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Divine/Human Partnership

One of the amazing things about God is how he often chooses what we would identify as inefficient ways to work. Western culture tends to value end products over processes. Other cultures are more balanced and reflect the way God works in the world more closely.

I am thinking specifically of the theme of divine/human partnership which runs through the Bible from beginning to end. Often, we focus on those moments in which God acted unilaterally in a dramatic way and something happened that was totally mind blowing. We call those “miracles.” But mostly when God wants to accomplish something in the world He uses human instruments. This pattern shows up way back in the garden.

Presumably God was quite capable of designing natural systems that didn’t need human intervention to work, but He chose to enter into a partnership with His first human creations, Adam and Eve. He provided the garden and they were to do the work. They were to have a partnership with God in making creation beautiful and fruitful.

That is the beginning of a trend. When God wanted to choose a people He didn’t just choose a family group, a tribe, or clan. He chose two people: Abraham and Sarah. He chose two individuals through whom He would work in partnership to create a new nation – a people for Himself.

The nation really got going in the third generation when Jacob produced a family or thirteen, but it was still just a large family. So God partnered with Joseph to get the whole family moved to Egypt which served as a womb for the development of the nation. Exodus 1:5 tells us that “the descendants of Jacob numbered seventy in all; Joseph was already in Egypt.” After a 430 year gestation period, the nation was delivered. Exodus 12:38-39 tells us that “there were about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides women and children. Many other people went up with them, as well as large droves of livestock, both flocks and herds.”

To accomplish this feat, God again entered into a partnership with members of a particular human family: the children of Amram and Jochabed, Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. Moses was at the centre of the action with Aaron and Miriam serving as his assistants. After the new nation left Egypt, Moses led them on a 40-year trek through the desert of the Sinai Peninsula, before God chose a new partner, Joshua, to lead them into the Promised Land.

In the New Testament, divine/human partnerships continued. Jesus worked with 12 disciples to establish the church. God worked with Paul and his associates to spread the gospel beyond the confines of Judea. These are just the big examples, there is a host of other smaller examples as in Philip’s encounter with the Ethiopian and Peter’s with Cornelius.

God works in the world through people and He often chooses people that we wouldn’t choose if we were doing it. God has His own set of criteria and they tend not to be the same criteria we use when we are choosing someone to do a job.

All this makes me ask a question, “What is it that God wants to accomplish through a partnership with you?” The follow-up question is: “Are you prepared to enter into an agreement with God and work with Him?”

In the New Testament, Paul talks about being workers together with God. Even if God hasn’t chosen you to be famous and have a big public ministry, as a minimum, He has given you the job of cooperating with Him in your own sanctification - in becoming the person He wants you to be.

You’d think that a sovereign God would override human frailties and weaknesses and rebellion but He tends not to. He tends to work with us in accomplishing His purposes and so consequently we have the amazing privilege of cooperating with God in becoming who He wants us to be. The flip-side of this is that we also have the option of working against that. It is the hundreds of little decisions that you make in the course of a day that will shape whether you are cooperating with God or you are acting against God.

Think about your relationship with God and the partnership that He has called you into. Maybe God has given you a responsibility that goes beyond your own personal sanctification; maybe He has given you a ministry to tend. Maybe you are an elder. Maybe you are involved in a para-church ministry. Maybe you work with a particular group of people. Maybe God has given you the opportunity to speak to others on His behalf. These are the kind of partnerships that God is using to change the world.

It doesn’t seem very efficient for God to work with people in accomplishing His purposes, but it’s the way He gets things done. The challenge for us is whether we’re helping or hindering Him in getting His work finished.

Ron Hughes
© March 2007