Dependence Day
As you know we have just celebrated Independence Day in the United States. As we commemorate our 247 years of nationhood, the words from our Declaration, “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” are very much in vogue. In many ways, this triad has come to characterize our modern times: my life, my liberty, my happiness. But does our notion of liberty, i.e. the freedom to do what we want, really square with the story that we are in?
Over the last several weeks we have been reading of God’s providential* care for his people. A people that he rescued from slavery and made his very own, not because they were the most likely, but quite the opposite, because they were the least likely (cf. Deut. 7:7). Along the way people like Moses and Miriam, Samuel and David, Ruth and Esther and Mordecai, all found that their role in the story was brought to the fore, not because of their choices, but because God had brought them to such a time as this (cf. Esther 4:14). Contrary to the notion of writing their own story, these people were content to find their place in the story that God was writing through them. It is not that our choices become irrelevant, but rather that our choices find their framework within God’s story. One’s theology really does matter.
Recently Hannah Anderson in an article for Christianity Today reflecting on her own spiritual journey says the following: Instead of reflecting on my past through the lens of what I chose, I’m thinking more about what was given to me. ... This framework has freed me to see my spiritual story with a detachment that allows me to evaluate it more honestly. Since my path is no longer a statement about myself, I can weigh and consider it. I can honor the good, true, and beautiful while rejecting the bad and ugly.
All of which brings us to the idea of Dependence Day. For rather than being set free to set our own courses, we have been brought to the doorpost of our Savior and invited into his yoke. Dependent on him, we embrace each day, month or year as it is given to us. Confident, not that we have chosen or will choose well along the way, but confident that He is establishing our steps (cf. Prov. 16:9).
*Here is the Heidelberg Catechism on Providence:
Question 27. What do you mean by the providence of God?
Answer: The almighty and everywhere present power of God; whereby, as it were by his hand, he upholds and governs heaven, earth, and all creatures; so that herbs and grass, rain and drought, fruitful and barren years, meat and drink, health and sickness, riches and poverty, indeed, all things come, not by chance, but by his Fatherly hand.
Question 28. What advantage is it to us to know that God has created, and by his providence does still uphold all things?
Answer: That we may be patient in adversity; thankful in prosperity; and that in all things, which may hereafter befall us, we place our firm trust in our faithful God and Father, that nothing shall separate us from his love; since all creatures are so in his hand, that without his will they cannot so much as move.
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