If you ask most Americans if they rather would be dependent or independent, I think you will find the most popular answer to be independent. Independence means that I am able to to take care of myself, I want to not need help in anything I do. I can do it alone. The “American Dream?” is centered around starting at the bottom, working your way up, and having enough money to buy something to live in and retire. (Kind of like pride?)
I may be showing my age here, (that’s OK, Almost 61) but that is what my parents instilled in me for 40 Years. That is what I was raised upon. However my grandparents escaped the Hitler youth, and communism, and met on a boat that they happened to stow away on, by chance? Together, fleeing WW2, they came to America with great hope in freedom, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Both of my grandparents were hardcore believers in Christ, and left all to follow what they believed was His will. That they were dependent upon Christ for their outcome, completely, and totally.
Depending on Christ for our outcome will always get us to the right place. Being independent of Christ will always get us to the wrong place. Thank GOD they prayed for me!
Think about that for a second. Are you dependent on Christ or are you independent of Him? I must confess that at least my tendencies lately, wrongly lead toward independence. When Deborah and I left for China, we thought we had everything we needed for a year (So much for our planning.). We were there for 4 months, and realized that we were going to be broke in about 3 weeks. We sat down outside our 380 square foot apartment in Hong Kong, and started to cry. GOD, why did you bring us here, are you just going to abandon us 7000 miles from where we were?
OF COURSE NOT! The Lord said …
The very next day, all of the funds we needed for everything (rent, food, utilities) showed up in our mail box. I knew God knew we needed it, they must have been sent weeks earlier to get there on the day we cried out. BUT THEY GOT THERE! God showed His faithfulness, by giving us everything we needed for 8 years in China. What an amazing God we serve …
Since we returned from China, 10-14-2014, we struggled in a country we did not know anymore, trying to take care of homeless folks who didn’t want dependence upon Christ, but independence from Him. Not just homeless folks, but most people in America these days seem to want to be independent from the Lord. That Idea was so totally foreign to us it took a while for it to set in. There is only freedom in Christ. If the Son sets you free you are free indeed!
After the Mission closed in 2018, we fervently prayed for directions and a plan from the Lord that wast just what we wanted to do. God gave me a vision during my quiet time in the morning that we were to come to Arizona, there was a church praying for us to come. It was real, WE didn’t question it, (although some of our church brethren did). So we put all of our important things in storage, gave everything else away, and piled into the bus, and headed south.
There have been so many times when the bus broke down on the way to Arizona, and I always reverted, to (I Know Why, I can fix it), that I became complacent that I could always fix it. Isn’t that the truth, that we become so dependent on ourselves instead of God, that we think we can do it all by ourselves?
There were times back in the day, homeless in the bus when a spring would blow on the distributor, and I had a quarter in my pocket, and would cry out to the Lord and He would TELL me what to do. I was completely dependent on Him. In my tears walking miles to the hardware store, trying or find a spring for my distributor for a quarter. Well, after 4 or so miles, there was a hardware store (a really old one) that had springs of all sizes, and I bought one for 24 cents. I even got a penny change. Walking back, not knowing if the spring would work, if it was the right size, just crying out to God in helplessness, I got back to the bus. The spring fit, and lasted at least 5 more years!
There are many more blogs to find out the sequence of events after Oregon, but now after school, many attacks have come from the enemy on us and the bus, and we are here, and we know we are going the right way.
The bus has issues I cant fix without being dependent upon the LORD. (This is a new reason for the Lord to blow up the bus!) My work that we came for is going to be over before it was supposed to be (April, incited of May) which won’t allow us to pay off all of our debt from school.
I think the Lord has us right where He wants us to be, DEPENDENT on Him. It’s His bus, car, job, whatever. What do we have that He has not given us. Naked we came into the world, and naked we shall leave it. PRAISE THE LORD, Please pray that we are able to become more dependent upon the LORD, and not become independent of Him. I would rather be without a bus, or a car, or anything, but I will endeavor never to become independent from HIM, again, ever…
AMEN …
Craig and Deborah Graber <><