Cooperating with God
Cooperating with God
Do we decide what is possible for God?
Of this I am sure: we decide, to some degree, what is possible for God to do through us.
“In His sovereignty, God has decided, to a great extent, to limit His involvement in this world to the willingness of human beings. ”
Dorothy Sayers wrote about the three humiliations of God: the incarnation (God becoming a man through Jesus Christ), the crucifixion, and the church.1 It is amazing that God has so reduced Himself in order to win the willful participation of people in their relationships with Him and the fulfilling of His purposes and their destinies. He absolutely insists that we deliberately cooperate with Him in order to complete the human story. What a responsibility!
We are privileged to join with God in actualizing His plans for our futures and the future: “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation . . . . And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors” (2 Cor. 5:18-20).
How do we cooperate with God?
Prayer is one of the most important ways. We communicate with God through prayer, revealing our willingness to participate with Him. Prayer is essential to that delicate dance of He does/we do because it is our invitation to God to show up and empower us to do His work.
Prayer also guides us as we choose possibilities. James wrote that “[we] have not, because [we] ask not” (James 4:2 KJV). The Bible tells us that many things that are potentially ours will not be realized unless we ask God for them.
I’m struck by how often God says something like “Seek Me and find Me” (Jer. 29:13 NKJV).
If God wants so badly to be found, why should we have to ask?
The answer takes us back to His first choice concerning human beings.
Think about it this way: He willed that we would will for His will to be done in our lives. We need to understand that God is often saying, “I have wonderful things for you, but you have to ask to receive, seek to find, and knock in order for doors to open” (Matt. 7:7). John Wesley firmly stated, “God will do nothing on earth except in answer to believing prayer.”2
“How many possibilities are not realized in my life because I don’t ask and then follow through on the asking by cooperating with God in seeing these things fully realized!”
It is said that when the early leaders of New York City prepared a version of a master plan in order to anticipate the city’s future growth, they envisioned the city expanding only to Nineteenth Street. They then named Nineteenth Street Boundary, or Bound, Street. It is called Boundary Avenue today. The city, though, has flourished all the way—at last count—to 284th Street.
We must not be limited by Nineteenth-Street thinking. We must not limit God with our limited thinking. He is “able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us” (Eph. 3:20). So, dream big! Pray big! Decide big! Plan big! And act big!
Countless possibilities await you!
Have you been limiting God by the way you think about your future? What would it look like if you pushed your mental boundaries past your personal “Nineteenth Street”? Drop a comment and let’s talk about it.
Dorothy Sayers, as quoted in Philip Yancey and Paul Bran, In His Image (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984), 137.
John Wesley, as quoted in C. Peter Watner, Prayer Shield (Ventura, CA: Regal, 1992), 29.
Adapted from Live Ten (by Terry A. Smith. All rights reserved.
Photo by Vinta Supply Co. | NYC from Pexels
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