I was listening to a sermon online last week, and the pastor mentioned the Read Scripture app that his congregation was using together in order to get alone with God and be changed through prayer and reading the Bible. I was interested and downloaded the app to my phone, and guys! What a great resource this is!
My favourite part is the videos that have been created to introduce or explain themes from different books of the Bible and for overarching themes through Scripture as well. Tonight I watched this video about Covenants:
I’ve only watched a handful of the videos that are available, but each has been very excellent, and I’m excited to explore and discover more over the coming weeks. What struck me most from this video was right at the start when the narrator describes God’s plan for humanity to be his partners in creating the world that he wants. It struck me because my relationship spectrum for God ranges mostly between “servant” and “beloved child,” and it’s a timely reminder for me that “partner” belongs in there too. This is humbling because back in the day when teachers let us choose whether we wanted to work in partners or alone, I’d most often prefer to do my own thing, to take the full responsibility for the project rather than risk taking an unreliable partner and having to do all the work myself anyway. Even now as an adult, when I reach my limits I tend to cut back on commitments and hunker down to basics rather than ask for help and trying to keep my options open. Working on that. So it blew my mind a little bit to think of God choosing humans to be his partners (especially knowing how the story turns out, amiright?), but then I thought about my evening (this very night!) spent baking muffins with my son.
Guys, I know that lots of kids are cute, and I know that I’ll seem biased because of the indelible mother bond I have to this particular kid, but as I watched Torre’s face turn focused and serious to line the muffin cups with paper, and as I watched him delight in every step of the recipe, from stirring our softening butter to adding and mixing ingredients (1 1/2 cups of flour meant six chances to scoop, level and dump 1/4 cup of flour), to eating the chocolate chips that missed the bowl and fell onto the counter (bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh), I wished that I could capture each moment and download it into my brain to store permanently like a movie because my heart was so full of love, and this simple routine of baking muffins was drenched in so much joy that I kind of want to cry about it.
So later tonight I watched this video about God making covenants with his people (watch it if you just scrolled past it, you’ll learn something), and I realized that of course God wants us to be his partners in restoring creation. Could he do it himself? Obviously, and in less time, just like I can whip up a batch of exquisite muffins and do the dishes to boot. But God loves us, and he delights to include us in his work. He breaks into a smile when our eyes light up at the chance to help, and he measures grace out in portions that give us the practice we need, daily. When the world sucks and we wish God would just zap all the mess, it’s a reminder that God has invited us to be change makers, world healers. We have been invited to be partners with God, and we have a Saviour who is committed to making us more and more like him each day.