On Independence and Gratitude

I don't think I am boasting or exaggerating if I call myself an Independent Person, by design (on my own efforts), and by nature (without trying). I was purposefully taught to be independent by my parents, but I think the older I get, the more it has been woven into the very fiber and fabric that makes up Daniel Foster.  This isn't just some fantasy on my part, I'm fairly certain if you asked those closest to me, like Herself, she would affirm my bold statement.  I'm going to expound upon this, but it is for a reason, that you may know where I am coming from, so bear with me a little while.

I have trust issues.  I feel I can do nearly anything; and I feel that if I do it, it will be done better.  Take meat or food for example: I don't really trust the food I buy.  True, the meat you buy at the store is probably safe, but if I raise the animal myself, butcher it myself, process it myself, package it myself, and store it myself, I know it is safe.  And why would I pay someone else that doesn't know or care about me to do that?  I can do it myself...

I have "prepper" tendencies.  I hate the idea of having to rely on anyone else for basic necessities.  And, God forbid, be forced to hope that the federal government will come through for us if some natural disaster should happen and we can't make it to Walmart for an entire week.  Or if Walmart's trucks can't make to the store for a whole week.  This is why I buy toilet paper by the case, can (like pressure cook in jars) some extra food when we butcher or have extra produce from the garden, etc.  Nothing extravagant, just stuff you would use anyway.  (I might add: I get poked fun of some and called a prepper, but 100-150 years ago, we weren't called preppers, we were called "survivors" and we emerged from the Depression with our lives intact.)  I also approve of the best meat preservation method of all: having it walking around on the hoof, reproducing.

I can be cheap:  Why would I want to pay someone else to do something that I can do for myself?  I hate paying someone else to do any kind of remodeling on my house. Again, if I do it myself, I know its right, and if its not, I only have myself to blame.  I remember several times as a youth, my Dad saying "Man, I'm glad I messed that up, that way I don't have to be mad at anybody else."  I can totally relate.

I don't want to be "needy." It makes me uncomfortable to have someone else do something for me or give me something.  I am fine helping someone else out, and I like to be generous to others in real need, but it is distasteful to me to take something from someone else when I don't need it.  I feel undeserving, and like I am depriving someone of something valuable that they don't need to give up on my own.  I realize there is some slight neurosis regarding this, and a double standard perhaps, but hey; that's just the way it is. I can do it myself...

I am instinctively aggressive and bull headed.  More than once, I have risked my life and well-being by attempting (or succeeding, I should say; barely) to do something that would be easily accomplished with two people. but it doesn't even occur to me usually or I just think: "I can do this." I've had a few pretty serious close calls doing this, even though I had a very willing helper inside the house. I can do it myself...

But you have you ever really needed help? I mean really needed help? Herself and I watched part of a TV show last Saturday night with a young man somehow getting caught in a huge bin of corn. He was buried in millions of  pounds of corn in a standing position with his arm up reached towards the roof of the bin, literally 100 percent immobile, unable to move any part of his body in any direction. He was wearing a mask of some sort that kept the corn from lodging his mouth and nose shut. When the rescuers began to empty the grain bin and carefully shovel him out, what didn't happen was "No thanks, I don't need any help, I got this one." Or once they were most of the way done taking him out, he didn't say, "you know I've got this from here." It was an hours long process to get him unearthed, or in this particular case, uncorned. 

This is the same position we find ourselves in without Christ. We were trapped by the weight and pressure of our own sins, with the slight distinction that most of us were not trapped reaching upward. But God saves us, and he does it without our help, and he does it right in front of us, while we watch, incredulously.   He unearths (or un-sins) our feeble, trapped corpse from out from under the sin that we have stacked up around and above ourselves with reckless abandon. We come out, not just a salvaged old being, but transformed into an entire new one; we emerge from the corn as the butterfly must, amazed and bewildered.

And God is not reluctant to deal gently with our lack of faith and show us how he saved us.  He doesn't rebuke us, he just takes our hands and says "Put your finger here, see my hands... Reach out your hand and put it into my side..."  What else is there for us to do? There is nothing else to do but say "thank you" and follow. I cannot do it myself...

Or you could just utter my favorite 5 words in the bible; the most eloquent and powerful short sentence ever strung together by awestruck, completely honest human, acknowledging that Jesus was both his Savior and his Creator. "My lord, and my God!"