In the past several weeks, God has been revealing that He is the ONLY source of joy and life. So many times I find myself making other things my source of joy. Whether it is my friends or my achievements, I seem to try and make my own joy. I don’t always enjoy God’s methods of teaching because it often involves stripping me of things that I rely on. Lately, it has been Him showing me that my friends won’t satisfy or fulfill my needs. As hard as that can be, it’s incredible because along with it He has been showing me that He does meet my needs, that He does satisfy.
About a week ago, I was listening to Kim Walker sing “I Need You More.” One section really caught my attention:
“I need You more, more than yesterday I need You Lord.
More than words can say I need You more.
Than ever before I need You Lord, I need You Lord.”
I need you more than yesterday. That’s so backwards from how I live. So many times the Christian life is a process of becoming more self-sustaining. We know how to sin less, we know how to teach our children, we know how to relate to our family, we serve more, we love better, and we are good Christians. If we’re honest with ourselves, isn’t that what we strive for? We strive for independence. We need God for salvation and then to teach us how to live, but it is a dwindling dependence on Him as He shows us more. We treat God like the parent raising His kids, gradually giving His kids more independence until they are ready to fly on their own.
That is so far from God’s heart. God’s desire is for us to become more and more dependent on Him because regardless of how many books we read, how many self-help classes we take, how often we read our Bible, we CANNOT live independent of Him. There is no life or love apart from Him. In our world, independence is freedom, but in God’s Kingdom there is true freedom in dependence.
God’s moving us away from independence towards dependence. Our society fights it, our flesh fights it, our mind fights it, but deep down our heart longs for it, our heart NEEDS it.
