I’ve heard plenty of Christians talking about partnering with God in His work. I think this is a great concept, but usually when that work is explained it’s incredibly limited. When people partner with God in his work, they’re often talking about building the church, and even then the church is so narrowly defined you’d think God’s work was exclusively about building small, academic institutions in which people study theories about God. I think God is truly working to build those small academic communities we commonly think of as church, but the whole church is much larger and less easily defined. God can see the church but we can only feel around in the dark and recognize it when we see a common Jesus in a neighbors heart.
That said, I think God is working on much, much more than building the church. If we look at the work God has done, we see God has made beauty, so I think creating beauty is Gods work. We see that God has created structure and order, so cultivating a place is God’s work, too. God created love, and seeks to protect love, so creating and protecting love is Gods work and we can partner with him in that work. God created brains that can solve problems, so science is God’s work as well as theater and literature.
When we narrowly define God’s work, we end up channeling people into working for the church, often motivated by guilt, rather than partnering with God in whatever skill or passion he has given to them as a gift, as a way of bonding with him.
So, do you really believe planting a garden is a way to partner with God in his work? Do you believe writing and performing a play is partnering with God in his work? What about studying micro-organisms? What about baking a cake? It’s all God’s world, and in everything we do we can partner with him in his love for it. How do you partner with God?
Thank you for this post. I grew up very much a “churched” kid, and my strongest passions have always been towards serving our modern day widows and orphans, mostly through church-related endeavors, but also in my choice of career. After a few of my adult years trying to devote my life to other people, I am now forced to take a break due to burnout. It was also necessary to quit my job, and a lot of the things that used to give my life purpose and drive are currently out of the question.
So now I’m eight months pregnant and not sure who else I am in a lot of ways. “Joining God in His work” had become my whole identity, and I had focused it in such a way as to render me “useless” at present.
I think the church used to preach a lot more church/church building/etc. focus in their joining of “God’s work”, but today’s emergent churches are increasingly pushing for a social justice model. This is an amazing development, and I applaud it…but let’s not forget that any service or work we offer to God is by His own grace and providence. Sometimes we can’t be everything to everyone and we have to join Him by growing a baby, by finding truth in suffering, by sharing our humanity with others…or by letting ourselves be healed.
We have to remember that God uses the broken…because we are never so useful as when we are completely smothered in grace.
I partner with God by believing He’s with me in everything I do – including hiking with my hubby, playing piano for friends, writing or just laughing with my friends. “Without faith, it is impossible to please God, for whoever comes to Him must believe He exists (i.e. in everything I am) and He rewards those who seek Him (with His presence).”
God work is what Jesus says in John 6 – to believe!
Whatever I’m doing, as long as I believe God is with me, I’m doing His work. He’ in charge of using me. My job is to simply be available to move as He leads.
I love this. Thank you – God is so much bigger.
I have to admit I cringe when I hear the phrase “partner with God” and I loathe how professional ministry staff have co-opted the phrase to make “give-your-money-and-time-to-us” sound more spiritual. I should know – I am a former full-time church staffer.
But the phrase feels like I’m supposed to come to the table with my part, God comes with His part and together we work out some kind to relationship that results in something we made together…usually a building fund, or advancing the ministry-of-the-month. But that’s so much less….interesting, real, amazing, honest…than what I have actually experienced.
Coming to Jesus and saying I have nothing – nothing at all that is worth having or offering to a King – I find myself caught up in a love so fierce that it defies description and I am speechless….surrendered…satisfied. And I simply FIND myself encountering people that need to be loved, forgiven, helped…there’s no grand scheme to serving…for me it’s giving up the need to serve (and be seen serving) at all. Just to love Jesus – be at His feet – delight in His word – worship His beauty…and He brings the people, He makes the need apparent, and I get to be with Him while He does the work.
Beautiful! Thank you, it was really inspiring!
Thank you, Katie. This is profoundly SIMPLE and simply PROFOUND.
To work WITH God is to make ourselves totally available, in humble and worshipful surrender to Him; as we do so, He brings the people, He gives the guidance, He gives the Words, the wisdom, the power; furthermore, He makes the change, as people respond to HIM, in faith.
