Dependency

I often work alongside a man named Butch.  He is probably 15 years older than I am.  He and his wife have been married a long time, I would estimate close to or over 40 years.  Butch is an important Construction Manager for his company and he often has to travel and live at a site for years since some of the construction projects are tens of millions of dollars (the largest I know of was over 50 million and took 5 years). 

Since we have spent more time than just on job sites, we have become friends.  Butch was telling me once how he and his wife used to fight when they were younger and how difficult it was at times.  I asked him what got them through and he said it was God and learning to accept that there are times you have to depend on each other.  He gave me the story of how he broke his back in an accident on a construction project and how humiliating it was for him because he could do nothing.  He couldn’t walk, move, bathe, or, and I hate to say it but I think it’s worth saying, wipe his own bottom.  He said as much as he didn’t want his wife to have to care for him for the trouble it’d be for her, he had to depend on her for everything.  And it was through those hard times that each had experienced, that they learned how much each of them loved the other.

When any of us are born, we are completely dependent upon others.  As we grow, we become more dependent and more dependent, so much so that we are able to care for newborns who are completely dependent.  However, in the truest sense of dependency, our lives are totally dependent upon God for its existence.  We are dependent upon a Creator for being alive.  We are dependent upon Savior to stay alive.  It is God before our beginning and it is God through and after our physical end.  The best life is the one dependent upon God for that “dash” in between those two dates.

We are dependent beings no matter how much we want to believe otherwise.  Why not depend upon a God that knows us so intimately that He knows the number of hairs on our head?  Why not depend upon a God that loves us so intently that He would offer Himself as the perfect way to find Him and life?  Such acceptance requires brokenness and humility in much the same way as Butch experienced and much as we all will likely experience if we are blessed.  How contradictory it is to say such a thing (blessed in hardship) to the wisdom of the world!  But the lesson in learning to be dependent and accept it with overwhelming thankfulness and even joy is too great to pass.  As is any lesson we are willing to learn from our heavenly Rabbi.

Jesus said “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Mt 18:3)  Am I willing to realize and accept that I am completely dependent upon Him for all things today, as a child is to his parents?  Will I be thankful for being dependent?  In most my most intent fight, am I thankful that I am dependent upon Him in the fight?  It is such a hard concept to accept.  I pray that I will learn well and the Lord has patience with me.