To Be or Not To Be ... Independent.

These past few months have been a trying season of life for me. I don’t want to be overly dramatic and say that I feel like my life has been falling apart or anything, but most days I have felt like it was. Okay, maybe not my life, but myself. Yes, that’s more accurate. I felt like I was falling apart. I haven’t been in deep despair or hopelessness or even depression, though. It’s not that kind of falling apart. It’s the kind where you almost feel crazy because the struggle is very real, yet it’s all happening inside of you.

That’s just how it feels, I suppose, when you are fighting yourself. My heart is battling to obey God, but my flesh is combating my heart, and my mind isn’t yet sure which is going to win. I have felt as if I am being torn apart at the seams, and I am the one doing the tearing.

Nearly every day these past few months has been a battle: a trying, exhausting, stressful, painful, terrifying, and one-hundred-other-adjectives battle. I might’ve given up a long time ago if I hadn’t heard the voice of the Lord.

… … … …

God has asked me to give up some pretty hefty things before. Some were parts of my life that hurt so deeply to let go of that it brought me to my knees in hysterics. He has asked me to give up the man I planned on marrying. He has asked me to give up my home. He has asked me to give up trips to Spain and jobs and future plans for my life. I’m not a stranger to the sacrifices God sometimes asks us to make so we can live out the better plans He has for our lives.

In another sense, I am also familiar with the ways in which God has asked me to give up parts of who I was and who I can sometimes still be. “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me” (Luke 9:23). The Lord has asked me to give up aspects such as my impatience, my anger, my judgment, and my unforgiving heart. I’m not a stranger to this sometimes difficult process of becoming more Christ-like every day. Believe me, it can be a battle.

But what He has asked of me this time… this is different. Why so? Well, because it feels like it goes against my very character. I have believed it is my character. It seems contradictory to everything I’ve learned through experience. It doesn’t make sense to give up my survival tactic when I am in survival mode.

These past few months God has asked me to give up my independence, and it has torn me apart.

“What does that even mean?” some of you may ask. That’s a great question, because I asked it too. Ever since I was an infant I have been independent and I’ve always believed it to be a positive, beneficial trait. I couldn’t understand why God would want to take that from me. I thought that maybe what He was really after was the attitude within me that said, “I can do it myself. I don’t want any help. I’ve got my own back.” I thought maybe He wasn’t concerned so much with my independence as He was with the pride, distrust, and insecurity that lived behind it.

“Ok, so … dependence, huh? You want me to be dependent because you’re my Father, right? Well, I guess I’ll try.” I believed God told me that He wanted me to depend on Him rather than on myself for what I need, and He wanted me to become a person who chose to look to Him for my life. I felt like this was what I was supposed to do, so I tried. Thus the battle ensued.

You see, dependence on a reliable father was a nice idea to me, but it was just that: a nice idea. In actuality, it made me want to scream because I didn’t believe it. I didn’t see it. I couldn’t comprehend finding such security and safety and dependability in a father, and so I took care of myself. I didn’t want a father to care for me- I felt like I had been doing fine without one. I shuddered at even the thought of letting down my walls of independence for a father I wasn’t sure was actually there.  I didn’t want to, and it hurt to even try.

So, metaphorically, this is what my life has looked like: I imagine a picture of Jesus and me sitting together in a small row boat. Unfortunately, there is a decent-sized hole in the bottom of it. Water begins to fill the boat and my initial reaction is to jump up and throw the water out. At the very least I’d plug up the hole with my socks or something. As I get up to start scooping out the water, Jesus calmly tells me to sit. “Sit? But, but Jesus … we’re drowning,” I say.

I try to explain to Him that I don’t mind scooping out the water. I remind Him that I am capable of scooping out the water. Even better, doing so would likely make me feel purposeful and accomplished, so I want to throw out the water. I can fix it, Jesus. Really, it’s no problem. Let me fix it.

Yet all He says to me is the same, frustrating word: sit.

You know, sitting doesn’t sit well with me. I’ve been convinced for a long time that if I don’t take care of myself no one else will, so when someone tells me to stop looking out for myself I get a little crazy inside. Panic sets in. Fear, doubt, and restlessness shout, “If I don’t do it, who will?!” Not only this, but I don’t mind providing for myself. In fact, I enjoy it. I’m a worker at heart, and I was even as a child. I didn’t play “house” as a kid; I played “I’m going to work in my cubicle and be productive and independent.”  It’s just who I was and who I am and who I thought I wanted to be.

Well, it turns out that didn’t sit well with Jesus.

So there I was in my figurative boat, trying to sit when my whole being was telling me to stand. My heart wanted to trust God, but every other part of me was convinced I could only trust myself. I’d sit in faith, I’d stand in fear. I’d start to sit then stand straight up. I’d stand straight up and then sit myself down. It was up and down, back and forth, but neither the sitting nor the standing brought me any peace. If I was standing, I thought I was disobedient and lacking in trust. If I was sitting, I felt I was drowning in fear and anger.

