SELF-SUFFICIENCY/ Human Life is Dependent on the Gratuitous Gift of God

Regardless of what is the cause or more likely causes of our embrace of self-sufficiency, it is only by letting go of this dreaded disease that we will be open to be embraced by the merciful life-giving love of God. Like the prodigal son, who comes to his senses, we need to come to our senses, and run to our Father and we, like him, will find the compassionate and embracing love of God that raises us out from the stench of the pigpen (Luke 15:17-20).

So what does mentioning of my newborn daughter have to do with all this talk on self-sufficiency? Simply this; when I gaze upon her beautiful face, I see not only a living image of the fruitfulness of love, but I see one who has no illusions of self-sufficiency. She is truly dependent, utterly so, on those around her and especially my wife, for her life, for her very survival and my little daughter just trusts. Is it any wonder that Jesus tells us, indeed warns us, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3)? Why? For there is no pretense with a little child, there is no embrace of the illusion of self-sufficiency. There is just an acceptance, a receiving of the self-giving love of the other, of the mother and father, to sustain, to provide. We must throw off the shackles of self-sufficiency and receive the gratuitous gesture of God; His life-giving love.