Self Reliance

Poon Lim was a Chinese sailor who was working on the British merchant ship SS Benlomb when it was sunk by a German Uboat of the coast of South Africa in 1942.  He manages to find an 8'x8' raft and a few floating supplies.  By catching fish and seagulls he managed to live alone on that little raft for 133 days.  His story of survival includes at one point killing a shark with a water jug. He was eventually found by fisherman on the other side of the Atlantic, near the coast of Brazil.  His story remains one of the great tales of survival and self reliance in the history of sea travel.

Self reliance is a trait that we very much admire in our society.  We appreciate tales of the person who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, who succeeded against all odds, who persevered and pulled off a single-handed accomplishment.  And why not?

Ralph Waldo Emerson in his essay on self reliance said,

"There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till."

We all have to make our way in this world.  We cannot sit back and wait for others to meet, our needs.  No, we need to be responsible for ourselves.

Of course there is other side of self reliance.  Like most things that are good, it can become unhealthy when taken to the extreme.  We are not meant to simply go it alone, but rather to be part of something bigger.  We can become so self reliant that we find contempt for those who are less able, or we think that counting on others is a sign of weakness.  But this couldn't be further from the truth.  While we want to be able to take care of ourselves, we need to understand that we are better when we also rely on others.

In the book of Genesis it says, "It is not good for the man to be alone." We are better when our strengths and talents are used with others.  The total becomes greater than the sum of its parts.

Watch this clip from Pastor Chris.

We are better together.  Even Emerson went on to say that self reliance is about finding the purpose that God has for us in our  relationships with others.

"Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events."

It is odd how in God opposites can be true.  We find victory through surrender.  We gain eternal life by dying to ourselves, And we are most self reliant when we are working with others.