Imagine the scene described by Vance Pitman in his book entitled Unburdened (and I highly recommend reading the entire story instead of my pitiful abbreviation here) where he describes a moment during an independent stage with his three-year old daughter. One morning as they were leaving the house, his daughter was walking with shoelaces untied and insisted on tying them herself. “You already know what happened next. She tried-and tried, and tried, and tried. I can still picture her there, her face all scrunched up in concentration…Finally, in desperation, she threw the shoes on the floor and cried, ‘Daddy! Will you help me?’…Then, with her little hands in mine, I said, “Here’s what you do’… As I let go of her hands…she said, ‘Daddy, look! I tied my shoe!’”

Pitman shares that story to assist in painting a picture for how our heavenly Father desires to spend time with us. “He’s ready to take our hands and provide us exactly what we need. Yet too often our attitude is, No, Daddy. I can do it myself. There’s nothing big on my agenda today, so I’ll make it on my own. What happens next? We wind up sitting on the floor in frustration because we failed.” Rather than a daily relationship of interaction with Him, we embrace an obedience mindset and choose to view “Him as distant and abstract- as if He were some cosmic being who created everything and then wandered off into space.”

Even after four decades of following Christ, I confess that I reduce my relationship with him to a few hours each week, providing Him with my wish list during prayer time, and otherwise allowing Him to remain in outer space somewhere without any real interest in a great portion of my day. And I work in a faith-based institution where I am free to discuss my journey as a Christ-follower in any conversation. I cannot imagine the struggle a person experiences whose vocation is in a secular environment!

Sharing a passage of Scripture from John 15, Pitman admits to his own retranslation that often sounds more like, “’Apart from you, I can’t do big things.’ I would think, Sure, I need to have Jesus in my life if I really want to accomplish something eternally significant. But today, I don’t have anything big on my agenda, so today I can make it on my own.” As a single, never-married homeowner, I’ve been forced to develop a great deal of independence. And as someone who volunteers with Campers on Mission where building maintenance is a significant part of what we do; along with being the daughter of a Sears service technician, I often think, “I can do this myself, I don’t need to call anyone.” But even at 49-years-old, this past week, I’m in tears on the phone sobbing out a form of “Daddy, I need you!”

Someday, I hope that I can reconcile the fact that God wants to love me even more than my earthly father does, but today, it’s a struggle. For I know what unconditional love means, I have experienced it here on earth, but oh how He longs for me to “crawl back into His presence. Sit in His lap and say, Daddy, I need you” in the same desperate voice that I used on the phone this past week over air conditioner maintenance, or I’m sure as I did numerous times as a little pig-tailed girl. I admittedly said a quick, “Thank you, Lord, for a repair rather than replacement,” but I don’t think that’s exactly what He had in mind in John 15:4 when He says, “Abide in Me, and I in you.” God is asking me to relate to Him, as my Heavenly father, the same way I relate to my earthly one.

In his explanation for how to allow this deep relationship to be cultivated, “We just need to let go of our pride, our religion, and our stubborn desire to make our own way….I know this is true because I’ve experienced the power of abiding in Christ. But that doesn’t mean I don’t struggle.” I will end this post with Pitman’s prayer that acknowledges my own feelings and a prayer I plan to personally offer in surrender, because I truly would be extremely grateful to have the relationship with my Heavenly father mirror the one with my earthly one (maybe with more precise directions on how to clean the AC drain pipe).

God, I know Your Word teaches me how much I need You. And yet today, everything in my heart is pulling me to walk away from Your Word and go do something else. So, Lord, I choose to sit here, and I ask for Your grace to help me open Your Word. By faith, with humility, I acknowledge that apart from You, I can do nothing today or any other day.

References:

Pitman, V. (2020). Unburdened: Stop living for Jesus so Jesus can live through you. Baker Books.