Depending on Another
“I have swept away your offenses like a cloud, your sins like the morning mist. Return to me, for I have redeemed you.” (Isaiah 44:22)
Matteo, my four-month old son depends on Mary Anne and I for everything. I’ll be honest, he depends on his mother the most. Never in my life have I experienced such a clear and absolute need for another. As a parent, I have found this somehow stressful, exhausting, empowering, and joy-filled all at the same time.
The ironic thing is that this experience has made me even more aware of our great dependence. We might have some facade of independence, but we can only pretend that because we trust so much that food/farmers, our jobs/economy, and leaders are dependable and serve our needs when we have them; we are always in need. This isn’t really independence at all. The even stranger reality is that we put so much trust in these things when we know they are fickle, changing, and lacking.
Ultimately, the greatest need and dependence we have, which we can often ignore even more than all of these other things is our dependence on God. As our provider, sustainer, and creator this dependence shouldn’t be surprising, but our need is even greater than that immense foundation. We also know that we aren’t good enough. Nothing and no one is as trustworthy as we need, ourselves included. We need God for all of it. Matteo’s immense need is the same as our immense need for God.
This Easter season we are looking at God’s redemption. We are looking at how God can take all of our brokenness, and all of the evil in the world, and through his grace, love, and justice redeem it to be something good. The key part of this redemption is that it comes through a relationship with Jesus. We depend on God for every moment of every day. We depend on God as the source of goodness to bring order and life. We depend on God because we can’t do it on our own.
The work on the cross, the resurrection, and the ascension was God’s greatest work of redemption, not just because Jesus took on all the evil, suffering and death and conquered it, though that is often the best news we hope for. It was God’s greatest work of redemption because it was ultimately about reconciliation, restoring a relationship with God. Jesus used the brokenness to tear open the curtain that divided us from God. He used the death so that we might die to the sin that we followed away from God. He used the suffering so that we might know and live in God’s loving sacrifice. This redemption is so great, because in a relationship with God all things, can and will be redeemed, restored, resurrected.
So in this Easter season, the challenge is to live into that restored life with God where all things are redeemed. What does that look like for you right now? I would recommend three things. First, digging into and spending more time on your prayer life and looking for God’s guidance in every matter, large or small. Then second, be open and watch for how God might be leading you. And third, respond with courage, faith and trust in God, when ever something new comes your way. If we can just live into these three things we will see God’s redemption at work.
“Put your hope in the LORD, for with the LORD is unfailing love and with him is full redemption” (Psalm 130:7)
