Thursday, June 16, 2011

6/16 Thursday Thoughts

As I sit here brushing the dust off my computer screen, I contemplate why I depend on my own abilities instead of depending on God (...with the exception of crises).

The humor of that statement is, of course, that without God, I would be nothing but a pile/speck of dust.  The logic being that God breathed life into dust to form man.  Without God, I might be the nuisance on my computer screen (although computers probably wouldn't exist...yeah, I know all about the butterfly effect, smart aleck).

But, that's not obvious to me.  I'm clearly more than a pile of dust.

What IS obvious to me, though, is that I feel the most "plugged in" to God when I'm desperate.  In time of desperation, I pray for God to intervene and I trust that He'll provide because I'd be screwed otherwise.  I might even cut a deal with God to "help me just this time because I can't do it on my own."

And there lies the problem.  If I only depend on God when "I can't do it on my own," I have clearly set myself up to believe that I don't need God when I CAN do it on my own.  As if God views us as a nuisance when we can do it on our own?

For me, the feeling of self-sufficiency definitely hinders me from fully depending on God.  But I'm glad.  Because if I just step back a little bit, I quickly realize how insufficient I am.  I realize how depraved I am.  And when I replace that feeling of self-sufficiency with the feeling of depravity, I feel the beginning of breakthrough.

No comments: