independence

I have been thinking about what it really means to be "independent," especially in our culture where we are not only encouraged but pressured to be such. But I am realizing more and more that independence is such a Western culture mindset, one that ultimately functions on rejection. We don't "need" because it is considered "weak"...but really we don't "need" because it feels safer to not be rejected, or at least risk being rejected.

So this is how we learn to live, tend to function...out of our insecurity and woundedness...and then we reject people just like we have been. Instead of living within relationships, together, how we were designed to live through Jesus, we keep the vicious cycle going. Even more, we strive to "prove" because we have been rejected, which pushes us deeper into the lie that we don't need others and live even more alone - independent.

This life is contrary to Jesus. To be independent means "not subject to the control or influence of others (this would include God); not connected; self-supportive." This is really sad, to think that our world encourages, motivates, drives us, to be "successfully" independent. Truth is, it is all the rejection of God...and placing our self as god. It all makes sense.

Yet God is the only being who is perfectly independent.