Talk about a season of uneasiness- I couldn’t remember the last time I had felt peaceful. I was angry and exhausted constantly, and I had officially clicked into survival mode. I wasn’t trying to win anymore. I was just trying to survive. I had nothing to give, and I felt even too tired to take. I just was. But then, as I was drowning (both mentally and figuratively), God intervened. He didn’t bring me out of the sinking boat, though. He didn’t rescue me from my situation, but He opened my eyes to what was actually happening in that boat. As it turns out, I had a few things very very wrong.

In my heart I believed that God was taking something from me. I believed it about this current season, and I believed it about what He had asked from me before. Though I would verbally say He asked, in my heart I was convinced He took. To me the asking was a mere formality, and I didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. Of course I believed I could say no, but I was sure He would keep asking until I caved. In my eyes, God was taking my independence, and that’s just how it was.

Wrong.

God reminded me one morning of His gentle, kind, and chivalrous character. He spoke to me the truth about how He asks and never takes, and He only asks for that which brings death so that He may give life in return. He brought to mind the verse in Isaiah 61 that displays the gracious intentions of His heart, that He will give us a crown for ashes, joy for mourning, and a garment of praise for a spirit of despair. God assured me that He will never take anything- He will only ask me to give Him my trash so He can give to me His treasure.

I have a choice, and He never asks me to make a bad one.

I was relieved to understand this aspect of who God is, but I still didn’t want to sit in that boat. I viewed God as an indifferent, relentless, downright mean taskmaster who didn’t much care about my heart but cared only that I become more holy. He was asking for my independence because He wanted me to be more like Jesus, and Jesus was dependent. This was about me being perfect, and God wasn’t going to rest until I was “better.” He didn’t care what it took, either. If I had to suffer immensely to reach the point where I’d let it go, that is what He would put me through.

Wrong.

I envisioned a blank, emotionless stare when I gazed into God’s eyes in that boat, and He tore that image to shreds. He reminded me of the times in the bible when He was moved by compassion for His people, expelling any possibility of being described as indifferent. Not only this, but He assured me that perfection is never His goal- relationship is. He doesn’t want me to learn dependence because that makes me a better Christian, but because it allows me to walk in closer fellowship with Him. He just wants to be with me, and He wants me to lean on Him. If I am relentlessly independent, I won’t.  

Those who are independent walk alone, but those who are dependent walk together; He wants to be together.

At this point, I was feeling pretty good about the revelation I had already received from God. I no longer thought He was taking from me, nor did I think He was ruthless. I felt lighter and more confident, but I still didn’t want to give up my independence wholeheartedly- I had yet to believe He was trustworthy. Though the countenance of God changed as He was looking at me in the boat, I still felt as if He was just sitting there looking at me. He was just watching me suffer. He cared about it, but He wasn’t going to stop it because I still had to learn. This was simply how it had to happen. I wouldn’t learn any other way.

Still wrong.

One morning as I was listening to God, He asked me what His name is. I’ve been reading a book about His variety of names, but I just answered with one of them: Jehovah. He responded to me with a list of His names and a list of who He is. He said He is Jehovah, the relational God; He is Jehovah-Tsaba, the warrior God; He is the Lion of the tribe of Judah, a ferocious fighter; He is jealous, He wants all of me; He is Father; He is provider; He is protector. He isn’t sitting watching me drown. He is waiting for me to stop fighting so He can fight for me.

Once again, God was asking only so He could give. He asked for my stillness so that He could move. I pictured myself battling an army of people who had risen against me, and God was standing behind me waiting for me to fall back. He wasn’t waiting for me to give up the fight- He was waiting for me to tap Him in. I had misunderstood it all!

Learning to be dependent isn’t about simply not being independent. It’s not about me becoming something that I’m not. It’s actually about me becoming something that I am: a child; a daughter.  As I step back and become a daughter, I allow God to step forward and be who He is: my Father, my protector, my provider, my defender, my warrior, my shield, and my strength.  

Now as I sit in my metaphorical boat, before me I see a gentle, loving Father with eyes like flames of fire. He is jealous for me. He is strong and mighty, and He is anything but indifferent. I can feel His love for me so heavily, I wonder how the boat can withstand its weight. He is proud of me, I’m sure, though He knows I’m much less capable than I think I am. I see water beginning to flood inside, yet I feel safe. I’m not afraid. I sit down in faith, and I am filled with joy. He doesn’t even need to ask me this time, though hearing His voice brings peace to my soul. As soon as I sit, He stands.

He fights.

He wins.

He is Jehovah-Tsaba, the warrior God.

… … … …

I suppose there are some people who need to learn how to fight. Likewise, there are some who need to learn how to be fought for. I just happened to be the latter.  

“But Moses said to the people, ‘Do not be afraid; stand firm, and see the salvation of Jehovah, which He will accomplish for you today … Jehovah Himself will fight for you; you need only be still.” Exodus 14:13-14