On Being Sustained

Thoughts from my reading in Whiter Than Snow: Meditations on Sin and Mercy by Paul David Tripp.

Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.
Psalms 51:12

This meditation brought thoughts of what it means to have a willing spirit. Willing for what?

Human beings are simply not self-sustaining, and we were never designed to live as if we are. The doctrine of creation confronts us with the reality that we are neither physically or spiritually self-sustaining. We were created to be dependent. Dependency is not therefore a sign of weakness.

It’s hard to depend on other people. We start out that way and most of us will end up that way. In between we do everything we can to be independent. “I’ll do it myself,” the little child says. Of course, a certain kind of independence is good but we all tend toward the bad kind.

So, all fallen human beings tend to buy into two attractive but dangerous lies. These are the lies that were on the tongue of the serpent on that fateful day of manipulation and disobedience in the garden. The first lie is the lie of autonomy, which tells me that I am an independent human being with the right to invest my life however I choose. The second lie is the lie of self-sufficiency, which declares that I have everything I need within myself to be what I am supposed to be and do what I am supposed to do.

I want to do what I want and I want to do it my way. Some people are bold enough to declare it, some of us deny that it’s true yet most of us live it. If we are wise we fight against it. I fight by admitting I am weak and powerless without God. I also admit that I need other people. I need help, I need counsel, I need correction, I need friends.

I ask God to give me a willing heart. One that is willing to ask for and receive what I need from Him and other people.

It is a willing heart that causes us to seek the grace that has been promised. When we turn from our own way and recognize our inability to live his way, we begin to seek the full range of resources that he has promised us in his Son. Grace is for the willing and we only become willing when we confess not only the gravity of our sin, but our inability to deliver ourselves from it. Then our willingness opens to us all the sustenance of heart that can only be found in the Son.

Finally, we have what we need. It is so good to give up the struggle to do all, to be all, and the loneliness of independence.

Here is one of the questions at the end of the meditation:
In what places do you need to rely more on the grace of Christ and the resources of help he has placed in your life (receiving loving confrontation well, seeking more honest fellowship in the body of Christ, more willingness to confess need to God and others)?

For me it is all of those. I struggle daily to communicate with other people, which for me means learning to let people in on what is going on inside me. I have a hard time receiving correction especially when it’s not done right. I have a hard time letting people know what my needs are. I seems so weak to admit that I’m down, that I’m having a hard time seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. It’s hard to admit that my work is slow (are people tired of hearing that?). It’s hard to accept that people care about me and may genuinely be interested in what is going on in my life.

It’s something different for all of us but it’s something for every one of us. There are those things and attitudes that try to convince us that we don’t need God or others.

I’m going to continue to fight against the ones in my life. I need God and I need you.

Philip


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