Sunday Superposition is usually an end-of-the-week collection of spiritual themes and stuff I find interesting. I’m in the midst of several time-sensitive projects and multiple crises, all of which are consuming my every waking (and attempting to be sleeping) moments. For this month, I hope you’ll pardon and enjoy this reposted Sunday Superposition from 18 months ago. It’s one of my favorites. Also, I’d appreciate prayers to get me through the next few weeks.
The end of independence
The spiritual theme this week is surrendering one's will.
There was a line of dialogue from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice that always confused me. Miss Bingley, appalled at Elizabeth’s willingness to walk alone for miles through muddy fields to see her ailing sister, remarked that it showed “an abominable sort of conceited independence.”
When I read this book, I was no longer at the peak of my ultra-independent Objectivist days, but I was still stuck on the slopes of that mountain. Why would someone find independence abominable or conceited? Wasn’t independence the ideal? Shouldn’t we all strive for the utmost independence?
I think the scene was meant to highlight Elizabeth’s unvarnished rural appeal in contrast to Miss Bingley’s urban snobbery. But my reaction to the line hinted at a deep-seated problem that would dog me for much of my adult life.
I am by nature a stubborn and independent person. I had few friends growing up and spent a lot of time doing my own thing. It’s not that I was unable to attract friends, I just found other people inscrutable and unreliable. I had learned early, through impatience and disappointment, to do things for myself. I hated relying on other people.
The result of all that was a sense of ultra-independence that made something as dry and barren as the Objectivist philosophy momentarily appealing.
It didn’t occur to me in those days before I had come to Christ that not only is it impractical to be ultra-independent, but awfully lonely. I don’t know of a single example of a successful person who was “abominably independent.” Even the most competent and reclusive figures in history—people like Isaac Newton—had small circles of colleagues and friends who helped them do their work and make life worth living.
When I finally came to Jesus, I had already climbed (or more accurately, stumbled) down to the foothills of Mount Independence. I was willing to allow Him to have sovereignty over some parts of my life, but not all. Not because I loved those parts, but because I thought I could manage them better than He could. Oh, yes, there is such a thing as an abominable sort of conceited independence.
But reality intruded on this delusion, as reality often does.
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