I’ve got this covered. There may be things that aren’t working in my life. There are definitely areas where I need help. And there are tasks I’m more than willing to delegate – to someone with more skill, time, or experience than I could muster. But when it comes to this, I’m more than capable. It’s under control.
What’s one thing – or two, or several – you’ve got covered? The thing that if someone offered help or advice, you’d say “thanks, but no thanks.” Truth be told, you might even be offended by the suggestion that you need any voice in the matter but your own.
Self-sufficiency is a rite of passage into adulthood. We watch, we learn, we do, and with time, we master. We go from dependent, on our parents and others – to independent, fully responsible for our choices and living with the results.
But self-sufficiency comes with a hidden cost. Because as we rightly set ourselves apart from the rest of the world, we build walls that block out the very resource those areas need most.
In other words, your greatest area of self-sufficiency is also your greatest area of vulnerability.
Self-Sufficiency Assumes Control We Were Never Given
In the opening sentences of the Bible, we encounter the word dominion – meaning to rule, to govern, to have authority over. God gives humans dominion over the world, an astonishing act of trust and responsibility. But that authority doesn’t come with full autonomy. Man is merely granted stewardship, and remains answerable to and in relationship with God. We are not rulers of the world, but merely stewards.
Every one of us has something in our lives – a strength, a territory, a domain – over which we have quietly declared ourselves sovereign. We’ve told everyone, including God, to stay out.
God, you can have everything but this.
God, I know better than you when it comes to this.
God, I don’t trust anyone – including you – with this.
This comes from experience just as often as it comes from arrogance. Why would we need God in the areas that seem to be working? What does he have to do with the fruits of our labor, the dreams we’ve built, or the messes we should clean up and/or keep to ourselves? We are the masters of our own domain. At best, God gets a supporting role in a story we are writing on our own terms.
Whatever your relationship with God, consider what your walled off area(s) might be missing. At the heart of the dominion question, God is asking each of us:
Is this yours or mine?
Am I more important to you than this?
Do you trust me with everything, or just the parts you can’t handle?
Putting Yourself Back In Right Relationship With God
A domain rarely stays contained for long. It is either expanding or receding. Sin, distance, and drift begin with little notice or fanfare. What starts as one protected area has a way of spreading – as the appetite for control quietly builds and bleeds into everything around it.
But the moment we give up our dominion, when our self-sufficiency reaches its limit, is the moment something larger becomes available. “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9)
Coming to God is not a sign of failure or inadequacy. It’s an act of right relationship. It’s an acknowledgement that all that we have – strengths, weaknesses, growth, outcomes – is his in the first place. Ask yourself:
- What is the domain in my life that I have never seriously invited God into?
- What do I believe about God that keeps him out of my strongest areas?
- If God asked for the thing I am holding most tightly right now – would I give it?
Letting go and trusting God is easier said than done. Your strength, your growth, your mess – all of it has a ceiling when you are the one on the throne. Control is wonderful to have and a terrible thing to lose. But when it comes to everything in your life (even that one thing) you have a choice. Lose it, or surrender it.
God is not looking to take everything from you. He is simply asking you to put him first.
BEFORE YOU GO (aka: the short version)
What is dominion, and why does it matter for how I live? In the opening chapters of the Bible, God gives humans dominion over creation – meaning to rule, govern, and have authority. But that authority was never meant to be independent. It flows from God to us, and we remain answerable to God. When we exercise dominion over our own lives, we’ve reversed the order – and that reversal has consequences.
What does self-sufficiency have to do with faith? Self-sufficiency isn’t always arrogance. Often, it’s the natural result of competence and experience. But when it extends into our relationship with God, it becomes a theological problem. The man who brings God some things but manages others alone has, in practice, made himself sovereign. Faith is not just for some parts of life. It’s for everything.
How do I know which area of my life I’m holding back from God? Start with the thing you’d be most reluctant to hand over if God asked for it. That instinct – the resistance, the “anything but this” – is usually the most honest signal you have.
What does it mean to surrender something to God? God asks each of us for the posture, the willingness to put him first. It is holding what we have been given as a steward rather than an owner, with the trust that the one who gave it knows what to do with it better than we do.
