Job 14:1-2 — Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble. He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not.
Sometimes I think perhaps I have an odd way of looking at some of the beautiful images in the Bible. Today’s piece might be an example!
In several places in scripture you can see the image of man as a flower, springing up and withering in a few short days. I have always thought that suggestion of frailty was sad. Today it struck me in a different way.
We live in a society that celebrates independence, “standing on your own two feet”. We start, of course, in total dependence on our mother for our most basic needs. We can’t even dress ourselves. Our parents guide and protect us. All too soon though, we grow away. We soon become the little boy or girl insisting “I can do it, and tying our own shoelaces!
For much of our lives, if we are fortunate, we feel we have some measure of control. But then …
For most of us there comes a time when that illusion of control slips away. Our health fails … or our mind. Once again we depend on someone else for our most basic needs. We fear that, it seems a terrible fate. Somehow it seems unfair, unreal … But today it seemed to me that it might be another example of God’s unexpected grace.
We are made in God’s image. I know that might make you think we should be completely independent … Isn’t God the ultimately independent, self-sufficient, stand-alone creator? But there’s another perspective in which God is the perfect example of dependence.
The Trinity is dependence in balance … Father depending on Son and Spirit, Son dependent on Spirit and Father, Spirit dependent on Son and Father. We cannot be fully in the image of God if we believe we are completely independent. The illusion of independence is satanic. We need to know that we live in interdependent relationships. Dietrich Bonhoeffer understood this exactly. Look what he said in “Life Together”:
God has willed that we should seek and find God’s living Word in the testimony of other Christians, in the mouths of human beings. Therefore, Christians need other Christians who speak God’s Word to them. … At the same time, this also clarifies that the goal of all Christian community is to encounter one another as bringers of the message of salvation. As such, God allows Christians to come together and grants them community.
Perhaps human frailty is a gift that brings us back to a recognition of our dependence on each other. We need a nurse to take care of our most basic needs. We need our family to guide us and protect us. Perhaps, we even — once more — need help dressing. We are forced once more to recognize our frailty, back into the image of God, restored by His grace.