Growth by Dependence
Contrary to what the world may say, our mutual surrenders are what enrich
us.
Wise parents nudge their children away from dependence toward freedom. Their goal, after
all, is to produce independent adults. Lovers, however, choose a new kind of dependence:
possessing freedom, they gladly give it away. In a healthy marriage, one partner yields to
the other's wishes not out of compulsion, but out of love. That adult relationship reveals
what God seeks
from human beings: not the clinging, helpless love of a child who has no choice, but
the mature, freely given commitment of a lover.
I keep falling back on marriage as a picture of this mature relationship because it is one
I have lived in every day for thirty years and one the Bible itself relies on. How,
exactly, do I "choose a new kind of voluntary dependence" within marriage? I
think of two major decisions Janet and I have made, both of which led us to uproot and
move to new locations.
The first time, we moved from the far suburbs to a downtown neighborhood. After thirteen
enriching years of city life, we moved to a secluded site in Colorado, the opposite of
Chicago in every way.
It seems clear that we made the move to Chicago primarily for Janet's sake and the move to
Colorado primarily for mine. Janet thrived in the city, building a fine church-based
program that ministered to the practical needs of senior citizens, most of them poor, some
of them homeless. City life, though, with its pressures, incessant car alarms, and
frenetic pace gradually drained my creative energy. We chose Colorado as a more nourishing
environment for my introspective work of writing.
Both moves involved major adjustments, even sacrifices. Yet as anyone in a healthy
marriage knows, a couple only undertakes these changes in a spirit of mutual consent.
Because I work at home, we have more freedom to make such choices than some people. But a
spirit of power ("I need a change of environment, and I'm moving whether you like it
or not") or retaliation ("You had your fun, now I'm going to have mine")
would spell doom. Neither of us
would dare impose such a decision on the other.
Marriage offers only one sure check on freedom abuse: love. In any mature
relationship, in fact, love sets the boundaries. I could point to many times in which
Janet has set aside her own first preferences in favor of mine, and I have done the same
for her. Neither of us wins all the time. Yet because we are committed to each other, we
make the small and large
adjustments necessary to live together in peace, and try to exercise power and
freedom within the boundaries marked by love.
Thirty years of marriage have changed both Janet and me. We are different people from the
moonstruck lovers who said "I do" when barely out of adolescence. She has taught
me social skills, an appreciation for plants, a
compassion for the poor and lowly. I have taught her to appreciate classical music, an
awareness of natural beauty, a zest for travel and physical exercise. Our mutual
surrenders have caused us to grow, rather than shrink.
Lovers understand that a lasting relationship grows in the soil of trust and grace and
forgiveness, not law. Lovers know that love cannot be commanded or compelled. By nature a
lover wants what the other person wants. When love requires personal sacrifice, it often
seems more like a gift: "Not my will but thine be done." Lovers praise: I talk
about my wife to others and boast of her accomplishments not because I feel obligated but
because I want others to know her as I do. In these and other ways, I have learned from
marriage how a
mature relationship with God may work. Augustine described a good spiritual
life as, simply, "well ordered love."
The state God wants only comes about as a result of a faithful relationship with him. We
seek to please God, accept as our highest goal to know and love him, make necessary
sacrifices--and in the process we ourselves change. Personal spirituality grows as a
byproduct of sustained interaction with God.
In the end, we find ourselves not just doing things that please God, but
wanting to do them.
Philip Yancey is the author of Reaching for the
Invisible God (Zondervan).
message
boards
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)