On July 4 every year, the United States of America celebrates its independence. Many countries observe a similar holiday, commemorating their freedom from another country and the establishment of their own sovereign rule. It makes sense why a nation would pursue independence and then celebrate an Independence Day for the rest of its history. But for a follower of Christ, there is no such thing as personal independence, freedom, and sovereignty. It's all a delusion. And that's a very good thing.

Created to be Dependent

You see it in toddlers who resist when their parents tell them to eat their vegetables. You see it in younger kids who slap the hand away that's trying to help them tie their shoes. You see it in the rebellion of teenagers who fight against the rules and curfews their parents have in place to protect them. You see it in the resistance of a husband or a wife when their spouse is lovingly confronting them. You see it in an older person refusing to accept the limits of their aging and pushing away loved ones who are trying to assist them.

In one way or another, all of us buy into the delusion of our ability to live independently. We desperately want to believe that we have within ourselves what we need to live and thrive, free from the rules, wisdom, and help of others. But all we need is the first few chapters of Genesis to expose that our quest for independence is a grand delusion. So, let's go back to the beginning.

When you take a closer look at the creation of Adam and Eve, one thing is clear. Adam and Eve are far from independent. Notice what God immediately does after creating them. He talks to them. Here they are, perfect people, living in a perfect world and in a perfect relationship with God, yet they have no clue who they are and how they are meant to live.

In loving care, God begins to download his wisdom to them. Embedded in his wise counsel are meaning and purpose, structure for their relationship with one another, the nature of their relationship with him, a moral structure for their living, and a description of the daily work they are to give themselves to. Adam and Eve are utterly dependent on profound and practical wisdom outside of themselves in order to live life.

Our need for the theological, structural, and practical content of God's truth isn't the result of sin but is the product of being human! Adam and Eve were created with a need for God and for things that only God would be able to supply. Their continued ability to live as they were designed to live would be determined by their willingness to remain in a dependent relationship with their Creator.

Adam and Eve were also designed to live in dependent community with one another. When God said that it was not good for Adam to live alone, his statement was not a response to Adam's complaint that he was lonely. Rather, God's statement revealed his understanding of the person he had created. He hadn't made a man who was designed to live independently, supplying within himself everything that he needed. No, he would be fully completed and fully functional only when he lived in community with another image bearer. Adam and Eve were created to live in interdependent community with one another. Outside of that community, Adam and Eve would not be able to be what they were designed to be and would not do well what they were commissioned to do.

Genesis 1 and 2 contain the seeds of the two Great Commands. These life-shaping commands were not newly created by Jesus in Palestine but were woven into the very fabric of humanity in the Garden of Eden. People were made to live in a vertical and a horizontal community of love. Love God, love neighbor--it's how God's prized creatures are designed to live.

Created with Dependent Limits

Everything God created was created with limits. Fish don't do well in a pasture, and sheep can't live in a lake. Elephants are mighty animals, but you'll never see one fly. The winds, water, and ground are all designed with different physical properties that set limits on their function. Even a day has a limited amount of hours, and a week has a limited number of days. There will never be thirty-seven hours in a day and fifteen days in a week.

In the Garden of Eden, the only unlimited being was the Creator, Lord Almighty. Adam and Eve were designed with limits of gender, strength, wisdom, and talent. Every human being has physical and spiritual limits. An essential part of applying Genesis 1 and 2 to your everyday life is recognizing and living within the limits the Creator has chosen for you.

Let's consider the example of time.

The Creator-ordained limits of time are clear in the first two chapters of Scripture. You see the creation of the structure of a day--evening and morning. You see the creation of the shape of a week--six days and a Sabbath. This is the structure of time that every human being who ever lived has been limited to by God. All of our commitments, all of our values, all of our responsibilities, and all of our opportunities must be lived out inside of the constraints of time that our wise Creator has set for us. There is no time available outside of the time structure that God has created.

This means it is not always the best, most godly choice to say yes to the next opportunity, no matter how spiritual it may seem. You have to be faithful to family, work, and church within the limits of time that God has set for you. You might allow one area to grow and grow because you keep saying yes to commitments, but it can't grow outside of the 24/7 that God designed because there is no more time out there. Overcommitment to one area will restrict your commitment to another area of responsibility.

You should be committed to the ministry of the body of Christ, but you cannot do so without remembering your limits of time. Many ministry leaders continue to say yes to opportunities but become absentee parents or spouses. Sometimes, saying yes to opportunities in one area restricts your commitment to other places where you are called to be obedient (your personal spiritual disciplines, your family, and your participation in the body of Christ).

