One would think that anyone who has lived fifty years or more on this earth would have figured out some basic truths. The hard places, struggles and challenges just to get by, much less live well, are like water rushing down a mountain stream during the spring melt-off. Anything standing in the way surely gets worn and shaped, or washed away. Even the huge granite boulders can’t resist the impact. For humans, quite often, the wear and tear of the years softens some of our rough spots and carves away some of our arrogance. We go with the flow, or we are broken.
In the past few years I’ve become aware of some people who refuse to accept this reality. They live as if they can control the force of the rushing torrent. They might give lip-service to the fact that there is a God who is sovereign, but their behavior loudly proclaims another allegiance. They live under the seductive illusion that they can manage their lives on their own terms. It’s almost as if they are claiming (with Frank Sinatra) I do it my way. Isn’t this a bit like the terrible twos? We are NOT in charge!
Jesus, in the section of Matthew’s Gospel known as the Sermon on the Mount, begins his teaching with this fundamental statement, Blessed are the poor in spirit (Matthew 5:3). Everything flows from this. Those will have a chance to be peaceful, content, grounded, well, who know that they cannot do it alone. They know their place in the grand scheme of things. They need God. They need others.
We, especially in the United States, hate the thought of being dependent on anyone or anything. We consider dependence of any kind as a weakness. Yet a majority of us profess to be a people who believe in God – maybe as long as God doesn’t interfere with our plans or our lifestyle. For some of us bull-headed types, accepting the obvious truth of our poverty, our neediness, may take awhile. But life goes so much better when we do.