Deliberate Dependency

“I am calling you to live in joyful dependence on Me.  Many people view dependence as a despicable condition, so they strive to be as self-sufficient as possible.  This is not My way for you!  I designed you to need Me continually – and to delight in that neediness.” ` from Jesus Today by Sarah Young.

Wow!  Is that a lot to swallow?  Delighting in my neediness on God.  We are trained from childhood here in the US to be self-sufficient.  When I was a single parent I was involved with a county government program called Self Sufficiency – a program to help single moms get back on their feet by giving them skills to work to make a living for their family.  It also helped them find affordable housing.  In fact my rental was the first Section 8 housing in the entire town where I lived.  I even spoke to a couple of groups of congress representatives as well as to private foundations promoting this program.  Was that bad?  No I don’t think so.

I remember one Sunday evening when the kids and I went to church and very surprisingly came home with bags of groceries that my church family had collected on our behalf.  I remember sitting on the floor of our kitchen just crying – grateful that we would have food to eat and humbled that these wonderful people would give of themselves so much and almost on the brink of humiliation that I was in this spot. 

I will just go on the record and say I am not a good receiver.  I love to give but I don’t receive well, especially to the degree of my neediness.  The greater my neediness the greater my humiliation.  God has spent years trying to teach me to be a joyful receiver.  I have improved but have quite a ways to go. 

Even when I fell and broke my ankle this last in April, while I am sitting on the ground outside my home with my leg facing one way and my foot facing another, the second thought I had after thinking, “Man does this hurt” was “OK God, I evidently did not learn it the first ankle break 6 years ago so we are going to have another go of it”.  I feel overall I handled this break much better than I did 6 years ago in several ways, and one of those ways was becoming dependent on my husband and daughter and friends and not feeling humiliated by it.  My dependence on God was a given in this case.

I think I will spend a lifetime working at a healthy balance between self sufficiency and deliberate dependence on God.