(By Mike Steinsland) – This Sunday at church my pastor was talking about his new born son and sort of cluing me in to what being a father is like; and I have to tell you that it is really beneficial to understanding God’s love for us, but one of the stories he told me hit me really hard. I attend the Mayfair Community Corps, also known as the Korean Corps. Cultural practices are a little different and so he was telling me about how his son sleeps between himself and his wife. Then he said that he went to the doctors, as people do with babies, and the doctor, who is not strictly American in practices, told him that as an American she is supposed to tell him to let the baby sleep in his own crib all night to teach independence in the child. I don’t think I had ever thought about a baby being independent, but it just really showed me how much importance Americans put on being independent.
My pastor said that the doctor didn’t really believe that the baby should be independent of the parents; that he should still sleep with them to cultivate dependence on them, but in America it is not okay to say that as a doctor. So what does this all mean about our walk with God? Why would my pastor tell me this? That’s simple; it was God telling me that I haven’t been talking to Him lately, that I’ve been too independent of Him, and that I need to come back. I was startled, I mean, I try to read the Bible everyday, I sing songs of praise everyday, how was I so independent of Him?
Sometimes when you ask difficult questions the answer you really want is that there was a mistake, but God isn’t wrong. I was falling away from God. I’ve been living an American life. I went to high school, moved out of my parents’ house and went to college, and now I’m graduating and trying to find a job. Seems simple enough, but nowhere in that simple plan is there even a trace of God. The problem is all I’ve been seeing is that I am about to go to the next step – I’m going to graduate; I’m going to find a job. The problem as a Christian with reducing life to such a simple statement is that you don’t give God the credit He deserves. I certainly don’t deserve any credit for graduating, I don’t do any work, and I don’t have any hope of finding a job without God. So of course I’ve been estranged from Him!
This leads me to a really great question: Why do we value independence so much? It’s probably a historical tradition of triumph over our oppressors, but this means that in asserting our independence from God, what we equate Him with is an oppressor. That just doesn’t sit too well with me, because God has always been good to me, but I still turned away from Him. There is good news! I am not the only person who has done this. In fact, if we check out our Bible (which I hope you will), early on we find out that God’s chosen people try to become independent. You can read the stories yourself, (which I hope you will), but the good news is the God will always welcome me back. I remember in high school while I was attending the Des Plaines Corps, we would talk about how to be in the world and love God without loving the world. When we say “world” we mean earthly things/possessions or anything that the world inspires in us, which is usually sinful. Why is it sinful? When we love the world we do not take things in moderation, which is the trick, when we live in the world with God we admire the world as God’s creation but understand that there are bad things in it.
When we divorce God from the world we are left with corruption, which makes me think of my favorite image of hell which is a place devoid of God. There is a way out of this thinking: crawl back to God. It’s difficult sometimes to admit fault. I still struggle with sins that I did in high school (such as ignoring God), and it’s really embarrassing and humbling to just crawl back to God and ask for forgiveness. This is great because this is one of the most beautiful times you can have with God. When you ask for forgiveness you admit that He is Sovereign and that you need Him. This is what it means to be dependant on God, to need Him, to be accountable to Him, and it is completely beautiful.
So back to my pastor. He had a difficult decision to make. Should he teach his son independence? This is what he and his wife decided: Joshua, their son, would sleep by himself in his crib until he started to cry, and then they would bring him to their bed and he would stay there for the night. This is where he explained what fatherly love was like. The first night he felt like he abandoned his son and he couldn’t sleep. He kept listening to the baby monitor waiting for that tiny voice to call out. He could hear the rustling in the crib, and he waited, and then he heard a tiny squeak and he ran to his son. I can’t think of a more wonderful illustration of God’s love for us. God is like the father who can’t sleep because He is worried about us in our independence. He is waiting, and He will run to us with all His might at the first outcry. I hope this has helped. I mean, Jesus said to have faith like a child, and as a child shouldn’t we know that God is always there and will come whenever you call?