"Well, that's why people like me and you, we need Jesus, Mere," unapologetically pronounced my friend Catherine across the table from me in the gourmet chocolate shop we'd popped into to catch up on each other's months in Ukraine. Seeing me deciding whether or not to be mildly offended, she flooded the room with her distinct laugh and continued.
"Some people can be good people on their own, you know? Me and you – we can't, because we're just… well, we're terrible people. We like sin. We have to have Jesus or we'll make awful choices. I need Jesus to even be a good person."
Cat's delicate words nearly three weeks ago were simple, but they made a lightbulb go off somewhere in my head. I haven't been able to keep them from echoing in my ears this month. I've never honestly confronted the reality that I actually need Jesus to live well; he's more been framed as a tool for avoiding harsh realities, a mere means to avoid hell in this life and the next – but never something that would be good for me past that.
me and my great friend cat
I see now that most of my life I unintentionally insulated myself from depending on God such that he became sheer convenience, like having a refrigerator in the kitchen or coffee in the morning. I've never known life without God, and thus I've not fully grasped my true need for everything that he is in my life.
At home, I could go a day, maybe even a week, without him and possibly never notice he was missing. In the World Race alternate universe it's a little harder because he's the only thing anyone talks about, but I could still make do without him. Unfortunately for me, I have everything I need; when you've never gone without, it's challenging to attribute God's provision to what you have. I was blessed to grow up with everything I wanted and God on the side, knowing I was supposed to thank him for it but unable to see clear evidence that he had much to do with any of it.
I realize now that it's possible I've never truly depended on God.
I've depended on myself and used God as my scapegoat.
Success was me. Failure was an angry Fist-Shaker in the sky.
Cat wasn't a Christian until a few years ago and has known life without God, so she's seen the difference. She knows the comparison of life before him and life after him, and in a way, I'm a little jealous. Where I am entitled, she is grateful. When I am angry with God, she is angry with sin and her flesh. When I don't understand and turn on God, she leans more heavily into his arms, knowing he'll work it out for the best.
After thinking about these things for a while, I had this "aha" moment our first Sunday in church when all the Africans around me were amen-ing, hooping and hollering about what I knew to be simple, inconsequential truths about God. I was, frankly, bewildered by their enthusiasm, because I've known those truths all my life. I've always heard and known God provides. I've always known that God does miracles. I've always known that God loves me.
Or have I?
cape pointe, the cape of good hope
Those are profound truths that I've insulated myself from needing to fully know. My life's dialogue has gone like this:
God provides? I've never needed him to.
God does miracles? When have I needed one of those? I've never even broken a bone.
God loves me? Cool, so do lots of other people that I can actually see and touch.
People like Catherine and the South Africans around me who have known life without God, who've suffered the hatred of racism in apartheid, the pain of a stomach that doesn't know when it will be fed next, the heartache of losing a teenage son to gang violence when he was doing a neighbor a favor – to them, God providing is their only hope. God doing miracles is their only chance at survival. God loving them is possibly the only real love they'll know in their life.
I came to the conclusion as those around me sang the lyrics to It Is Well – "whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say 'it is well with my soul'" – that I never want to be in a place (i.e., it is not good for me to be in a place), physically or spiritually or relationally or emotionally, where I insulate myself from depending on the Lord again. I will choose to live in situations where God is my only hope, my only provision and my only sustaining love, because my mind gets dangerously deceived dangerously quickly when I'm surrounded by things that feel like they're all I could ever need.
Because, honestly, whether we act like we need God or not doesn't change the reality that we desperately need him for everything in this life and the next. (Perhaps especially in the next.)
night sky over our house
When I surround myself with certain temptations, when I have everything around me provided for in abundance and when I am fully satisfied with relationships that won't last but seem like they could, it seems I can't remember God anymore.
The thought of life without God makes me perceptibly sad, and the thought of getting to another place where he seems like the worse choice actually scares me. I would miss him, and even scarier, maybe I wouldn't realize that I missed him.
I just don't want to live like that.
I want to live like Cat, who sees that without God she can't even be a decent person.
I want to live like the South African Christians in church whose lives leave much to be desired materially but whose spirituality is rich, deep and inspiringly full – or maybe it's stripped, uninsulated – because God is necessarily everything to them and their eyes are ever fixed on eternal things.
I want to live looking for God's fingerprints on everything and everyone.
And really, I want to be the kind of person who doesn't need anything but God – because we're all that kind of person already.
I just happen to be aware of it now.
O Lord, you will ordain peace for us, for indeed, all that we have done, you have done for us. [Isaiah 26:12]
m
