I was just thinking about this verse from John 21:18 (ESV) "Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go.”
My first thought was that when we're really young, we are dressed and carried by others. As we get a little older we get more freedom and control to a certain degree before the process reverses itself. But in reality, there is very little of life that is truly autonomous. Even the supposedly independent years are controlled by schedules, employers, finances, family needs, health, etc. We're constantly being carried where we do not want to go.
Ironically, trust seems to be inversely correlated to independence. A small child trusts her parents to do all the things that she cannot do for herself. An aging adult learns to trust those who are his caregivers. In between, ideas of independence lead us to rely on ourselves for everything. We tend not to trust others and we feel ashamed if we do need help. (Just try exercising your independence when you're laying in a hospital bed hooked up to IVs!) Psychologists sometimes refer to three stages of human development as being: dependence, independence, and interdependence. I think that model may be highly influenced by Western culture.
Dana Yeakley writes in The Gentle Art of Discipling Women, "We need to recognize this: we are never in control, we were never in control, and we will never be in control. We completely deny this when things are going well. We simply do not recognize how out of control we actually are. And usually when complications arise we hope to 'regain' some control. Interesting, isn't it? The fact is that we were never in control even when life was 'normal'" (27).
There are many times in Scripture when God leads people through places they'd rather not go: out of the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:24), to an unknown land (Genesis 12:1), into Egypt (Genesis 37:28), out of Egypt and across the Red Sea (Exodus 14:11), around the wilderness (Exodus 16:3), through the valley of the shadow of death (Psalm 23), to Nineveh (Jonah), into the wilderness to be tempted (Mark 1:12), through Samaria (John 4:4), through the storm (Matthew 8:23)... The list goes on. The unifying reason behind each those excursions was that people would learn to trust God as the One who provides and guides. His plan for His children includes a lot more than just enjoying a comfortable life.
The question is, how long will it take to admit our dependence and learn to trust God and one another? It seems to be a lifelong process that we often fight to the bitter end. Jesus challenges us to have faith like a little child--not naive or ignorant, but trusting that the Father always knows and does what is best.
“Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 18:3-4).
© Dawn Rutan 2016.
