Thursday, March 31, 2011

How I Long to Be Broken

“Come to my help, O God; Lord, hurry to my rescue” (Psalm 70:1).

"This little verse, I am saying, proves to be necessary and useful to each one of us and in all circumstances. For someone who needs help in all things is making clear that he requires the help of God not simply in hard and sad situations but equally and amid fortunate conditions. He knows that God saves us from adversity and makes our joys linger and that in neither situation can human frailty survive without his help."

You might note from the last several posts that I have been reading some pretty good devotionals lately. These come from the book Devotions for Lent, and I have been really glad to read them during this Lenten season.

Last week talked quite a bit about dependency. Now before coming to Peru, I would most definitely have described myself as one of the most independent people in the world, or at least one of the most independent people you would ever meet.

Fiercely independent.

That´s me.

Even to a fault.

But I will give you a little piece of advice: if you want to break yourself of independence, become part of a mission organization with a rule that you can´t go anywhere by youself, and be assigned a partner that you will do everything with.

Let me tell you, it works.

I am being broken of my independence.

BROKEN.

But I think when it comes down to it, God is the one breaking me of my independence.

I was honestly too independent for my own good. I thought I could do everything for myself...never needed help... didn´t need anyone else...

A lot of the time, I forgot to even rely on God.

But when you come to the end of your rope, when you can´t do anything for yourself, and when everyone else lets you down, you realize that there is a reason we are not in this on our own.

We need God for our very survival in every moment. The sad, difficult, even impossible situations...yeah, we need God then. In the joyful, mountaintop, over-the-moon moments...yeah, we need God then, too.

I must call out to God, ¨Hurry, Lord, to my rescue.¨ The times when I don't...yeah, I pretty much fall on my face and need his help getting up anyway.

He made us to be dependent. He even models dependency in community because, well, he is a community: three-in-one. That´s how it is supposed to be: relying on him, relying on each other. That is why the early church shared everything, and provided for one another.

We already have these models. So I´ve gotta ask: why am I so stinking independent? And an even better question: why do I take so much pride in my independence?

Well, that´s why God is breaking me down, leading me into this life of dependency. I rely on him for everything that I do on any given day. With my partner, I have to rely on her in everything we do in this work. And I am part of a team, and without any one of them, we are missing something.

We need each other. That honestly still pains me to write, but it is true. And I´m learning.

“Come to my help, O God; Lord, hurry to my rescue.”

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