The state of needing something or someone for support; one that is relied on; the quality or state of being influenced or determined by or subject to another. To rely on, trust on, lean on, bank on, count on, live off, it all describes one thing… DEPENDENCE!
To become dependent on something is when you are unable to deal without it. If you start doing something for a certain amount of time it becomes a habit, right? But then you become dependent on that habit because it’s something you do without really thinking about. It becomes something that you can’t do without, so, you have to do it.
They say on the race a racer will go through 3 different stages:
- Abandonment- this is when you come to realize you have left everything behind; your family, friends, all the things that made you comfortable. You become vulnerable because you have left everything you ever knew. You don’t have control anymore, a roller coaster of emotions start to over come your thoughts such as: “WHAT HAVE I DONE!” You are giving up things you have been holding onto for your whole life and trusting God for the rest of the journey! (About month 1 to month 4)
- Brokenness- you begin to break down because you are seeing how others are living. God starts to change your heart and what is breaking His heart breaks yours. You see the needs in the world but can’t necessarily “fix” those needs. Seeing that breaks your heart. The things that comforted you before, you don’t have now. So this causes you to embrace your brokenness and rely on God. The things you use to grab onto in your life such as: Internet, television, sports; shopping etc. is something you no longer can cling onto. When we are broken we begin to draw to God. We need Him more. He redeems our pain. Brokenness finishes abandonments job: it strips away the false self. It allows God to transform us into new people. (Month 5 to month 8)
- Dependence- when your life no longer works all you have left is depending on God. What once worked is broken- you are no longer self-sufficient, you have to depend on God. God can’t remake you until you allow Him to unmake you first. (About month 9 and will continue from there)
(Seth Barnes, Kingdom Journeys, pg. 29)
Dependence is the stage I felt I have come to last month. So I wanted to learn more about it. What does it mean to be dependent on God? What does dependence look like? How do you become dependent on God? For one month I dug into dependence deeper. But to really learn about what dependence is or what it looks like you need to experience it… God showed me that. He started putting things in my life where all I could do was trust Him.
All the missionaries I have met on the race so far all have their own dependence story. They seem to all have one thing in common; they depended on God 100% of the time. They had no idea what or where God was going to take them but they just kept following His voice. They may have moved to a country and had no idea what they were going to do when they got there but they believed God would continue to reveal what to do next. So they listened and ran with it!
As the race is coming to an end I started worrying about what I will be doing after the race. I started looking into different opportunities that I could get into after it, I started to trust God that He would show me before I go home what I would be doing next. I started looking into opportunities, as more arose there was one that really stood out. The more I prayed about it God continued to reveal things that confirmed it. But there were (and still are a bit) a lot of emotions that I am fighting with. As much as I want to do what He is calling me into next there are a lot of things that the human mind worries about that God already has under control. I started forming my own plans but still on the track of running after God… just not the plan He wanted me to do. As I started having all these thoughts He started revealing things to me that became pretty clear that I better listen. As I would read the Bible He gave me verse after verse along the same lines. Here are only a small portion: “There is no wisdom, no insight, no plan that can succeed against the Lord”- Proverbs 21:30
“Devise your strategy, but it will be thwarted; propose your plan, but it will not stand, for God is with us”- Isaiah 8:10
“Yet this is what the Sovereign Lord says: “It will not take place, it will not happen””- Isaiah 7:7
Although there were a lot of things that never made sense about this opportunity I knew that if God were in it then it would all work out. But I was scared and continued to seek out the other opportunities, which made me become controlling. I wasn’t seeking after dependence at this point anymore. But I never realized that yet.
“But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God”- Acts 5:39
In small groups, about 6 people, at LDW (which is a mini debrief we had at the beginning of China) we got to pray over each other. A teammate spoke a word to me and she said, “Don’t miss what God is giving you. If you put your full focus on dependence you may miss what He is trying to give you”. At first it confused me but as I prayed about it the next day God revealed to me that I wasn’t depending on Him anymore. I knew what He wanted me to do but didn’t want to believe it. I was becoming controlling as I wanted to listen to Him and do something along the lines of what He was calling me into next just not do exactly what He was telling me to do!
Sometimes trying to control yourself effectively, controls what He can do inside you. Sometimes trying to control Him can look like dependence. Because now He’s only doing what you allow Him to do.
Once you know what God is telling you to do it’s not dependence anymore! It may not all make complete sense but don’t seek understanding. Don’t try to fight against God, just have faith and trust Him! : )
God Bless,
Heidi