It is often spiritually wise to say no to something of importance and value because you can't keep adding things to the limited time you have without damaging other things of value in your life. Genesis 1 and 2 call us to live out the values of our Creator with a humble recognition of the limits of time the Creator knew were best for us.

Likewise, the institution of the Sabbath in Genesis 2 reminds us of both our physical and spiritual limits. We need to rest from our normal daily labor to rejuvenate both our physical and spiritual health because neither is unlimited.

God has no limits to his strength, but we do. God has no limits of time, but we do. God has no limits to his wisdom, but we do. God has no limits to his control, but we do. God does not age, but we do. God has no limits to his knowledge, but we do. God has no limits to his holiness, but we do. God has no physical limits, but we do. God has no limits, but we have many.

From the beginning, we are called away from our delusions of grandeur to accept, with joy and discipline, the limits that the Creator, in the foresight of his wisdom and the protection of his love, has set for us. All of our limits are designed by him to draw us to come and lean on him with humility, dependence, gratitude, obedience, and worship. Our limits shrink our glory while they preach to us the unlimited glory of the majesty of the One who made us.

The Worst Independence Day Ever

In Genesis 3, Adam and Eve attempted to have their own Independence Day revolution, and humanity has been suffering the disastrous consequences ever since. It happened on that world-changing day when man and woman had that fateful conversation with the serpent.

"But the serpent said to the woman, "You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise..." (Genesis 3:4-6, emphasis mine).

Do you see the bait the serpent holds out before Adam and Eve? "You will be like God," and "the tree was desired to make one wise." Embedded in the serpent's seduction are two lies that everyone tends to believe at some time, in some place, and in some way. These two lies still seduce us today: autonomy and self-sufficiency.

Autonomy says that you are an independent being with the right to do with your life whatever you want to do. The lie of self-sufficiency says that you have everything in yourself to be what you are supposed to be and to do what you have been designed to do.

Eve ate the fruit because she was after independent wisdom, that is, wisdom that doesn't need to rely on God. This lie is at the root of our struggle to ask for directions, to esteem guidance, to seek counsel, and to submit to instruction.

How are you doing fighting the lies of the serpent today? At your university, at your job, in your marriage, with your children, with your neighbors, in your church, with your friends, in your finances, in your sexual life, in times of leisure and entertainment, or in private moments, do you take your life into your own hands, acting independently of your need for God's wisdom and his protective and empowering grace? Are you humbly approachable when your spouse, your children, your friends, or a brother or sister in the Lord seeks to lovingly point out a wrong attitude or action? Do you act as if you don't need help?

Embrace Your Dependency

Genesis 1 and 2 establish God as the only autonomous and self-sufficient being in the universe. It paints a beautiful picture of how we were originally created to live, in utter dependency and worshipful submission to God and in devoted reliance with one another. And it warns of the disasters of sin when we take life into our own hands and pursue independence.

Then, throughout the rest of Scripture, the gospel of Jesus Christ continually calls us from independence to dependence. As you grow in grace and become more spiritually mature, your eyes open to more of your weaknesses. Acknowledgment of weakness will produce in you a greater reliance on God; a greater reliance on God will produce an enhanced awareness of his help; an enhanced awareness of his help will produce a lifestyle of humble gratitude; and humble gratitude means you will quit taking credit for things you could never have done or produced on your own and give glory to God and God alone.

The gospel of human weakness and divine power doesn't produce achievement-proud Christians. It produces people who are not only humble themselves but also gentle and patient with those around them who share their weaknesses. Boisterous, proud, self-congratulatory, overly self-confident Christianity is a false gospel that deceives those who preach it and discourages those who listen. A mature Christian is confident in weakness: "Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me" (2 Corinthians 12:9).

The more time grace has to work in your heart, the more afraid you will become of independent isolation and the more confident you will grow in your weakness. But if you were to ask any normal person on the street if they wanted to become weaker, they would be terrified! We live in a self-made culture where strength is defined by supposed independence. So, for the Christian, what replaces the fear of dependence with the fear of independence?

Fear of God. It is only ever fear that replaces fear. We can abandon our delusions of independence and depend wholly on God because we know that our Father never forgets or loses track of any of his children. With a loving heart, he remembers all that he has promised us in Christ, and because he does, we have both hope and help right now and a secure future waiting for us.

It is good to always remember your Lord, but it is glorious to know that he always remembers you. This is the hope of every dependent, weak believer!

Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
his understanding is unsearchable.
He gives power to the faint,
and to him who has no might he increases strength.
Even youths shall faint and be weary,
and young men shall fall exhausted;
but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
they shall walk and not faint.
(Isaiah 40:28-31)