The Myth of Human Self-sufficiency

by A. W. Tozer

Only God is self-sufficient. When men boast of being self-sufficient, they are indulging a fiction that can be proven fictitious just by taking a quick look around...
     The human body cannot live on itself. To live it must have constant help from the outside.  Though filled with pride and overflowing with self-assurance, men and women must humble themselves to receive aid from the lower creation.  Every monarch must trust the common cow for food.  Every strutting lord of the manor must beg his dinner from the barnyard hen.  The cold prima donna manages to stay alive only by the grace of pigs and fish.  The genius must look to bees, shrubs, seeds and berries.  From these things come the energy without which all people would die, the great as well as the lowly...
     The tragic history of the world is, at the bottom line, the record of sinning min trying to live on their own resources and never succeeding, because they are ignoring the most simple law of creation - no living thing is self-sufficient. God made us dependent upon Him. Either we recognize our need of Him, or we adopt the false philosophy of independence and go on our stubborn way to die at last and everlastingly.

from Chapter 39 of This World: Playground or Battleground?

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