At the end of Toy Story 3, there is an emotional scene where Andy gives away his box of toys to a little girl.
It’s a heart-tugging scene as we contemplate growing up and leaving our childish ways behind, moving on and letting go. Clearly, maturity is an important and crucial part of our Christian journey (Eph 4:11-13) and 1 Cor 13:11 makes it plain that we are to grow up. The problem comes, however, when we equate growing up with independence and assume that leaving behind our childish ways includes becoming independent of God.
Christian maturity is not the same as independence. Whilst as parents we prepare our children for independence, we are never meant to live life independent of God. Heb 1:3 reminds us that the whole universe is sustained by God’s powerful word and Ps 104 and Ps 2 both remind us of God’s sovereignty and command of all His creation. John 15:1-8 makes it plain that we are to abide or remain in God. The word in Greek means to stay, to settle down, to come in and make ourselves at home. Our dependence on God is such that we can only thrive and be fruitful as we abide in Christ.
Luke 15 tells us parables about the lost sheep, the independent sheep who went his own way from the flock and needed to be rescued, and about the lost son, who wanted to be independent and take his own destiny into his own hands. Both these parables show us we not only need to remain in God, we need other people too. 1 Cor 12 reminds us that we are a body; we need each other. No matter how strong we are, we need other people, even those we might look down on and dismiss as being unimportant. The truth is we are dependent on each other and as we grow, develop and mature, we actually need to become more dependent. After all, this is not Toy Story, but we are part of His Story. And in His Story, our need for God and for each other doesn’t diminish with age or maturity.