Independent Faith

At my first defense no one stood with me, but all forsook me. May it not be charged against them.
2 Timothy 4:16

Recently on Facebook I threatened to turn this into a blog about laundry after I posted a question on the topic and received scores of replies. I hadn’t realized what an interesting subject laundry is to many people. The problem with my idea is that I don’t have much to say about laundry. My one bit of laundry genius was this rule: whenever a child of mine turns ten, he or she has to… um… I mean, he or she gets to start doing his or her own laundry. This has saved me countless hours of work and, more importantly, has been a good lesson for them.

When kids are very little, we clean up all their messes. We may, in our wisdom, ask them to “help,” but we all know that usually makes it more work for us, not less, in the end. As they grow, they will expect us to keep cleaning up after them unless we proactively teach them to start taking responsibility for their own messes. Whenever mine didn’t want to go to the trouble, I would ask them who they thought should clean up the mess they had made. I was trying to get them thinking about personal responsibility.

When it comes to our sin, we can’t clean up our own mess, not without the help of Jesus. But we do still have to take responsibility for it.

When we become Christians, we are “babes in Christ” (1 Corinthians 3:1; Hebrews 5:13). We have to be fed, we can’t quite walk on our own, we need a lot of help. But just as we raise kids to become independent in this world, Christians need to be guided to spiritual maturity, helped to grow in the faith. Eventually each of us needs to be able to stand on his or her own.

Not apart from God of course! But against the world if necessary. Think about Noah. He and his family were the only ones who found favor with God (Genesis 6:5-8). They had no church family to lean on. They were the church of their day! In depending on God alone, they declared their independence from the world’s path to destruction.

David didn’t wait around for others to volunteer to fight Goliath. He even rejected the king’s armor that was offered him because it was too cumbersome and he wasn’t used to it (1 Samuel 17:38-39). His faith didn’t depend on the courage, or the armor, or the weapons of others. His faith was strong enough for him to step out completely alone; except that, of course, he wasn’t alone.

In 2 Timothy 4, Paul gives us a good picture of what an independent faith looks like. In verses 9-15 he describes some who had forsaken him and even done him “much harm.” Some he had sent to other places, very likely to deliver messages or to help in those churches. At the time, only Luke was with Paul. But in verse 16 he says that at some point all had forsaken him; no one had stood with him. He asks God to forgive them.

Then he starts verse 17 with these words: But the Lord stood with me and strengthened me.

The idea of independence appeals to us. As Americans we are raised on it. Independence means you get to make your own choices. But it also means you have to take responsibility for yourself. It means at some point you have to start doing your own laundry, cleaning up your own messes, and doing what’s right even when no one else does. We need a faith that allows us to stand on our own, but remember, we’re never really doing it on our own. If you’re standing for what is right, you are standing with God. And that, as they say, puts you in the majority.

If God is for us, who can be against us? Romans 8:31

Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Romans 6:13

Dear God, I thank You for cleaning up the mess of my sin and for Your patience as I am growing in the faith. Please help me to feel Your presence in those moments when I am called upon to stand alone for what is right. I know that I am never really alone for Jesus has promised to be with me always. Please increase my faith so that I may be able to stand. In Jesus’s name, Amen.

by Christie Cole Atkins