Independence Is Dependent

 

One cold, rainy night, in a small mid-western town, the telephone rang in the house of a doctor. The caller identified himself and said his wife needed urgent medical attention. The doctor was understanding and said he was willing to come and attend to her needs but explained that his car was being repaired and asked that the man come and pick him up. The man angrily responded, “What! In this weather?” Oh, aren’t we selfish silly people?

“And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

This is the last line of the Declaration of Independence, and it shows us two things in particular about the patriots who signed it: They depended on God and they depended on each other. That last bit sounds like a contradiction, doesn’t it - how they depended on God and each other? How is that independence? How can you depend on someone or something, and at the same time declare your independence? We like to think that Independence Day - that grand 250^th anniversary just celebrated - is all about allowing every American to stand alone, as a rugged individual - forgetting that Independence Day is about the independence of a nation, not of a bunch of people looking after their own interests. It’s terribly easy, in our contemporary culture, to forget that hard-earned lesson: that we are inevitably dependent. The pioneers on the frontier knew: • how, if you had to raise a barn, you couldn’t do it without your neighbors; • how, if you fell sick, you could depend on the people in the next cabin to fetch the doctor; • how you could look across the valley through a snowstorm and see from the lantern in the window that you were not alone. The founders of our country knew you couldn’t have a declaration of independence without a corresponding declaration of dependence - that we are dependent on God, and we depend on our neighbors to help us. Let us give thanks today for our nation’s independence. But let us also give thanks that we are blessed with so many people who help us. They help us with visits, with health care, with our daily meals and so much more. We are blessed in so many ways! (Carlos Wilton and Timothy Merrill)

[Psalm 131] “Lord, my heart is not haughty, Nor my eyes lofty. Neither do I concern myself with great matters, Nor with things too profound for me. Surely, I have calmed and quieted my soul, Like a weaned child with his mother; Like a weaned child is my soul within me. O Israel, (O America) hope in the Lord; From this time forth and forever.”

In my mind, one of the things that proves to me the Bible is the Word of God, is it’s view of life and death. It gives an honest approach to living. There are no myths, no fairy tales, and in many cases no happy endings. God’s Word deals with the greatness and the failures of the lives of God’s people. The Bible shows us how to live and the results of not living that way. It speaks of salvation and condemnation; it presents joy and great sorrow. It deals with real life in a brief statement of fact and then goes on with the story. Think how our news media would deal with some story in the Bible like Adam and Eve being forced out of the garden. It would be on the five o’clock news, the ten o’clock news, and the story would for at least or more about how harshly they had been treated. But in God’s Holy Word its briefness is a sign of its divine nature.

The Bible remains a number one best seller and the least read book in the world. If every household in America, and the world, would dare to read God’s Word and follow its precepts there would be peace and wisdom in every land. That would be so pleasing to God.