Freedom Is In Dependence, Not Independence
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In my first decade of pastoral ministry, I have tried to help people see that freedom is not independence. Freedom is in dependence.
FREEDOM IS GETTING USED TO BEING HUMAN
It seems counterintuitive, but the humanness of humanity is what's at stake. I've found that so much of leading the Church and spreading Good News is really just helping people get back to being human. Since being human is, by definition, to be dependent, independence derails human life.
Weird, right? And deeply ironic. It makes me chuckle when I think about it. People everywhere seem to be hell-bent on not needing what they're dependent on. As if the weakness inherent in dependence is somehow a negative thing. It makes about as much sense as a fish trying to figure out how to survive on land. We're trying to be freed from our freedom.
People everywhere seem to be hell-bent on not needing what they're dependent on.
FREEDOM IS NOT BECOMING SOMEONE YOU’RE NOT
This attempt to overcome our humanity is manifested in the way we refuse to be seen, known, and addressed for who we really are. We posture, hide, twist the truth (even if slightly), or put walls up so high and wide that we end up forgetting who we were in the first place. We are terrified of admitting guilt, helplessness, brokenness, or fakeness. It is tough to imagine trusting anyone with the truth about ourselves.
It is tough to imagine trusting anyone with the truth about ourselves.
I want to take a stab at disillusionment - showing you that the greener grass you are looking for will actually poison you. I want to encourage you towards the freedom of dependence. I want you to know you're built to thrive utterly dependent on the provision of God. More elemental to your existence than oxygen, dependence on the breath of God is what you were made for.
FREEDOM IS BEING WHO YOU REALLY ARE
So you are free to be transparent, to be known as someone who will come to the end of your own sufficiency at one point or another. You are free to be who you really are because that is who God really loves and who the world really needs. You are free to forsake the endless hamster wheel of becoming something else and improving who God was never dissatisfied with in the first place.
"Life takes on a completely different hue once we tell just one person what it is that we've worked so hard at not saying. Yes, all our delusions of grandeur die. But in that case, we can't possibly be disappointed by what we cannot dream of having in life… More than that, our self-righteousness dies, too. Not only are we capable of seeing ourselves and understanding ourselves and why we did what we did, but we can now understand others as well. I'm ready at long last to take my place among the healers and truth tellers in society. I'm ready now to hold up others as others once supported me. These are the ones who, just like me, need to be freed from the "great masquerade" that is choking their souls. Like me, they have gone through life with no hope of finding someone they can trust."
These words from Joan Chittister in Radical Spirit stopped me in my tracks. They make the point we're all so fearful of accepting. As Jesus said, "the truth will make you free… if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed" (John 8:32,36, NRSV).
Freedom isn't becoming a better version of yourself. As Russ & Tony like to say on the LARKCAST, Jesus didn't come to set you on a trajectory of becoming someone he wouldn't have to die for in the first place.
To actually be human is "to risk the possibility of rejection by people we shouldn't want to be approved by anyway" (Joan Chittister, Radical Spirit). To be who we really are is instead to trust in the God who was never embarrassed or annoyed by our dependence on him in the first place.
"Life takes on a completely different hue once we tell just one person what it is that we've worked so hard at not saying” (Joan Chittister, Radical Spirit)
FREEDOM IS BEING MORE, NOT LESS HUMAN
So, whatever you do, start to doubt the idea that you've got to make yourself presentable for God or people. God didn't become what we are so that we could finally level up. He did it to show us that he's not afraid of our humanity like we are. He did it to show us that we don't need freedom from our humanity but from our illusions of becoming something else.
You are free to be seen and exposed in the radiant light of the one who is Life and Love. What if we took this seriously? What if we were to hang up the masks and begin trusting Jesus? Would more people become interested in the story the Church is telling? Would the courage to "tell just one person what it is that we've worked so hard at not saying" begin a movement of liberation for a world drowning in shame?
You are free to be seen and exposed in the radiant light of the one who is Life and Love.
Maybe people would feel more comfortable being human again. Maybe fish would realize they can't hack it on the shore and never needed to in the first place.
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