The Sin of Independence

Remember when you fed your children baby food? What a mess! Sweet Lilly Faith is enjoying all of the various tastes of baby food but wants to help me feed her now. When I first started feeding her, she let me do it all. Now that she is learning some hand-eye coordination, she wants to do it all. When she sees me hold the spoon full of sweet potatoes towards her mouth, her hand flies up to grab the spoon and the mashed mess goes everywhere. Meantime, Will is always wanting to dress himself and often gets his shoes on the wrong feet or his clothes inside out. I guess independence starts early....

Too often, we are guilty of the sin of independence, which causes many problems. 1 Peter 5:7 says, "Having cast all of your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you." A desire for independence is a sign of an immature Christian. A child thinks he can do anything and instead of asking for help, he wants to do everything for himself.

We can be that way as Christians. Our heavenly Father tries to help us but we don't want His help; we want to do it all by ourselves and we end up making a terrible mess of things. God wants to manage our life. He wants to handle our affairs for us as a blessing to us, but many times we reject His help and try to do things on our own. And, the result is often disastrous.

We are to cast our burdens on the Lord and let them remain with Him. Most Christians go to the Lord in prayer and get their temporary relief; then go away and soon find themselves under the same old burden. The way we overcome a spirit of independence is by placing ourselves totally into God's hands and allowing Him to be the Manager of our life. Our first responsibility is to trust God. The second is not to take His place.