What if God was real?

I was reading the Sermon on the Mount in preparation for worship tomorrow and as I re-read the things Jesus says about how we are to live I found myself getting worked up in the usual way -- it just seemed so completely overwhelming.  And then I heard Storm Bailey's voice in my head saying, "What if God was real?"

Right.  God.  Of course Jesus is going to ask us to live in a way that depends on God being real.

So what if we lived as though God is real?  What if, instead of backing away from the impossible things Jesus asks us to do we instead believed that God is who He says is and will do what He says He will do?  What would that look like?

I think that might look like the Kingdom of God.

Dependent

Dependent.  This is the word that has been haunting me for almost a year now.

I don't like it.  At all.

It sounds weak.

It is weak.

Because you can't be dependent without being needy.  That's the very definition, right?  If you're dependent on someone or something, you need them.  You can't make it on your own. You are not enough.

It feels very much like failure, this dependence, this not being enough.  It feels like something you need to fix--or recover from.

Independence.  That's what I'm after.  Being able to do it on my own.

Strength.  Competence.  Got-it-togetherness.  Those are the goals.

I can do it myself.

Except that I can't.  Or at least that's what God and my mother seem to have been gently suggesting to me over the last 30+ years. 

Oh, but here's where it gets worse.  SO. MUCH. WORSE.

This last year the thing that God's been hinting at ever so quietly is this:

Dependence is the goal.

(Sorry, I still can't quite bring myself to say it out loud.) 

Dependence (weakness, failure, not-enoughness) is not something He is going to save me from.  It's not something He will cure in me.  It's not something He will heal, sanctify, redeem, or resurrect.

It's the goal.  It's where we're headed.

This does not feel like good news.