Partnership

Chambers comes out swinging in June:

“It is much easier to do something than to trust in God; we mistake panic for inspiration.  That is why there are so few fellow workers with God and so many workers for him.  We would far rather work for God than believe in Him.”

My friend Steve Kinney talks often of “partnering with God.”  When I first heard that said it seemed almost pretentious.  Who am I to “partner with God?”  That seems like me and Roger Federer being a doubles team, but I see talk of partnering throughout the Bible.  By way of example, the apostles talk often of being “fellow workers” with God (e.g2 Corinthians 6:1), and  in Luke 1:37, the angel tells Mary not that nothing is impossible for God but that nothing is impossible with God.  And I guess the most obvious reference here is in Matthew 19:26, the passage after the “camel through the eye of the needle” passage, where Jesus says: “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”   Again, not “for” but “with.”

Of course, and here’s the rub, as Chambers notes, to work with someone is different that working for them.  In the former I have to consider their thoughts and feelings and make an actual connection to learn them, then we have to work together, in the latter, I just gotta do what they tell me to do.