God must continually be at work on our tendency to rely on ourselves instead of on Him. Apart from our union with Christ and a total reliance upon Him, we can do nothing that glorifies God. We live in a world that worships independence and self-reliance, and because of our own sinful nature, we can easily fall into the world’s pattern of thinking. God has to teach us through adversity to rely on Him instead of our own business acumen, our ministry experience, and even our goodness and morality. The