Self-Reliance....

What was it about the Tower of Babel that caused God to disperse the people living there? There were two issues here. First, they disobeyed God by staying and building the city. God told them to fill the earth by moving out from where they started. By staying and building the city, they were blatantly disobeying God by not moving away and inhabiting all the earth. Secondly, the tower was a symbol of self-sufficiency. It was to make them famous, and preventing them from scattering. So what did God do? Immediately He confused them with different languages. Can you imagine, having a conversation with your friend, and right in the middle of conversing, you start speaking Japanese? And they start speaking Portuguese. No one could understand each other so they stopped building the tower and moved away. The point is: self-reliance isn’t what God wants from us. It leads to leaving God out of the picture, and ultimately rebelling against Him. We are to depend on God daily. Listening to His prompting and putting it into action. The second we stop doing that, we lose out on His blessings.

1 At one time all the people of the world spoke the same language and used the same words. 2 As the people migrated to the east, they found a plain in the land of Babylonia and settled there.3 They began saying to each other, “Let’s make bricks and harden them with fire.” (In this region bricks were used instead of stone, and tar was used for mortar.) 4 Then they said, “Come, let’s build a great city for ourselves with a tower that reaches into the sky. This will make us famous and keep us from being scattered all over the world.”5 But the Lord came down to look at the city and the tower the people were building. 6 “Look!” He said. “The people are united, and they all speak the same language. After this, nothing they set out to do will be impossible for them! 7 Come, let’s go down and confuse the people with different languages. Then they won’t be able to understand each other.”8 In that way, the Lord scattered them all over the world, and they stopped building the city. 9 That is why the city was called Babel, because that is where the Lord confused the people with different languages. In this way He scattered them all over the world. Genesis 11:1-9