Independence

Today we celebrate Veterans Day. It's a day we celebrate all Armed Services veterans who have served in the grand task of defending our independence.

The dictionary says that independence is "freedom from the control, influence, support, aid, or the like, of others." Think about that for a moment. Freedom from ... control, influence, support, or aid. You're on your own, folks.

We think of independence as the freedom to do what we want. That's not quite accurate. With a minimum of thought it should be abundantly clear that "independence" is the opposite of "dependence". And when it's put that way, I have to wonder ... is that a good thing? Oh, of course, we Americans are almost pathologically independent. We don't want anyone telling us what to do or asking anything from us. It's almost not freedom that we want, but anarchy -- the right to do anything if we so desire.

But I don't think we're made for independence. As we know from common sense (and John Donne), "No man is an island." Human beings do not thrive in isolation. You've heard the famous (and oft-misquoted) quip about bells, haven't you? That was part of the same quote from John Donne. He said, "Never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee." The reason he said that was because he said, "Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde." Independence? Maybe not as good of an idea as you might think.

Me? I don't actually want independence. I want absolute dependence. Some argue that "God doesn't want robots." Maybe. But there is nothing I'd like better than to be God's robot. Not going to happen, I know. But I can still recognize the actual fact that "in Him we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28). The more time I spend working on "independence", the more irrational it is. Me? I want utter and complete dependence on God.