Possibly the most likely substitute for God in our lives is other human beings. The truth is that every human being depends on something outside him or herself for strength. If that something isn’t God, it most commonly is another person or persons.
One man always has a woman, be it his mother or, later, his wives, whom he unconsciously depends on to take care of him. He may even appear to be one of those “Self-Made Men” in the eyes of many who admire him, and he indeed ascended from poverty to wealth, seemingly by pulling himself up by his own bootstraps.
What those admirers did not know was that throughout his life, he had an almost pathological aversion to being alone, and the women he always had in his life were, and are, his crutches.
Or perhaps a woman presumes to look down upon what she perceives as the frailty of those who rely on God for help. But all who knew her intimately are aware that she looks to her family, particularly her parents, for stability and solace. Her close friends know that this dependence is unhealthy for a grown woman and is also a destructive force in her adult relationships.
…apart from me you can do nothing. John 15:5
