I am glad to be an American. There’s so much about my country that I’m grateful for. But there’s something that catches inside me when we celebrate Independence Day each July 4. While I’m glad the United States is its own nation, I’m not so sure I believe in independence.
I am not an independent person. I am a very dependent person — and gladly so.
I need you. I need community. I need God.
I need food to sustain and enliven me. I need a sheltered place to lay my head. I need clothing to warm and cover me. I need people to love and be loved by. I need help with my finances. I need readers and conversation partners or this blog is worthless. I need my wife in so many ways. My list of needs is ridiculously long.
I am not an independent being. Too often, I try to act like I am fully in control and fully independent. I like the idea of not needing others, but the reality is that I’m incomplete by myself.
I am not myself by myself.
The needs I have — physically, emotionally, spiritually, financially, relationally, vocationally — burst the bubble of any independence I might claim for myself. So, as we celebrate Independence Day this weekend, I declare my “in dependence.”
Happy In Dependence Day!