"True strength does not come out of bravado. Until we are broken, our life will be self-centered, self-reliant; our strength will be our own. So long as you think you are really something in and of yourself, what will you need God for? I don’t trust a man who hasn’t suffered .. guys are unanimously embarrassed by their emptiness and woundedness; it is for most of us a tremendous source of shame. But it need not be. From the very beginning, back before the fall and the assault, ours was meant to be a desperately dependent existence. It’s like a tree and its branches, explains Christ. You are the branches, I am the trunk. From me you draw your life; that’s how it was meant to be. In fact, he goes on to say “Apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). He’s not berating us or mocking us or even saying it with a sigh, all the while thinking, I’d wish they’d pull it together and stop needing me so much. Not at all. We are made to depend on God; we are made for union with him and nothing about us works right without it."

- John Elderedge