So let's get started. As a child, we were totally dependent on parents and caretakers for our survival. We have to be fed, bathed, loved, nurtured, and on and on. As a child, we depend on our parents to meet our needs, knowing that they will help us, no matter if it is a booboo from a fall, hurt feelings, sadness, frustration, scared, etc. We go to them with confidence, knowing they will comfort us. As we grow we become more self-reliant depending less and less on our parents and the comfort and safety that they once brought us. This leads us to a place where we depend on ourselves for our needs. This is not always good, especially when we leave God out of the mix.
Now, you may be asking "How or why would we become like a little child again? " Well, I am hoping to give a little insight on this. Let us consider the example above, then consider that God the father, who is exactly that, our father. As we grow and become more independent we stray away from the need we once had for parents, we become convinced that we ourselves are more than capable of providing our needs. We journey about the world seeking worldly things, thinking that these things will fill in the gaps created by our independence. On this journey we pick up hitchhikers that eventually become "friends" or at least acquaintances, their names are, stress, anxiety, frustration, fear, anger, and more. Our new "friends" "acquaintances" go everywhere we go. They rear their ugly faces through our words and actions. They beat us down (and most people that we meet) leaving us bloody, broken, and defeated. Leaving us longing for the days of our youth. This, my friends, is called independence. Independent not only from parents, siblings, and those willing to help us along the way, but independent from God.
Let's look a little deeper into this. Let's go back to the Garden of Eden. In the beginning, Adam and Eve spent their days enjoying all that God the Father had created. God (just like our parents) provided them with everything they would need, therefore, they knew no stress, anxiety, frustration, fear, sickness, and anger. They had one job, to spend time in the presence of God, commune with him, and be friends with him (this is worship). Everything they needed was at their fingertips, they did not have to depend on themselves for anything, this was all they knew. Of course, we know the story, out of everything God had created for them, there was also the tree of knowledge of good and evil, they were not to eat of that tree. Then, along comes the subtle serpent, who convinced Eve, who convinced Adam to eat of the tree which lead to them being banned from the garden, torn from their peaceful place of existence. Thrown into a world of depending on self along with all the hitchhikers that come with it. (Please read Genesis 3)
We should look to God in the same way that we looked to our parents as young children, we should depend on Him for all of our needs, the same way Adam and Eve did in the beginning. We were created with a purpose, and one of those purposes is to worship God, part of worship is to trust. God desires to be the one we turn to for love and nurturing, guidance, comfort, and encouragement, protection. God loves us the same way a parent loves their children with a ferocious love, how much more does God the Father love us, that he sent his only begotten Son to lay down his life for us. Why would we not trust and depend on someone who loves us this much?
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