Independent...dependency

This is my nephew Dallas' first car.

It took me back to 1985 when I bought my first car; it was a 1971 Volkswagon Beetle. I really loved this car from the time I was a youngster, because it was owned by a young man in the neighborhood I grew up in. Every time Billy (that was his name) would drive down the street I would envision me driving that car one day.

I have always heard that when you get to the place in life where you have a car; that you would be free as a bird. I looked forward to one day getting a car just like the one Billy had, or better still the one Billy had. Well, that day arrived in the fall of 1985. I had just graduated and was on my way to college. It was with a portion of my financial aid check and the help of my grandmother; that I was able to realize a long time dream of owning my first car. However it wasn't just any car...it was the car that Billy used to drive through the neighborhood, yes it was my dream car. Now I was on my way to true independence, because now I had the one thing I knew was going to make that happen...my car.

It wasn't long after I bought the car that I found out, this so-called independence that came with owning your own car, was a mythological fallacy started by people who didn't have a car. I was going to need gas, oil, water, the lack of these few things mentioned will keep a car from going very far if anywhere at all. You become dependent on these items from the first day of owning a car.

So, it's with that concept in mind we must understand that we are dependent upon one another as well. The scriptures tell us that we (born-again believers) are the Body of Christ and members in particular, meaning that we are interdependent and connected to one another and that it is the roll of the body to provide for the members of the body. When a part of the body is lacking some type of nourishment it is the body's responsibility to provide healing and comfort to that area. The body will only function for so long without proper care and it will begin to deteriorate. The results of lack of care doesn't show itself outwardly in the beginning, the process of deterioration begins from within the body as it starts to attack itself. The more the body attacks itself inside the weaker it becomes outside. This is when the everyone begins to notice the decay.

There are words to a song that says in part..."I need you, you need me, we're all apart of God's Body..." It is when we as the Body of Christ begin to reach within itself...lift the bowed down heads, heal the brokenhearted; it is when we truly become our brother's keeper that we can understand that our independence is in fact the results of our dependency to one another.

We are better...together.