I is for Interdependence

It’s really interesting writing the scripts for these videos and then filming them on camera. You’ll find that what I wrote is always the jist of what I said but it never comes out quite like that in the video. No matter what I’m speaking purely from the heart as Christ’s Ambassador and having fun! Thanks for watching!

I is for Interdependence
“I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” John 15:5

Hi everyone and welcome to week nine of The ABC’S of contentment. Today’s letter is I and it stands for Interdependent. I got the word from one of my favorite Christian mentors, John Eareckson Tada. She’s paralyzed from a diving accident and has her own disability ministry. She says:
“God designed my disability not to make me ‘independent,’ but ‘interdependent.’” I’ll leave a link to her website in the description when I post the video. Anyway, I live at home with my mother. She’s not exactly a handywoman, but she tries. One time, the sprinkler was broken. She looked at it but didn’t know what to do. She left it alone for a while because she didn’t want to make the problem any worse. After a few weeks, she decided it was time to try again. She went to the hardware store to get a part and came back and tried again. When she came back, she cut off the main valve to the sprinkler without realizing it was the main source of water, and it got plugged up!
When she told me, we both laughed. “Think of the parable of the branches, she said, “When we cut ourselves off from our source of strength, what happens?”
Mother’s right. How many times have you felt overwhelmed and said, “I can’t do this!” Did you ever stop to think that maybe you’re overwhelmed because you’re trying to do it all by yourself? I need help with things that most people would take for granted – like getting dressed. Without Jesus, I couldn’t handle the challenges of CP. Like Joni, I’m interdependent. Being interdependent on people has helped me learn to lean on the Lord.
The last time we met I told you we would talk about the next step that comes after you accept Christ as your Savior. After you accept Christ as your Savior, the next step is to make it a priority to gather together with other Christ-followers on a regular basis. If I didn’t go to church and I wasn’t around like-minded people who shared the same values, I wouldn’t be so positive. The second thing is to read God’s word (The Bible) daily. Here’s another reason why it’s good to be around like-minded people. This is one that’s easy to say but can be hard to do because it’s easy to get distracted with other things in our culture. My suggestion is to get together with a group of people who want to study God’s word weekly and pick a book of the Bible to read together. Then when you meet, you can talk about what you read. If you’re new to the faith, I suggest you start reading in the book of John. It’s a good book that talks about Salvation and gives a clear picture of who Jesus is. The last thing is to pray. When you meet with your group of people, ask each other, “Is there anything I can pray for you about?” No one was ever meant to do this by themselves. The Bible talks about how those who are in Christ are members of the Body. Learning from each other’s experiences is how we grow and deepen our walk with Christ. Anyway, that’s it for the Letter I. I’ll see you next week when we talk about the letter J which stands for Joy. Thanks for watching. Bye and God Bless.
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