Many Christians who want to uphold Christ and do His work in their daily lives tend to see Him as their boss—a friendly fatherly boss, to be sure, but a boss nonetheless. He leaves instructions for them, He watches over them, He encourages and supports them, but He has an office on the top floor, and He doesn’t “get His hands dirty” in the morass of daily life.
But that’s not the picture presented in God’s Word: “We are God’s coworkers,”1 Paul wrote. As George MacDonald put it, “When our will goes hand in hand with God’s, then are we fellow-workers with Him in the affairs of the universe—not mere discoverers of His ways, watching at the outskirts of things, but laborers with Him at the heart of them.”
God doesn’t just save us and infuse our lives with meaning and then sit back on His throne to observe. Rather than check in to receive instructions and then leave the building and report on our progress later, we meet up with Him and spend the day working alongside Him in constant and continuous partnership.
God has chosen to work with us because He wants us to participate in what He does and be agents of the change He wishes to bring forth. That means we need to become familiar with His nature, what He wants done, what He’s like and how He works. We do this by studying the Bible and spending time with Him in prayer and reflection.
Learning to work cooperatively with God is a lifelong experience, but we don’t have to wait to start.
- 2 Corinthians 6:1 GW ↑