For God or With God, Part Two

It’s almost funny, this idea of working for God, or "doing something for God," as some people put it. Without Him, nothing gets done. If He doesn’t move, everything stays put. If He doesn’t speak, nothing changes. What can we give to Him? What can we do for Him?

Doubtless you’ve heard all this before, but so have I, and if I, who have lived this a hundred times before, could get off track, so can you. It won’t hurt you to hear it again.

In the beginning, God made man like Himself. He didn’t just give him a job to do and walk away—why would He have bothered creating the earth at all, if that was all He planned for it? No, we see that he cared about man, for one thing, and one of His first post-creation changes was to make a counterpart for man, to be a suitable helper and companion. Then soon after, we read that God came to Adam in the garden. He came looking for him, and there is no reason to believe He wanted to check up to see that all the work was being done properly. He was after something far more important.

While it’s absolutely true that God wants humanity to have dominion over all the rest of creation, that can only properly take place from the springboard of a life of intimacy with Him. Otherwise, we’ll be taking dominion for the wrong reasons, and anything done for the wrong reasons gets messed up and messes everything and everyone else up. Even obedience, while essential, isn’t enough. In order to get it right, we have to know His heart, and you can’t know God’s heart from studying a textbook. You get to know His heart the same way you get to know anyone’s heart. Time and communication together.

God did not make us for isolation. He intends for us to have a part in Him. We’ve got to let Him love on us and give to us and do for us and … ouch … serve us. If we won’t allow that, we won’t have that connection we need. We desperately need to hear what He has to say, or we’ll be lost. All of this requires that we be flexible. Yes, He’ll meet every need and He’ll give us the desires of our heart, but He may not meet tomorrow’s need until tomorrow, and He may not give us our heart’s desires until next year or the year after.

I am becoming increasingly convinced that this is at the heart of "submission." It isn’t simply saying "okay" to whatever God says, or being a little robot, it’s allowing Him to give and to love and to serve us in His time and in His way. In the end we have everything we’ve ever wanted, but along the way a part of us dies, as we learn to wait.

There is sacrifice, but there is also glory, being with God.

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