Independence & Dependence

Last week we took our annual Youth Ski Trip to Keystone, Colorado.  It was a wonderful trip with no real injuries, and good times with some great students.  

Jen and I had decided before the trip that we would try to let Hudson ski while we were there.  We really didn't know what to expect, Hudson is two and a half and most experts recommend that kids start skiing when they are three.  We decided to rent the ski's and helmet the last day.  The plans was that I would take him up the conveyor belt lift and hold him as we ski down together.  The two days prior to his "big day" skiing he was obsessed with the skis, the boots, and the poles that all the students had.  He even practiced in the condo with one of the student's ski's.  I figured we would go down a couple times and he'd get scared or bored and want nothing more to do with it.  To my surprise, he absolutely loved it!  His favorite part was actually the conveyor belt lift, and in fact very quickly he began getting on it without my assistance.  Soon after he began  pushing my hands off of him while we were skiing because he wanted to do it by himself.  

So often we hear in Christian circles the similarities between the relationship of parents/children to God/believers and we should that comparison is Biblical.  As I reflected on my two year old skiing I thought that this step of independence is just one in a process for him.  He will forever be growing independent from Jen and I.  In contrast, my relationship with the Lord is not one in which I am to become independent from Him.  The opposite is in fact the truth.  My relationship to Him is one in which I  am constantly looking for His hands to guide me, in which I am dependent upon Him, knowing on my own I am hopeless incapable of living for His glory or in the abundant life He desires for me.  

Perhaps, that is one of the challenges the Christian life provides that unlike our relationship to our parents, our relationship to our boss, or our relationship to a teacher/coach where we prove trustworthy and gain independence, growing in our relationship to the Lord is growth towards dependence upon the One able to change and renew us in the likeness of His Son.