seek to draw away from Him.
The 23rd Psalm speaks of God's 'goodness and mercy' following us all the days of our lives; we are given a picture of a God who knows His own and will chase us down and love us, even in those times when we are the most unlovable and don't want to be loved.
It is an image of His infinite glory in His endless grace.


To experience these things we are to 'Be Still and Know that I AM God.'
This is the opposite of rebellion; it is the counter to acts of rebellion.
It is simply being God's own child and recognizing the fact that God Himself is in total and epic control of your life and your circumstances.


Of all the negative things that happened or continues to effect my body and life caused by cancer, the one positive thing I can attest to is the peace and security of knowing that He is God.
In that stillness, there is found the peace which surpasses all understanding.
It is a return to that by-gone age of the Creation.


You see, at the beginning, there was no such thing as self-reliance; there was no stubbornness.
As a result, there were no disappointments because the expectations were solidly in God Himself; what was found was a simple, pure joy within all Creation.


And humans, they were still and knew God; they experienced Him, walked with Him, communed with Him in such a way that we can only dream of experiencing in the age to come.
In their dependence on God for life, food, existence, and all other things; there was joy.


The hope of humanity is in this: As things were at the beginning, so they will be at the end.
A total, absolute, joyful and glorious dependence on the Sovereign hand of God Himself.


Until next time, win one for the good guys.