In a few hours millions of people will be watching the clash of the titans in Super Bowl XLI. Much will be made of the fact that this is the first time in Super Bowl history that two Black coaches head the teams. What’s also amazing, but will get far less press, is that both Chicago Bears coach Lovie Smith and Indianapolis Colts coach Tony Dungy are committed Christians. Both men seek to serve God and to completely depend on Him.

The chaplain of the Indianapolis Colts, Ken Johnson, said of coach Dungy, “The first time he called me to his office, he asked me to pray for him and bless his office, that God would be honored.”

Coach Lovie Smith of the Chicago Bears said in an interview, “My mother always made sure we went to church and knew about the Lord. My faith has been with me all the time and I knew I need God to be a part of my life.”

Both of these men are putting God first in their lives. They seek to serve God, and they also live with the awareness that as talented and fortunate as they are, they’re completely dependent on Him.

Enjoying a complete dependence on God should be a core value of our lives, too. Today we continue our ten-part series on the core values that can make our lives all that God wants them to be — as individuals and as a church. Today we’ll look at our fourth core value: enjoying complete dependence on God.

DEPENDENCE ON GOD IS A CHOICE
Let’s state at the outset that you don’t have to live with a sense of complete dependence on God; many people don’t. In fact, if you’re like me, it has occurred to you on many occasions that people who don’t take God seriously often seem to do fairly well in life — sometimes even better than those of us who try to involve God in our lives. Why is that?

God has designed this world, and our lives, so that we can choose to live with or without Him. If our relationship with God was like that of a leech to its host, we’d have no choice: we’d have to cling to God, and it wouldn’t be a real relationship. You can muddle through life without God — and some people do it rather well. God only knows how much better it could have been for them if they had reached out to God!

We can — and often do — live without enjoying complete dependence on God. We can be like the man hunting for a space in a parking garage who prayed, “Lord, help me find a parking space near the entrance.” When he spotted one, he said to God, “Never mind; I found one on my own.” It’s not always easy living with a healthy dependence on God. A very long time ago God made sure that a certain man would be completely dependent on Him, and we can learn some lessons from that man.

GIDEON’S TEAM
The stakes were higher than for any Super Bowl game. Two teams, the Israelites and the Midianites, would be doing battle, and lives would be lost. The Midianites were a Bedouin people who roamed around and pretty much took anything and everything from anybody they wanted to, and the Israelites were intimidated by them. The Midianites were favored to win, but what made a difference was that the Israelites had a coach (in those days they were called “judges”) named Gideon. Like coaches Smith and Dungy, Gideon had a strong faith in God — and God tested that faith to the limits.

Gideon had assembled an impressive army of 32,000 soldiers. They would need all the help they could get, because the Midianites had much more going for them. They didn’t have military tanks in those days, but they had camels. The text says, “Their camels could no more be counted than the sand on the seashore.” (Judges 7:12)

Then God started a troop reduction plan. The text records, “The Lord said to Gideon, ‘You have too many men for me to deliver Midian into their hands. In order that Israel may not boast against me that her own strength has saved her, announce now to the people, “Anyone who trembles with fear may turn back and leave Mount Gilead.”’ So twenty-two thousand men left, while ten thousand remained.” (Judges 7:2-3)

Gideon obeyed God and told his men that anyone who was afraid to go into battle should go back home. We can only imagine Gideon’s consternation when 22,000 men left, leaving him with an army of only 10,000 — less than one third of what he started with.

God wasn’t through yet! “But the Lord said to Gideon, ‘There are still too many men.’” (Judges 7:4) Then God proposed a test to thin the ranks even further. The men were all to be sent down to the river to drink. Those who bent down to drink with their lips to the water were to be sent home; those who lapped up the water in their cupped hands were to fight. Only 300 men passed the test!

God said, “With the three hundred men that lapped I will save you and give the Midianites into your hands.” (Judges 7:7) And He did! Gideon planned the battle to the best of his ability and used the best of his military strategy, but there’s no doubt that with less than 1% of his original number — a cut from over 30,000 men to 300 — they were completely dependent on God. God wants to be wanted — not just by a man way back then named Gideon, but also by you and me!

ENJOYING GOD-DEPENDENT LIVING
In many ways we’re practicing atheists: we act as if God doesn’t exist. We can worry as much as a person who doesn’t have a relationship with God. We can make our plans without giving serious thought to whether or not they’re really God’s plans for us, just like people who don’t take God seriously. We can turn down challenging opportunities because we don’t think everything is stacked enough in our favor, just like people who don’t look to God. We get discouraged and are defeated — as if we don’t have a God who cares about us and wants to look out for us, guide us and help us.

Even churches can have an atheistic attitude, looking at everything without really factoring God in. This past year I led our leadership on our five boards through a discussion of these ten core values as they relate to a church. On this particular subject I wrote, “When we look at our church’s finances as budgets and balance sheets, with little or no expectation of God’s providing financial resources, we’re operating no differently than a secular business. When we try to coax and manipulate people to take on a task in the church, instead of depending on God to call His people to service, we’re no different than the local service clubs. When we back away from risk and huddle in the comfort zone of the secure and certain, we’re leaving no room for God to act: we’ve boxed Him in by our unbelief.”

As individuals and as a church we’re supposed to live each day taking the perspective that God is! “That God is what?” you might ask. The answer is “Simply that God is!” Sometimes it scares me that after I’ve attempted to do something fairly challenging, I realize that I never asked for God’s help and empowerment!

Actually, it can be good to feel totally inadequate. It’s then that God has us in a position where we might begin to enjoy complete dependence on Him.

When Mother Teresa was visiting in Montreal, Canada, several people offered to donate houses for the use of the Sisters in Canada. Mother Teresa reported, “They asked if they could give $10,000 a month, but I said that we would lose the joy of insecurity and dependence on Divine Providence.” The joy of insecurity and dependence on God — what a wonderful goal it is to have that kind of faith in, trust in, and relationship with God!

What are you facing that’s a bigger challenge than you would have ever asked for? Whatever it might be, it’s an opportunity: He has positioned you to experience a new level of enjoying complete dependence on Him.

Will He give you what you want? Not always. We should pray with the attitude that Jesus had when He prayed with His request to the Heavenly Father: “yet not my will, but yours be done.” (Luke 22:42) Complete dependence on God means that we also make ourselves dependent on His will, not our own. We shouldn’t be like the little boy who prayed after taking a test, “Dear God, please help St. Louis be the capital of Missouri.” Insisting on God’s answering our prayers our way is not exhibiting complete dependence on Him!

It’s good to remember that though both coaches going to the Super Bowl have deep faith and a dependence on God, only one of them will be the winning coach. That doesn’t mean that the other coach won’t enjoy being equally in God’s will, it’s just that he won’t have won the game!

We all want a good life, even a great one. How does that happen? “‘Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the Lord.” (Zechariah 4:6) Jesus put it even more personally: “Apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5) If life is to be lived to its fullest, we need to adopt the core value of enjoying complete dependence on God!