I’m buried in my weakness, He made me dependent -Trip Lee, Sweet Victory
We were on the bus (similar to a 15 passenger van, but you squish as many people in as possible) on Tuesday, on our way home from Adventure Day, it was getting late and I wanted some time to myself, so I plugged in my headphones. Unknown to my team and I, the bus was about to break down (which is becoming a regular occurrence) which is the story of another blog (“Center of Attention” coming soon). The Lord started to reveal all sorts of things to me while on this bus. But we’ll come back to that in a minute.
I’ve always been the kind of person that wants to do things by myself. When I was little, when I wanted to do something, rather than my mom or dad do it for me, I would say “Miggie do it” (what I called myself as a child). As I have started this World Race journey, the Lord has been teaching me that independence can be good in certain situations, but we were meant to be dependent on other people and on the Lord.
As humans, many times, we don’t want to be dependent on other people. We desire to accomplish things by ourselves. It can stem from different desires: to prove to ourselves or others that we can do it, be that independent woman that doesn’t need a man, and so many other things.
Over the last 24 hours, God has been showing me all about what it means to have dependence on Him. I’m not the kind of person that likes to admit that I need help. I’ve come to the realization that I’m afraid I will inconvenience people by asking for help, which is why I don’t ask often. I don’t want to be a burden on others, so I would rather do it on my own.
When we first got our ministry assignment for the month, I got super nervous about it. I am not comfortable with a lot of what we are doing. When we got here, I still wasn’t comfortable with our ministry assignment, but I had some conversations with Jesus about being willing to do it.
As we were on the bus that night, right before we realized it broke down, I had a big revelation. If God wanted me to be comfortable, He would have placed me in a ministry this month that I was comfortable doing. Some of my friends on other teams were going to be doing children’s ministry and other things that I am most definitely more comfortable with doing. Instead, He wanted me to be uncomfortable so that I could be dependent on Him. When I am dependent on Him, then I can do so much more through Him.
As Trip Lee says in Sweet Victory, “I’m buried in my weakness, He made me dependent.” When we are in the midst of our weakness, we have to be dependent on the Lord because we can’t do it by ourselves. Weakness shows us that we are in need of the Lord’s strength.
Something I’ve been learning since Training Camp is that dependence on others and on God is actually a good thing. On my squad, we are all ready and willing to help, all the time. But none of us are good at asking for help. How can we be a community of believers that helps to build each other up if we don’t use the resources around us?
And what does it say if I have no reliance and dependence on the Lord? What does it say if I want to do things on my own without asking Him for help? He created me, He loves me, and in having a relationship with me, my life is dependent on Him. I just have to choose to live in on that dependence.
It’s the same with you! Where is your dependence? In yourself? In idols? Do you let other people help? Are You relying on the Father who created you?
