A funeral

Achieving the Great American Dream takes admirable virtues that I've always prided myself on having in full. These very characteristics give us reason to celebrate every July when we remember our founding fathers bursting with independence, initiative, self-assertion. Everything it takes to start a country from nothing and wrestle away from one of the mightiest powers of the day.

Without their commitment to an ultimate goal, they would have given up and forgotten about the dream of freedom to rule themselves and not be forced to submit to someone who didn't understand, or care, about life in this new world.

It's no surprise that American school children, myself included, grow up with the same vision. A dream to be in charge of ourselves. To make a way and rise to the top of whatever we set out to do. To accomplish, achieve, carry dependence to no one but find within ourselves the ability to provide in any situation.

And then I read today from someone who challenges me every time I read his writing,

"Beware of refusing to go to the funeral of your own independence." Oswald Chambers

While everything within the natural me wants to become self-sufficient, self-providing, self-reliant, God wants me to enter into a battle of giving up all of the rights I have to become self-anything. Virtues that I use to create my own Angie world aren't useful to Him and in fact take away from ways I could be used by Him.

And I'm wondering why it was good when the earliest Americans struggled so hard to become free and why it's not good when I work hard to become free?

The difference?

It lies in who freedom is being desired from.

Freedom from a King who taxed and imposed strict rules without understanding is completely different from pursuing freedom from God who loves, sacrifices, and intimately understands everything I face today.

I certainly don't enjoy attending funerals and would never seek out opportunities to go to one. But for this one, of my independence, I hope to have the courage to attend.