#8

Choose a representative passage from this novel that holds particular significance to you. Type it in and comment on its significance.



"Reduced to utter dependence upon God, we set ourselves to hope for that key. We could not guess what form it would take. We only knew that it would be from God and would have His blessing."



I love the first part of the passage which states "utter dependence upon God". It is very profound and relates well to experiences I have had with God which has led to a further knowledge, on my part, of the nature on God.



"God is..." is a very popular phrase. We humans have the tendency to put God in a box. God is love("Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love." 1 John ) and at the same time, God hates sin(); those two qualities do not seem to work together, however, His Word, the Bible shows both to be true. God is merciful("But in your great mercy You did not put an end to them or abandon them, for You are a great and merciful God." Nehemiah 9:31), but at the same time He is justice("Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you; He rises to show you compassion. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait on Him. Isaiah 30:18), thus He will send people to Hell who do not believe in Him. These examples seem to be oxymorons, but they are in fact paradoxes. Many people do not acknowledge this fact and thus choose to focus on one aspect of God, and in grave danger of stereotyping God. If we don't like to be put into boxes, then how much more appalling should it be when the Lord God Almighty is being stereotyped? This whole paragraph may appear to be a tangent, one may think, "How does this relate to the passage whatsoever?" Well, it is often stereotypes which lead to disappointment which in turn bring about a state of brokenness. This state is frequently used by God to promote "utter dependency" on God. This now brings me to a very personal section of my post.

"I", that word which is used so much by a great many of us. In itself, it isn't bad or evil, but overuse often causes the one using it to focus more on themselves, and that was indeed the case with myself. My struggle with utter dependency on God is long and therefore, I shall limit it to the past year and a half.

I do not think that I "fit in"-so to speak-with the student body at TCIS. I do not think that now, and I didn't think that 18 months ago. There were some people who would tolerate my presence and a small pocket who would probably have considered themselves to be in good company when I was around. Out of that small pocket there were less than a dozen who I would have considered "good friends" and out of that, less than the number of fingers on my hand that would consider "close friends". I trusted the individuals immensely and would tell them nearly everything. At the same time I wanted them to be the type of friends, best termed in the words of Anne of Green Gables, that would be "bosom friend". Neither side was really ready for a friendship of that transparency and thus, not only did I get hurt, but it also made relations between those individuals very difficult during that year. Instead of really enjoying some of the moments which we had together, neither side understood each other and awkward silence was often the companion of such times together. This may seem to be just an issue between my friends and I, but the "wound" that appeared to spring from those encounters was really just the like a scab being torn away from a much deeper wound. I thought that I could rely fully on my friends, as the world often tells us, but that was just a box in which I placed my friends(the promised connection to the second paragraph). The issue went much further than the what I thought and had to do with my spiritual life. I was not utterly dependent upon God and was looking to fill myself up in other places: my friends. My friendships suffered because I was searching for a type of fulfillment that is only found in God. Heartaches later, after a year and a half of stumbling falling down I have finally learned the lesson of dependency that God was trying to teach me. I am still learning more about dependence and I do not rely on Him as much as I should, but the difference is that before I was only trying, but now I feel my whole being desiring intimacy with Him. This is, in a way, a testimony of what God has been doing in my life.

Citations: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cdiferente/2280874155/sizes/m/