Would You Rather...

This past year, it has been somewhat of a tradition for my small group to start off with a "would you rather?" question. Typically, we picked a random question from a collection that I had pulled off of the internet, but one particular week, I had forgotten to bring the questions so I decided to create one of my own...after much thought and debate (and the input of others), I decided to go with the following question: Would you rather spend two weeks completely paralyzed from the neck down or be confined to bed rest for two months? It was certainly a more serious question than usual, but was certain to incite discussion, which is part of the purpose of the questions. I had not really given the question much thought when I came up with it, but the discussion it inspired and the repercussions of that discussion have caused me to ponder the question more, and so I share my musings with you now...
Overwhelmingly (and by overwhelmingly, I mean everyone minus me and my co-leader) opted for the two months of bed rest over the two weeks of being completely paralyzed, and naturally with such overwhelming results, we decided to discuss the reasoning behind this. My co-leader and I fully admitted that we chose the paralyzed option simply because it was a smaller amount of time, two weeks and you're done, while the bed rest was for a whole two months! It seemed pretty clear to me that two weeks of paralysis would be the less painful option, but then we got into the rather nasty details of why everyone else chose the two months of bed rest, I began to question my decision... COMPLETE paralysis, that means you have absolutely no function of your body from the neck down...just ponder that for a moment....this means that you are completely and fully dependent on someone else for all your needs...You are incapable of feeding yourself, bathing yourself, relieving yourself, shoot, you can't even sit up without the help of someone else...imagine that for a moment, complete and utter dependence on someone else...And then I understood why everyone else was rather firm in their decision to choose bed rest over paralysis...
Complete dependency is a concept foreign to most people and especially so for Americans. The very thought of being dependent bothers us. After all we are a nation that thrives on our independence so why would we ever choose to be dependent on someone else? Yet, this is exactly what God commands on us, the very goal of the Christian life is to relinquish control of our lives to God. As we grow in our Christian walk, we are to grow in our dependence on God, which is totally opposed to everything our human nature and society teaches us. Society teaches us to be independent, to work hard so you don't have to depend on others. Those who are dependent on others are seen as weak and incapable of fending for themselves. So what does this all mean? Well, let's return to the would you rather question, it means that we basically decide to prolong our suffering for six more weeks rather than be dependent on someone else for our needs...this is pretty messed up if you ask me, yet we're all guilty of it, myself included.