You're Not Meant to Do It Alone

We are not meant to figure things out on our own. Plain and simple. I could end the blog here because that is my main point, and if you are anything like me, no matter how many times you hear it, it never truly sinks in. Even if that might be the case, humor me a little bit by giving just four minutes of your time to listen to what I have to say and be open to accepting this truth even just a little bit more than before. 

Now, I would be a hypocrite if I told you I have fully accepted this fact for myself because I haven’t. I have failed enough times trying to do things on my own that you’d think I’d truly know this by now. I’ll admit my fatal flaw is believing I can do it all without anyone's help, but the truth is no amount of belief in myself will give me this superpower. Maybe it’s the delusion that gives me confidence. Maybe it’s pride? Maybe it’s just because I’m stubborn? 

You know, I suppose it’s a little bit of all of those things, but even more so, I expect it might be because I think too highly of myself. When we think of someone who thinks too highly of themselves, we often think of a person who is selfish, maybe a little egotistical, and, at the extreme, a narcissist, but that’s not always the case. For me, it’s not that I think of myself too highly, comparing myself with others and believing that I am better; instead, it’s more that I compare myself with the unattainable standards I have set in mind and believe that I can accomplish them.

One of those standards is that I need to be able to figure things out on my own. Sure, it can be a good learning experience to work through challenges, but there is a difference between working through a challenge and banging your head against a wall because you haven’t wanted to accept the fact that you can’t do it by yourself.

In our culture, there is this incessant need to be independent– to be both physically and mentally strong enough that you don’t have to ask for help so when you finally get to where you are going, you can look back and say, “I did that.” What do we gain from looking back and seeing that we accomplished something alone? I know that there will be many people who will argue that there is much to gain from the experience, and that’s understandable, seeing as we live in a society that spews off slogans like “everything you need is already inside of you” so, of course, it is only reasonable that you do everything on your own.

But what happens when not everything we need is inside of us? What happens when we, in fact, don’t have the knowledge, tools, experience, and strength to do it on our own? Well, we try, try again, approaching the challenge the same way that failed us the last time because we are supposed to have everything we need, right? What happens when we have failed so many times that we begin to not only realize we didn’t have all that we needed to do it alone but we also start to lose motivation to ever try anything again?

Romans 12:3 says, “For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.” Paul is inviting us into a new perspective, telling us to see the truth about who we are and realize that our life is a gift from God. We have not made it to where we are now because we had some special ability to take the long, hard trek alone; in fact, we are not here today to fulfill our own desires of what we believe to be our purpose. 

We are here because of a loving and gracious God who created us to live in unity and be part of the larger body of Christ in him. My point is that it would not make sense for us to figure everything out on our own because we were not created for complete individuality. We were created to live in unity with one another to fulfill God’s purpose for us, and while it sometimes feels like we are doing this thing alone trying to figure out the next step in our lives, God is not dependent on how we feel.

While it might take some time to sink in, let yourself find peace in knowing that you are not supposed to figure anything out alone. God is inviting you to open your eyes, ears, heart, and mind to him and realize he will do so much more than you can ever fathom through you even if you are just one hand of the body of the church.