About 10 years ago when I moved from the East Coast to the West Coast, I made two cross-country trips to bring two cars out West. On each trip, I never knew where I would spend the night; basically I would drive until sundown and try and find a motel to get some sleep.

Well, these roadside motels fill up in the summertime, and a couple of nights I had to sleep in the car on the side of the road because there were no rooms available after multiple attempts to find one. It wasn't very fun.

In today's Gospel, Jesus tells his followers, "The harvest is rich but the workers are few," and he sends 72 of this followers to spread his message. He gives them these instructions: "Do not carry a walking staff or traveling bag; wear no sandals and greet no one along the way. On entering any house, first say, 'Peace to this house'…Stay in the one house eating and drinking what they have, for the laborer is worth his wage. Do not move from house to house."

In other words, the disciples were sent out with no extra clothes, no luggage, no money, and no arrangements for shelter. I don't know about you, but to me this plan has the makings of a very unpleasant trip. Not only are your provisions pretty skimpy, but you have no advance reservations for anything. It seems to me that this would pretty much guarantee a lot of nights sleeping on the side of the road.

Jesus, of course, is asking his followers to depend on God to care for them that they might see and experience the power of God work through them. Think about it: If Jesus loaded up the disciples with months worth of food, wads of cash, trunks of clothes, and provided them with a caravan for their ministry, they would probably be guaranteed a certain level of success. But Jesus asks them to put themselves in a position where they must be guided and provided for by God.

It is ironic, I supposed, that we are reading this passage on the Fourth of July --- our Independence Day. While we celebrate independence, Jesus calls us to radical dependence on him. Our system of government provides us the freedom to take care of ourselves, which is of course a wonderful thing. But Jesus calls us to put our lives in his hands, and to relinquish the control and independence that we are taught in our society to cherish.

Putting our lives in God's hands is scary. Most of us have plans for our lives, and we like the idea of being in control of our own destinies. I mean, if you're like me, you don't even like to be without plans for accommodations on a vacation, let alone put your entire life in the control of another; it feels like a crippling admission of need.

But need is what we have. We can't reach God by our own will power. We must put our lives in God's hands, and allow God to lift us into God's presence.

Bill Peatman writes from Napa.