Independence: not as good as you think

I have been reading through the book of Proverbs for the last couple of weeks and I came across a verse today that really got my attention.

"A man's steps are directed by the Lord. How then can anyone understand his own way?"
Proverbs 20:24

One thing that I tend to place to high a value on is self-sufficiency. In fact, I think very highly of those people who made their own way through life with little or no help from anyone. I'm always impressed by their stories. Self-sufficiency might be o.k. for some things, but that type of attitude can be damaging to my relationship with Jesus. In fact, Jesus wants to be the opposite of independent. His desire is for me to be dependent on Him. The words in Proverbs 20:24 ring so true for me, because I can think of many times in my life where things did not seem to make sense. Those almost always were times when I was caught up in trying to make my "own way" in whatever it was I was involved in. As a follower of Christ, my steps should be directed by Him, therefor I should expect to be dazed and confused when I try to be self-sufficient and do things my own way.

Last night, we had a budget planning meeting and it was great! That last sentence is not a typo! I have spent many hours in budget planning meetings where I would have much rather been somewhere else, but last night our team spent time talking about how much money we are going to give away next year and it was exciting. We will give money to help new churches get started and also to some other cool projects like paying for wells in Rwanda (that's in Africa) for villages to have clean water (something we take for granted).

We also spent a lot of time talking about God's plans for Freedom. You will hear more about that in this blog and on Sunday mornings soon. Here's a sneak preview: We're not content to stay where we are, and we're not finished with the task God has for us!