Hi Don, A few questions/comments concerning your post:
1. I agree that God is the ultimate author of all true beauty. And I agree that we should take part in creating as God gives us the opportunity. But to say that “partnering with God” can be reduced merely to “creating beauty” implies that a nonbeliever can partner with God. This, I would hope you agree, is not only improbable, but impossible.
2. This leads to a question I have. How do you define beauty? Is this merely a subjective term which is defined by whatever the person creating says is beautiful? If you believe there is any objectivity to beauty, then it would be helpful to say so. Otherwise readers could easily believe that as long as they are creating something, then it is worthwhile.
3. Your language is a bit confusing to me. Or perhaps I should say it is not precise enough. You say that partnering with God is to be equated with creating beauty and that building the church is too limited. I certainly agree that using our gifts to create in a God-glorifying Bible-abiding way is pleasing to God. But when we speak of partnering with God, it appears to me that God is much more concerned with establishing His kingdom. And the primary means of doing this is through the local church.
As a whole, I think your post is far too broad. Maybe you need a bit more of that theory-studying you seem so apt to shun.
Neil
Thank you, Neil, for your comments. While working with God is the only way we can be fruitful and have a meaningful life, we also need to remember that God’s highest purpose is seeking and saving the lost (Luke 19:10, I believe). By building His Kingdom, God creates a place for those who are saved. By involving us in His work is restoring that sense of ownership and responsibility that makes our lives meaningful and beautiful. Creating beauty can be part of it, if that beauty is greated WITH Him, and not apart from Him. For apart from Him we can do nothing (John 15).
I also agree with someone on this forum who said that working with him is different from partnering with Him. He is the Father-King who lovingly involves His children in His afairs, as co-heir with Christ. The joy is His, and the privilege is ours.
Attempting to work FOR Him, on the other hand woulf be futile. We have nothing to offer, and our work, apart from Him, would make little or no difference in the lives of others/or His Kingdom.
I would like to point to the fact that God did use nonbelievers in the Bible (Ex. Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, Cyrus, even Pharaoh). Wheather they intentionally worked WITH God, is another question…
I just noticed a number of typos in my post above. My apologies. I will be more careful in the future.
Blessings and thanks!
Ellie
Don,
Thanks for the post. I also think the “church” likes to be narrow. It likes be so exclusive when Jesus is peaching an inclusive gospel and has many avenues of interest in us, his children.
Anyways happy for you and Paige, maybe one day when my eharmony account dries up i’ll find that too
Caroline
Well said, Don. “Every calling is great when greatly pursued.” ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes.
The disciples were partners with God. For me, the best expression of partnering with God is to follow (DO) what he said in His Word, and you don’t have to be “religious” to do that. There is abundant written evidence that the God’s Word is true, historical fact. Jesus said in Matthew 6:33 that if you put Him first in your life, everything else will be added on – all your needs, and many of your wants! It’s an unbeatable deal!
Why do you think the Bible has survived intact over the centuries? That was God’s doing, because it’s the complete Living Manual and Guide for the human life! Want to be happy and productive? Follow the instruction book.
God help me, I’m far from perfect and have made more than my share of mistakes and have suffered for them, but it was His sweet care of me in each recovery that brought me closer Him, the one who knows me better than I know myself.
At he same time, like you, I see God in everything and am amazed.
[...] you don’t need a steeple to be called a church, but where are the boundaries? In a recent blog post, Donald Miller posits that “God can see the church, but we can only feel around in the dark [...]
[...] you don’t need a steeple to be called a church, but where are the boundaries? In a recent blog post, Donald Miller posits that “God can see the church, but we can only feel around in the dark [...]
For me partnering with God means co-laboring with him for the Kingdom, to glorify him
We are to do all for the glory of God, including gardening etc, but the main thrust of it is in the context of Kingdom expansion, what good is the partnering with God if it is limited to gardening or some other hobby if it impacts nobody for Christ
The disciples turned their world upside down for Christ, I don’t know how that can be achieved if their main expression to partnering with God was by ways of gardening etc. It was expressed in the preaching and ministry of the Word of God, praying and seeking the lost, gave themselves to prayer and the word
God bless