Self-sufficiency

Going back some forty years, to a time before I knew Jesus, self-sufficiency was my religion. My wife and I had put our faith in our personal ability to provide all the needs of ourselves and our family, determined to place as little reliance as possible on the outside world. We tried it all: making our own clothes, keeping goats for milk, fattening pigs for meat, digging a well for water, collecting wood for heat, all located in an isolated place in the Highlands of Scotland.

Our life-choices weren’t all wrong but one day our self-reliant world completely fell apart. Our need for outside help became desperate. We discovered that the local Christian community had seen our distress and was praying for us, and in that moment of need God stepped in to save us, including our marriage and our family. We realised for the first time that He was offering to be our Provider and Protector, and we made a decision to surrender our lives to His love.

For many people self-sufficiency can seem, at least in part, an attractive lifestyle especially if they have been let down in the past. However, we`re designed to be inter-dependent with one another, not least in the Body of Christ, using the giftings that have been given to each of God’s children. Even as followers of Jesus, we can allow an independent spirit to separate us from the family of God and it can even separate us from God Himself. Perhaps it’s time for some to reconnect.

Prayer: Father God, thank you that you are my sufficiency, protecting me and providing for my needs, not least through my inter-dependence with others within Your precious family, the Body of Christ here on earth. I surrender afresh to Your care. Amen.