Individual Dependence

If you maintain your individuality in a relationship and the other person can too, the relationship will be a beautiful thing that will last forever, or 50,000 miles, whichever comes first. -- Billy Joe Shaver


I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in Me and I in him produces much fruit, because you can do nothing without Me. If anyone does not remain in Me, he is thrown aside like a branch and withers. They gather them, throw them into the fire, and they are burned. If you remain in Me and My words remain in you, ask what you whatever you want and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this: that you produce much fruit and prove to be My disciples. -- John 15:5-8

To be in Christ and yet to be myself, this is what we are called to. I lose my will, yet I can have whatever I want. Does that really make sense? Is it "whatever you want" if it is no longer you that wants it? It's like Henry Ford saying people could have a Model T in whatever color they wanted as long as it was black. It's like Microsoft ... no, nothing's like Microsoft.

Faust sold his soul to the devil, not for higher purposes but because he wanted gold, guns and girls. (Strange, that thought came to me after I mentioned Microsoft.) Jesus, on the one hand, seems to say that Faust could have had what he wanted by being in Christ. Yet, I am certain that he could not have had unlimited power to fulfill his lusts as the devil promised him. Is that a contradiction? Could Faust have stayed who he was while being a mere branch?

Notice what Jesus says here about the branch that does not remain in the vine. It is thrown away. It's dead. It withers, is gathered up and burned. The fires of hell are not for the bad but for the dead.

"The just shall live by faith."

We are alive in Christ, or we are dead. The dead seem to think that because they are "independent" of the vine, they can be a vine unto themselves. They carry on the appearances of life, yet it all ends in corruption and loss.

This relates to the difference between ordinary human misery and suffering in Christ. As a branch, the Christian is pruned or purged in order to keep life flowing in a single channel. All our trials and difficulties can be seen as means of removing anything that hinders the flow. In this we became all the more "individual" and purposeful. The more we reflect the life of the vine in the cosmos the more we are uniquely ourselves.

Where I am and what I see and experience is unique to me. I am the only one who can fulfill my purpose, and I can do that only in Christ.

You only have to listen to one Billy Joe Shaver CD, maybe even one song, to realize he's not Billy Graham. Yet I am fairly certain Billy Joe is a Christian as surely as is Dr. Graham or the Pope. Each is a branch -- a mere branch -- yet a branch without which the Vine can produce nothing. As we are dependent on Christ, so He has chosen to be dependent upon us -- not as little helpless clones but as real living branches with scars and bumps and flaws. Each of us, to the extent we are surrendered to Christ, brings Him into our world in our way.

I have to get some work done, but I may come back to this.