I have always been fiercely independent. As a teen, I didn’t cave to peer pressure, I simply didn’t care what others did or said if it went against my own opinions. As an adult, I continued this mindset, working to make my own way and to build the life I wanted. But a recent medical diagnosis, knocked me off my pedestal of independence and put me face to face with my own mortality. I said to a friend recently, “I’m not afraid to die. I am just shocked to learn that I am not going to live forever!”   

Proverbs 19:21, “Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand.” If you think there isn’t a God that is in control of the heavens, consider these scientific facts. The surface of the earth at the equator moves at a speed of roughly 1,000 miles per hour. At the same time as the earth is spinning, it is also circling the sun at a speed of 67,000 miles per hour. Now, add to this equation that the temperature of the sun is 27 million degrees Fahrenheit. We are living on a spinning planet, which is hurling through space around a fireball that is so hot, our human minds cannot comprehend it. How, given these basic facts about our universe, how can you or I ever think we are truly independent?

I love the book of Job when God addresses Job’s complaints. The imagery is so powerful, and it puts God’s sovereignty and power into perfect context. How can we be anything but insignificant in the light of God’s majesty? And in this insignificance, because of our mortal pride we think we are independent. This truth makes me shutter!

“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
    Tell me, if you understand.
Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
    Who stretched a measuring line across it?
On what were its footings set,
    or who laid its cornerstone—
 while the morning stars sang together
    and all the angels shouted for joy?

“Who shut up the sea behind doors
    when it burst forth from the womb,
 when I made the clouds its garment
    and wrapped it in thick darkness,
 when I fixed limits for it
    and set its doors and bars in place,
when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther;
    here is where your proud waves halt’?

 “Have you ever given orders to the morning,
    or shown the dawn its place,
 that it might take the earth by the edges
    and shake the wicked out of it?
The earth takes shape like clay under a seal;
    its features stand out like those of a garment.
 The wicked are denied their light,
    and their upraised arm is broken.

 “Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea
    or walked in the recesses of the deep?
 Have the gates of death been shown to you?
    Have you seen the gates of the deepest darkness?
 Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth?
    Tell me, if you know all this.

 “What is the way to the abode of light?
    And where does darkness reside?
Can you take them to their places?
    Do you know the paths to their dwellings?
 Surely you know, for you were already born!
    You have lived so many years!

 “Have you entered the storehouses of the snow
    or seen the storehouses of the hail,
 which I reserve for times of trouble,
    for days of war and battle?
 What is the way to the place where the lightning is dispersed,
    or the place where the east winds are scattered over the earth?
 Who cuts a channel for the torrents of rain,
    and a path for the thunderstorm,
 to water a land where no one lives,
    an uninhabited desert,
 to satisfy a desolate wasteland
    and make it sprout with grass?
 Does the rain have a father?
    Who fathers the drops of dew?
 From whose womb comes the ice?
    Who gives birth to the frost from the heavens
 when the waters become hard as stone,
    when the surface of the deep is frozen?

 “Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades?
    Can you loosen Orion’s belt?
 Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons
    or lead out the Bear with its cubs?
 Do you know the laws of the heavens?
    Can you set up God’s dominion over the earth?

 “Can you raise your voice to the clouds
    and cover yourself with a flood of water?
 Do you send the lightning bolts on their way?
    Do they report to you, ‘Here we are’?
 Who gives the ibis wisdom
    or gives the rooster understanding?
Who has the wisdom to count the clouds?
    Who can tip over the water jars of the heavens
 when the dust becomes hard
    and the clods of earth stick together?

 “Do you hunt the prey for the lioness
    and satisfy the hunger of the lions
 when they crouch in their dens
    or lie in wait in a thicket?
 Who provides food for the raven
    when its young cry out to God
    and wander about for lack of food?”

My fear as I faced the past week and the prospect of a life changing health diagnosis, how do I live this way? And now that I have answers and a plan from my doctor, I can see the error of my thinking. I was never truly independent. Only in God’s sovereignty and in His gifts of grace and mercy has anything in my life come to fruition. It has not been of my own power that I built my life, but through His power, in accordance with His will. Somehow, He predestined the insignificance of my life to bring glory to His name.

I do think it is natural for us as humans to think we are in control of our lives. Yet, I am thankful that God in His wisdom and love, gently will remind us of our own limitations. Our lives as believers are not our own but they belong to Him. Through all our trials and struggles, we should be looking to Him for our strength, understanding our place in this world as it hurls through space. I am not fiercely independent—No, I am completely dependent on the Lord my God and on His will and plan for my life. I will rest in that knowledge and strive to bring Him glory, through the insignificance of my life. -Amen