In part 1 of this post, I talked about being too independent and how my independence has gotten in the way when it comes to relationships. My most important relationship is with my Heavenly Father and trying to be independent has definitely hurt that relationship at times. There are some positive things when it comes to being \u201chealthily independent\u201d, but that\u2019s not what I\u2019m talking about. I\u2019m talking about being independent to a fault. I\u2019m talking about the not so healthy parts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was listening to a sermon one time and the preacher said, \u201cour self sufficiency blurs the supremacy of the cross\u201d. Something clicked with me. You know how that happens sometimes. I wrote it down and read it over and over and thought about it and thought about it some more. I still repeat it to myself often. \u201cOur self sufficiency blurs the supremacy of the cross\u201d. Our independence (lack of dependence on Christ) \u201ccheapens\u201d the fact that He chose to die for us because that was the ONLY way for us to get to live eternally with Him in heaven. (John 14:6) There is no other way. There is nothing we can \u201cdo\u201d independent of Him. Our sin separates us. This says complete, total dependence on Him is required! When we are being \u201cself sufficient\u201d (or portray we are), people do not get to see Jesus at work in our lives. The goal is not to show how strong we are (because we aren\u2019t). The goal is to point people toward Jesus!
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When we are being independent, we are putting ourselves in the driver\u2019s seat of our lives \u2026 in the position of control (there is that ugly word again\u2026.\u201dcontrol\u201d). We put \u201cworks\u201d and \u201cbehavior\u201d before relationship. It is an illusion that we might can keep up for a season\u2026\u2026you know\u2026\u2026 the \u201cnot hard\u201d seasons. God designed us for relationship with him. He made us with a God size hole that nothing else can fill. Relationship with Christ means dependency on Christ on the mountain tops and in the valleys.
For some stupid reason, I guess I thought God was proud of me for taking care of myself\u2026..proud of me for not being so \u201cneedy\u201d. Also, when we appear to be strong and self sufficient, doesn\u2019t that make us look like we\u2019ve got it going on? (And who doesn\u2019t want to look like they\u2019ve got it going on?) Like we\u2019ve got it figured out? Like we are such \u201cgood Christians\u201d because we aren\u2019t being so \u201cneedy\u201d? I\u2019ll say it before you do. That\u2019s the dumbest thing I\u2019ve ever heard. Yes, it sure is but are we guilty? I am. Maybe we are trying to convey this image to other people\u2026\u2026 other Christians\u2026.. our friends at church. Maybe we are trying to trick ourselves into thinking we are in control. Ouch! It\u2019s easy to read this and think, I would never do that but do our actions prove otherwise? Im guilty! I\u2019m going to testify right here, right now, that I do NOT, in fact, have it \u201cgoing on\u201d, \u201cfigured out\u201d, or anything that resembles having it figured out! You know what I\u2019m learning? The freedom is in complete surrender! Complete surrender is so much less tiring than trying to control everything myself!
~Mandy
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In part 1 of this post, I talked about being too independent and how my independence has gotten in the way when it comes to relationships. My most important relationship is with my Heavenly Father and trying to be independent Read more…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/stilltalking.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/stilltalking.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/stilltalking.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stilltalking.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stilltalking.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=60"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/stilltalking.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73,"href":"http:\/\/stilltalking.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60\/revisions\/73"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/stilltalking.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=60"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stilltalking.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=60"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stilltalking.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=60"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}