Dependency

Silhouette of a Man Praying

I find it strange that when you are younger, you have a tendency to think you know a lot more than you really do and when you get older, you have a tendency to comprehend that what you have learned along the way is vastly outweighed by what you do not understand. Some people see others who depend or trust in God as a weakness, but I don’t see it that way. In reality, I think God is the greatest source of guidance that there is. And it’s not just the guidance, it is the nature of God’s ways, that are behind that guidance. And the beauty of this reality is that the reliance increases because of the witness of His Holy Spirit within us. I am indebted to His guidance, daily.

Jesus personifies God the Father. Jesus explained this to us every possible way He could and not only did Jesus explain it, He demonstrated the path of fellowship of love with the Father. And it is all sheer grace, because literally everything good comes from God our Father. Jesus was sent by God our Father and Jesus returned to God our Father, so that we could live in Him now and this is just the beginning.

No, I don’t understand it all, not by a long shot, but I’ve learned enough. Enough to know when I am wrong, when God wants me to know I am heading away from Him instead of towards Him. Sometimes God’s Holy Spirit lets me come slowly to the awareness that I am heading in the wrong direction and sometimes He makes it very clear, pretty much right away. When it is right away I know that I need to confess my error, ask for His forgiveness and I need to put myself back under His guidance. I’ve learned enough to know that God fixes things that I do, that are not in accordance with His ways, all the time. All I have to do is be real with Him and ask and somehow He brings me back to where He wants me to be. There is a dependency there and I don’t care who knows it. He alone is my greatest strength, He alone is my peace and source of assurance. I honestly don’t know why He puts up with me but such is the love of our Father, personified in His Son Jesus, God in the flesh.

Sometimes I see things in others that I have done when I was younger, and even yet, still sometimes see today and I know that I can’t go there, I can’t correct others in that area because I have and sometimes still do the same things. I have to leave that with Jesus to sort it all out. I need to focus on the holes in my own canoe before I go about directing others how to fix the holes in their canoes. Those are the humanistic shortfalls we all have, false pride, thinking of ourselves before others, and the list goes on. Strange how we can see faults in others clearer than we can see our own. When you respond to an observation of God’s truth that someone makes with the words, “yes, but  . . .”,  you know there’s a good chance that you’ve got a problem, or at least you should.

False doctrine and grievous sin within the Church is different, because we are asked to defend God’s truth in a manner that does not bring discredit to our Lord. That’s not always easy and there are those grey areas where different opinions or schools of thought do have to be accepted as possibly valid, where applicable. And there are more of those grey areas than one might think. Now we see through a glass darkly. Compromise when possible, stand firm when we must, and no, it is never easy. In the end, all we can do is make our case to persuade, in accordance with God’s Word. In these troubling times that we are in, one of the hardest things to do is to learn to separate that which is worldly, from that which is of God’s Kingdom. They are not one and the same, nor have they ever been, but many in the past and especially today, experience great difficulty seeing that. And here, once again, all we can do is make our Biblical case. 

Do I depend on God? Yes I do, to change my heart, to renew my mind, to correct me and move me towards His ways and His thoughts. And Jesus, the only begotten Son of God, is in reality, the only Way, the only Truth and the only Life. And the scary part is, as I linger in these twilight years, is to know that I am only beginning to understand how much I need Him and how much He cares. And the wonder of it all is that He does.

Worthy is the Lamb! Blessings!